Episode 269: Peer to Peer Fundraising: Expectations and Getting It Right
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
Thank you for taking a little bit of your day to join me, Randall, on this edition of Around with Randall. We hear the term quite often peer to peer fundraising. Today's episode. We want to take apart what this actually means and really get into the tactical steps of how it can be executed at a high level. I think in the other part of the at least the goals that I have with this particular episode of the podcast is to put expectations into it as well.
All too often, I sometimes think we hear that this is a panacea of dealing with small organizations. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. We're going to get into how to do it, but I also know it's not the silver lining for organizations because of things we're going to talk about. Regarding the depth of relationships, transformational versus transactional things of that nature, which really gets us at the end into conversations about what fundraising do you want to do versus what you need to do.
And that becomes more of a philosophical, budget related question. We'll tackle that at the very end. Let's start at the top, as we always do, kind of work our way down. And they will have seven tactical recommendations of how to really build out a more robust, successful, trackable peer-to-peer fundraising effort. What is a peer-to-peer fundraising?
Well, this is where we have other individuals, normally volunteers from that perspective who are building out relationships and or solicitations, more likely situations and relationships with others in the community support the nonprofit and for which they believe in. And what we're really getting to is, is that this is a, as mentioned, kind of at the top, a way in which you broaden your horizons in terms of a pipeline.
One thing that comes right off the top is, is that peer to peer fundraising is going to be primarily done either through one of two mechanisms. Number one, some type of board or committee structure, where you have board members who are part of their responsibilities going to do that. Or number two, in rare circumstances, more likely education and more likely education at a very localized level.
You have alumni who are doing this. So it could be independent. Schools are calling their classmates because they went to high school with them for, let's say, four years. They know them. It could be people that they are in a college or university. They're calling for the business school to other business school graduates because there's some type of connection.
You have this professor, even though we didn't go to school at the same time, you're trying to create pipeline and connection to people that the organization necessarily doesn't have to engage them to see if they have some interest in soliciting or to receiving a solicitation for donation. The second thing that it comes in terms of definition in this peer to peer is, is it can include digital, which means there's digital outreach, meaning that it's not just a phone call or a conversation, but it could be that a board member provides 50 names and says, you craft a message that I'll approve, and we can send it through my communication email to out other to other
people that I know. So it's not just the face to face or close to it. It's also sometimes it's digitalized and it can be kind of done in different formats. It can be done around some type of having technology of individual fundraising pages. There are companies that do this outsourced. Usually it could be around milestones or different aspects of a time frames of the organization where things are really important or highlighted.
Maybe you're a health related and it's the month of remembering or celebrating a particular disease. There's a real push for that could also be campaign driven. And I don't mean capital campaign. It can be annual campaigns. All of this is to say, is it's not just one or the other. All of the circumstances, whether it's personal, digital or any of the things we mentioned, event based, milestone based, challenge or campaign driven or even ambassador kind of led kind of conversations around, you know, how do we just do what a better outreach or all considered part of the peer to peer fundraising elements?
I would also add that there is a component when done well, which we'll get into at the end around how this partnership should exist with staff. Not only is should there be an outreach, but what's our plan to maximize the different opportunities that are presented to us long term longitudinally, not just hey, would you get 50 bucks? We'll take this 50 bucks, but there's more value in doing the more long-term relationship building.
And sometimes that requires staff to really do it in an effective way. Why does this matter? Well, it matters because our organizations are struggling with the idea of annual giving that I have many clients anecdotally, and there's some now national statistics that are showing that the donor bases are diminishing once they drying up, but they're diminishing at one stat, which obviously, my dear friend and somebody I have an immense amount of respect for, Nathan Chapelle and his colleague Scott Rosenkranz, who I deal with quite often.
They're telling us that there's a diminishment, a decrease in the number of households making charitable gifts. So the outreach we're looking for is to expand or to reengage with a more robust pipeline. It's also to create low barriers for first time donors, potentially maybe new people that would be involved or want to be interested in what we do.
All this is to say is, is that why it matters is it increases the volume, the connection that that an organization may have. And this is where we get into this beginning of the conversation about staffing versus volunteer driven philanthropy. The smaller your organization, the more likely you are to do this. Now, that is not to say this doesn't happen in big organizations.
I do capital campaign work with a number of different organizations, and we have volunteer structures that engage in peer to peer engagement. Now, we don't tend to want them to ask. It's hard to do peer to peer effectively for 100, 200, 50, $500,000 gifts. You need some professionalization with this, but it can happen in various levels. What it is, why it's important, is that it connects you to the community in a more robust way.
I also think this is the time to mention one of the great myths that when we do peer to peer fundraising, that diminishes or reduces the true time that we need for staff to do this. I would argue, and we'll get into the tactical, the seven ways in which peer to peer fundraising can be done more effectively.
I would advocate this actually increases the amount of time staff spend that the amount of effort to coordinate, to engage, to make the introductions, to provide the material, provide the support is actually quite significant when it's done well. So we begin to kind of move down into the more tactical what why is it why is this so important in terms of kind of the what we hear as a priority for many organizations?
Many of our nonprofits are small. I mean, I'm used to dealing with health care, education, universities, and they have staffing. Most of the nonprofits in the United States are actually incredibly small, which makes peer to peer philanthropy really, really important because they don't have a staff to go do this, which is a budget issue. It gets into the idea of how do we utilize technology, which may mean some kind of vendor or outsourcing of the technology that we need, or building out the web pages to do so.
And there's lots of good companies that do that. There's also some common assumptions about peer to peer. One of which I love is, is if we build it, they will fundraise. Meaning somebody had an idea, let's do this. But then they're going to turn either right or left and say, but they're going to go raise the money. And that usually doesn't work.
It also as an assumption, we tend to overestimate the volunteers comfort in doing this. Many times volunteers will say, well, I'll do it. But then all of a sudden they don't really want to. I tend to fall into this category not because I'm afraid to ask. I do that quite often, and I have in my career, but I tend to steer away from boards right now because we can and I'm tired.
I deal with sleep all day long. When I go home, or when I do something that's more about my personal belief system, things I believe in that I'm engaged with either just want to give or I want to be an advisor. I don't want to keep doing it. That's one. But there are other people out there that just aren't comfortable.
I'll tell you they are, but they don't want to do it. Where breakdowns typically occur when we do this is that there's very little training. And we're going to talk specifically about that, that there's not a clear understanding or messaging of what the what the impact is and or what the program is or what we're trying to accomplish is, and that we look at it as a completely transactional process, meaning there's no stewardship.
The long term gains aren't there. Which brings us to some bigger positives and negatives that the negatives of all of this is, is that it frequently underperforms. There's an overestimation about the value that it can deliver when it's not done well, and it really can create fatigue and frustration amongst volunteers that the ability for them to feel good about the organization and their engagement will diminish if they're asked to it over and over and over and over.
It also reduces the ability to what I've talked about in a number of podcasts, particularly in the last two years, but I've talked about in my career, as in totality, is peer to peer fundraising is really hard to get into plain giving conversations. I would say it's almost impossible. Point giving conversations are about values and about trust and relationship, and aligning the mission of the organization to the people that are most likely to support your most consistent, most loyal donors.
That's hard to do in peer to peer when it's so transactional. So it's not a failure of people. It's just a difficult process unless you're willing to invest, if you're willing to invest and do some of the seven things I'm going to talk about here in about 30s, that's going to create a higher level of trust, not only for the donors that are going to be engaged, but for the volunteers.
It's also going to create an engagement process that really talks about potential and long term relationships, and is going to also bring more people into the fold as volunteers, its advocates, as leaders to be widen our, our, our perspective. All this leads to the messaging that we'll get into about why our organization or nonprofit is useful in terms of what we do, what we make a difference for.
It elevates the awareness in the community as to where dollars are spent on what our mission is. This all sets up down into the tactical. What are the seven things that I believe are critical? And we look at the idea of peer to peer fundraising. And this doesn't mean it's easy, but what if you're not doing these things?
You're going to be spinning your wheels, doing a lot of effort and not getting the results. This applies to a board in a very small nonprofit just trying to make annual goals, to make sure there's revenue this many times will apply to capital campaigns with a campaign cabinet or a volunteer group. Who's going to lead the conversations or committees or structure of that of that nature?
All of these things are about how do you engage volunteers to be advocates and solicitors in the community, and you can break that apart in many different ways. These seven are going to be really important for success when it comes to peer to peer. So let's start at the top. You have to start with the right case. We need money is not a very good answer or rationale as to why you're doing this.
I understand you need money. What is it? It's going to be used for? I love one pagers. Can you build out something front, back or just front that you can put in front of your volunteers? Who can take that out into the community and say, this is our impact as an organization if you're a small nonprofit. If it's a capital campaign, a one pager, this is what we're doing and why it's important.
What are the impacts? Much of the time where this where the first level of failure is, is a misalignment of the goal to what actually is being talked about and or it's just a very common request. Hey, we need money. That just doesn't work. This is about creating an emotional tie in for the volunteer who's doing a peer to peer, as well as potential donors so they understand the impact that's going to occur.
And so it's harder to do if all you're doing is just trying to bring in money, even if you need the money. Find the value in the individual things you do and talk about them. That will dramatically increase the rationale for people's willingness to give and then put it on paper. For your volunteers, go out and talk about.
So, the first of the tactical seven is creating the right case. That specific, impactful, emotional and not just general. The second is to recruit intentionally, not broadly. This all gets down to the idea of who has connections in social circles that you currently don't have, and or who has connections in social circles that maybe a current board member or volunteer doesn't have.
So, the first thing is to think about your community. And I talk about this in terms of board development as social gathering places throughout your city, your state, your corner of the world. However, you view your geographic reach, where are the people with money and who do we have that connects to them? Churches, country clubs, up geographic parts of the city or area?
Anti-caa. Collectors. Where are people with resources? Hanging out because they tend to hang out together quite often. Because that's going to connect you into the community where this is going to be the most effective. But that's just the first part of recruiting the right people. The second part is creating very clear expectations in writing when you recruit them.
One of the greatest deficits in peer to peer is when you recruit either a board member or a committee member or something, and it's not incredibly clear what you're asking them to do. Are you asking them to physically go ask, which might be a small nonprofit with a small board who's doing general fundraising, but as we talked about, creates the right case or impact for what the organization does.
Is this a campaign of a larger organization where all we want you to do is make introductions of us into the relationship, staff that are going to maximize the relationship and obviously the giving opportunity. There's an entirely different structure for both. And by the way, your volunteers are going to want to know that because that will help kind of delineate who's going to do what.
What are they willing to do. And there's nothing worse than saying, I thought I was supposed to do X, but you want me to go ask these people for money? I don't want to do that. So having clear expectations, time commitments, the realistic range in which they're going to be talking about how many people they need to maybe engage.
How much money are we talking about? Have that in writing. So, it's very clear. Number two. Number three train your peer-to-peer advocates volunteers as ambassadors, not ATMs. Yes, they should all make a gift. It's really hard. Basic 101 philanthropy for a volunteer. You can't go ask somebody to be engaged if you're not. So yes, I understand that.
But if all you're doing is bringing them in so you can get their money, this isn't going to work because somebody's willingness to give is different than their willingness to ask. I'll use me as an example. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, I spend my entire day doing this and I love it. I'm the luckiest guy in the world.
But when I go home, I don't want to do this anymore. I just want to be a person. So I'm more than willing to advise and most importantly, willing to give. As I've talked about, my wife and I plan our philanthropy around what the company can do, trying to give as much away as 10% of our dollars on an annual basis to the things we believe in.
Not just anybody thinks we're connected to. I'm at the point where I'm writing checks rather than engagement. I'm not going to any more events. I'm not making any more phone calls. If you're not clear with me, you're going to tick me off. Which is why I ask a million questions. When people call and say, hey, would you like to be involved?
What are you actually asking? So you need to do some conversation and thought process around how you engage them, like a donor. You need to equip them with the right language, not scripts, if they choose to be involved. This is not one where they have to memorize something. You want it more natural. What is it we're trying to do?
Creating a sense of comfort in being able to articulate something. Which means we need a training session. This is not like. Here's a piece of paper with all the instructions. Go. No, that might be a cheat sheet. We're going to spend time talking about this. How do they respond to common hesitation? How do they kind of transition it to a conversation around dollars?
You want to in some ways normalize the fact that for many, for most, actually, this is incredibly discomforting. They don't want to do this. How do you make it easy? Acknowledging that this is hard. All this is to say is, is that we treat our volunteers like ambassadors with the right tools, techniques, support, documentation that gets them at a much greater degree of comfort than we might realize we need to have with for them and with them.
I believe we're on number four. Simplify the fundraising ask. We've got to make this simple. If it's complex. Volunteers will run from it. So this goes back to identifying the case. To start with. Very simple. One program, one outcome, one impact. One reason that we're doing this. And then we're going to help them with some ideas of giving amounts or what we're trying to accomplish in terms of dollars, are their goals per fundraiser or a number of asks.
And with clear deadlines, we're not trying to do this every day of the year. The key here is, is that what are we doing in terms of providing the opportunity to make it simple? On the same vein as the realization, it's going to be really hard to go ask for $100,000 doing this. And that's why it's challenging. This is about pipeline broadening or pipeline development.
We also need to support them making it easy with some type of I'll call it many times web pages, digital, email recommendations, follow up. We need to make sure that we're giving them the tools to make it as simple as possible. Number five is to actively manage and support the idea of the campaign or the effort. This is not hey, in the board meeting, we talk about this.
Here's all the documentation. Good luck. And there's no follow up. That's the death knell of this process. This is not a launch and disappear aspect. This is a launch. And we are going to continually engage on regular updates, emails, phone calls, check ins, tutoring in terms of the volunteers. We are recognizing that that that it's going to take time and effort and it's going to not be something that we just isolate our volunteers in doing.
We need to celebrate wins so people feel good about it, which means we need a communication plan. How are we going to do that? How often? When are we going to do it? Are there milestones we're going to recognize? How are we going to do that? And when something stalls, we have to be ready to intervene. Meaning some type of board member, volunteer peer to peer fundraiser isn't actually doing it.
What are we going to do to help them overcome that? This is about managing and drawing out that campaign effort. Whatever. Over time, not just hey, here you go. Good luck. And we never hear about it again. Number six is steward fundraisers as much as donors. I equate this. You can listen to different podcasts that I've done around how we engage our pipeline development in health care.
That's clinicians and education. Could be other alums. Could be a board member, could be a faculty member. We need to treat the people who are out there on the streets talking about us like they are donors. Because they are. They may be more important. We need to thank them. We need to do so in person. We need to do so digitally.
We need to have public recognition if it's appropriate. And we need to make sure that we have specific acknowledgments of effort, not just dollars. Because if all it is is about the outcome, what we end up with is a year where somebody says, well, you know, it didn't work well for me. And they go, well, I'm a failure.
I'm out. No, we're going to celebrate the effort in this process. We're going to close the loop on questions. We're not going to leave them hanging. We're going to show them the results of what the fundraising does. So, they feel good about going out and talking about it. And we're going to reinforce the incredible value that they're delivering by making calls, seeing people talking about the organization and soliciting.
We're also going to give them a path to the future. Do you want them to do this again? Is there a maybe it's a committee and this is a place to go up on the board. Maybe it's into an advisory role. Maybe there's an ambassador program of people that have done this in the past. The key here is to show value of what that volunteer has done.
Number seven is building a path for new donors beyond the campaign. And this is, I think, the most underutilized but maybe the most important. It's not hard to go out and ask a social group of volunteers connected to maybe be involved for $5,000. You want 25,000. That's a long term beyond this particular effort campaign. Whatever it is, moment.
So this is the efforts of like a campaign committee, your peer to peer out in the community. But where it's really powerful is giving donors who come first time ways in which they have a better understanding of the value of their hundred dollar gift, or $200 gift, their $50 gift, which means welcome communication. It means creating a simple understanding of the impact that they're making.
It's bringing them inside to give them two words or chances to feel and see what goes on. The idea is, is that we have to track this carefully to give them greater opportunities to develop the depth that's necessary to get to more major gift kind of opportunities, which means this is all about stewardship. If you're not creating individual, maybe it's by track stewardship opportunities for people that might want to give a second, third and fourth time gifts, then this is just a money grab.
This has to be about development of longer term relationships, as well as what maybe need to be done now. Seven things that I mentioned. So start with the right case. Have the right you know, discussion is just not a broad ask. Hopefully number two is is that you are identifying the right people to be your peer to peer.
Think about social gathering places. Where do you go? How do you bring them in? Number three is treat them like ambassadors, not ATMs. And only they're giving, but giving them the opportunity to be equipped with training session and on conversations about the tools that they need so that they feel good about what they're doing. Number four, simplifying it, keeping it very simple.
So, it's not complex where overwhelms a peer to peer. You want to manage that process so people feel good that they're not just way you go. And good luck. Nope. There's ongoing thought process into how we're going to keep that communication with our peer to peer volunteers open and engaging. Let them ask questions, bring in help and support if necessary.
We're going to steward these volunteers, these peer to peer advocates, as just like donors, because they should be even more important. And finally, we're going to build a path for new donors to get more deeply involved if they choose to do so. I'm not saying don't do peer to peer. I've done it many times. It has many different places.
But what I am advocating is don't do it if you can't support it, because what you end up with is a lot of unhappy people. It doesn't reach the results it wants. Everybody thought they put in a lot of effort. There's disappointment. They look upon the staff as well, or the maybe there's no staff volunteer leaders as why did we do this?
This was a waste of time. It decreases the, the, the trust that they have within the organization and or the leadership. Whoever's providing this effort. If you're going to invest in this, invest in the right way. And in doing so, you may open the right doors, but you have to be willing to do the right things, which means this is time, planning, strategy, effort.
It's just not a guess. That's the most important part of all of this is making sure that you plan and advocate and account for it correctly with organizational resources, whatever those resources are, to make it be successful. Don't forget to listen to or excuse me, listen to. Read the blogs at how. At philanthropy two per week I write just 90 seconds each.
You can ask me and I'm stunned at how many people get it. I guess that means there's some value in it, but it's just things to think about. Things I read, probably 70% are philanthropic, 30% are more personal, just about leadership in life. But give you a chance to think about things that you may not think about on a regular basis.
And if you'd like to reach out to me, it's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. I got a couple this week very, very touched, commentary about, what they liked about the podcast. I have a couple questions. I'm glad to follow up. What you do is important. I say it every time we do the podcast. Listen, talk, enjoy. This 21st century classroom that I have together.
Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wonder what happened. And you are someone. Volunteer board member, staff member, gift officer, executive director. Infrastructure. Wherever you serve, you're someone who makes things happen for your nonprofit, who's serving the community, being for yourself and the organization that you represent somebody in. Something that makes things happen.
For a lot of people in our community, they're wondering what happened. Pretty cool way to spend a career. I hope you sense a value in that, because that's an important part of our career development, is understanding that we make a difference every day when we serve a greater cause. That's in your nonprofit. I'll look forward to seeing you the next time right back here on the next edition of around with Randall.
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