Prepare Your Stack for Peer-to-Peer Fundraising in 2025

Peer-to-peer fundraising nets U.S. nonprofits $1.1 billion per year and many are interested in getting a slice of that pie. But how can you make sure your technology and tools are up to the task? Get the skinny.

What is Modern Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

In the old world, peer-to-peer fundraising looked like your friends, colleagues, and neighbors (hi again, Janice) coming at you with an ask to donate to their fun run, and a paper receipt book. These days, Janice is more likely to have a branded, secure donation page of her own hosted by the nonprofit she is fundraising for, and it is likely to have a donor engagement strategy—not only for Janice but also for you.

Finding the Right Software

If your organization is investing in peer-to-peer, you’ll need to make sure your stack and workflows can support the capabilities required by new tools, as well as making the most of the new donor structure.

Your tools should:

• Support a wide range of peer-to-peer campaigns and events, allowing you to easily set up a main campaign page that lets participants sign up and access their own individual fundraising pages and tools
• Allow participants to personalize their individual fundraising pages with their own goals and messages about why they are fundraising for your nonprofit
• Provide participants with tools to help them easily reach out to their networks of friends and family through social media, email, and more
• Leverages gamification to keep fundraisers engaged. For example: digital badges for fundraising milestones, leader boards that recognize top performers and encourages competition, and fundraising thermometers for individual and teams that let them show off their progress

In addition to having the right peer-to-peer fundraising software in place, make sure you’re thinking about your customer relationship management (CRM) software. For example, are you using a donor management tool like Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge? Or are you using, or planning to use, Microsoft or Salesforce products as your core CRM? It’s critical that your CRM can handle the two-tier relationship that peer-to-peer fundraising leverages, making it possible to nurture your peer-to-peer fundraisers, as well as engage and convert the end donor.

Get Your Nonprofit Ready

Our team at Heller Consulting is ready to help you select and implement the right peer-to-peer software to support your fundraising strategies and your overall technology strategy. Contact us to discuss your fundraising and technology goals and get started.