UnTangled with Tracy Evans – Perfect the Basics to Reach Your Goals

Last week on UnTangled, I had the pleasure of talking with Tracy Evans, long-time friend, peer-to-peer expert, and the Senior Executive Director of Obliteride at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Tracy has spent more than 25 years in peer-to-peer fundraising and has seen every kind of campaign, tool, and event model you can imagine. What struck me most about our conversation was how consistently she returned to one simple point: Double down on the fundamentals.

Tracy laid out four core levers of success in peer-to-peer fundraising—and I’d argue they apply no matter what kind of work your nonprofit is doing:

1. Recruit well – bring people in with clarity and purpose.
2. Retain well – keep them engaged so they don’t just show up once.
3. Fundraise well – equip them with tools and support to succeed.
4. Connect them to the mission well – the heart of it all.

That fourth one is especially easy to overlook. Staff get caught up in logistics, tech, or the demands of their department, and forget that the average supporter doesn’t think of your organization in silos. They’re here for the mission. That’s what inspired them to donate, register, or volunteer in the first place. Keeping that connection front and center is what keeps people coming back.

That Shiny Thing has to WORK

We also dug into the reality so many nonprofits face: complicated, patchworked tech stacks. It’s tempting to add new tools when a slick demo promises to solve all your problems. Before long, you’ve got three apps for fundraising, another for communications, and a separate portal for event details – none of which play nicely together.

Tracy described it as a “house of cards,” and she’s right. These systems eat up precious time, money, and staff energy. They also risk pulling your team’s focus away from what actually matters: supporting participants, building relationships, and forwarding the mission. (Plus, nothing kills momentum faster than needing a password reset for the fourth platform of the day.)

The Basics Still Win

This “back to basics” message is something we see in our work at Firefly all the time. An organization will come to us having purchased the most sophisticated marketing tools out there—HubSpot, Marketing Cloud, you name it. But when we dig in, we often find:

• No thoughtful, engaging welcome series in place.
• No real segmentation beyond “donor” and “non-donor.”
• No one looking at website analytics to understand where visitors are falling off and which pages could be optimized to drive more conversions.

And yet, the next conversation might be about launching an SMS strategy or building a TikTok presence. Don’t get me wrong, those things can have their place. But if you don’t have the basics down, it’s like putting sprinkles on a cake that was never actually baked. Looks fun, but nobody’s coming back for seconds.

First Impressions Count, but Relationships Take Time

If you’re going to invest in refining one thing, Tracy made a strong case for making it the registration or sign-up experience. That’s the front door to your event or campaign, and first impressions matter.

But the work doesn’t end there. Ongoing communication and personalized touchpoints are what transform a one-time participant into a long-term supporter. It’s baffling how often nonprofits work so hard to get someone onto their list and then go radio silent. Every email, call, or event interaction is a chance to deepen the connection. Don’t ghost your supporters.

Strategy First, Tools Second

One of the most important threads from our conversation was this: never lead with the shiny object. Start with your goals. Are you trying to improve participant communications? Grow retention year over year? Drive more conversions on your site? Let the strategy guide the technology choices—not the other way around.

The basics—clear communications, authentic relationships, and tools that actually serve the mission—will always carry you further than chasing the latest flashy platform.

Get Inspired by Obliteride

Tracy and her team are putting these principles into action with Obliteride, Fred Hutch’s signature cycling and 5K fundraising event. Mark your calendars for August 7-8, 2026, sign up at obliteride.org, and support some of Fred Hutch’s groundbreaking, Nobel-Prize-winning work!

Watch our full conversation here:

If you want to get back to the basics and need help making your tech stack work to better fuel your mission, let’s talk!