by Leslie Beck •
10.30.2018
Associate Director of Digital Solutions
she/her/hers
Do-it-yourself peer-to-peer (DIY P2P) fundraising is an important method for nonprofits who want to engage their supporters in ways that work best with their schedules and interests. Organizations can empower their constituents to raise money from their communities as part of athletic events, to celebrate milestones like birthdays and anniversaries, or in memory or honor of someone. While the concept of DIY P2P fundraising is consistent across various tools, how each platform works and what users are able to do differs quite a bit. In this blog post we’ll be covering a few best practices for nonprofits that use Engaging Networks for their DIY P2P fundraising.
Set the Tone
Engaging Networks provides default text for your supporters to use on their personal pages after they register. We recommend creating different versions of this default text that correspond to each specific type of fundraiser. For example, you’ll want language and imagery that is more subdued for honor and memory pages versus an option that’s more upbeat and festive for birthdays and other celebrations. We also recommend tailoring the suggested email messages within the Fundraising Tools for each type of fundraiser as well.
Level Up (or Down)
With Engaging Networks you have the ability to set different donation levels for different types of fundraisers. For athletic events where individuals might be reaching out to corporate supporters, your default levels could start with higher suggested gift amounts. For more personal event pages, where participants are more likely to reach out to friends and family, it is wise to set the gift strings at lower amounts.
Follow the Dollars
Organizations often have multiple programs, and it’s likely that different donors will have different motivations for giving. With Engaging Networks, you can provide donors the option to select which of your nonprofit’s programs their donation will be designated to. In general, people really want to know where their money is going and what it will be used for. If it fits with the way your organization is set up, providing people the opportunity to make a choice about where their gift is directed could be an effective way to better connect with them.
Brand Everything
Engaging Networks gives you the ability to customize your thank you emails, and it’s a step you should not overlook. You want donors to get messages that thank them for their contribution and that also build a connection to your nonprofit as a whole. We suggest customizing the template of your DIY P2P thank you emails to match the other emails your organization sends through Engaging Networks, such as newsletters and campaign updates.
Care for Your Code
As you’re setting up your fundraising campaign in Engaging Networks, you’re going to have to make edits until launch date. In Engaging Networks, some of these edits may happen in HTML code. Whether you’ve got an expert on your team, or you’re working with an outside developer, we recommend copying the working version of the code into a plain text document and saving it to your local machine. This way, if you make edits and something goes wrong you can always paste the original code back in and start over.
Test Once, Test Again
Finally, it’s likely that throughout the process of setting up your DIY P2P program, you and your team will test the functionality of the donation pages with test transactions. One step not to forget is to clear those test transactions out of the system before the event goes live. You only want real donations in your system to ensure that your data is accurate. Once you go live we suggest doing one final real-time transaction, to ensure that everything is working properly. After the transaction has gone through and the data appears on the back-end you can feel confident promoting your DIY P2P program to supporters who are ready to set up their personal pages.
Whether you’re a current Engaging Networks user who wants to get more from the tool, or you’re researching new fundraising platform options for your nonprofit, we hope these ideas will inspire you. If you like what you read and want more information, fill out this form to get started with Firefly Partners today.
Firefly Partners is an Accredited Engaging Networks Partner.
