There are a slew of benefits that come from event fundraising, including building camaraderie, bringing in new supporters and increasing engagement.
On ColoradoGives.org, event fundraising campaigns receive 60% more donations than solo fundraisers. The transparency of a leaderboard subconsciously engages event members to be more competitive and try to raise more funds. After all, who wants to be last place on a leaderboard?
When your success is publicly displayed and can be compared to others, it helps motivate you to try even harder to compete to raise funds. Plus, with a event organizer available as a resource to motivate you and provide best practices, it can make your fundraising efforts even more successful and help you raise even more money for a worthy cause.
But, event fundraising is important for a multitude of reasons — not just the bottom line. While this is a top priority, there are a slew of other benefits that come from event fundraising, including building camaraderie, bringing in new supporters and increasing engagement.
Building Camaraderie
When event members compete, they feel more committed to their event's goals. For instance, it can feel easier to share your event’s goals rather than your own to encourage your network to give.
Event members can use a message like: “Help my event hit its goal of raising $10,000 by July 4,” which can make the goal feel less arbitrary than saying, “Help me hit my goal of raising $10,000 by July 4.” With the shared message, this collection of fundraisers is working towards a common goal. This can help you feel a part of something bigger.
Great event organizers will build camaraderie by adding events and volunteer work around their fundraising campaign for fundraisers to get to know one another and work together in person. Or, they’ll host an in-person activity to cap the end of the fundraising campaign and celebrate the event members’ efforts.
Expanding Your Network of Supporters
Another benefit to event fundraising is the opportunity to grow your network with new supporters. On ColoradoGives.org, the average peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraiser has 15 donors. If your event has 5 teams with 2 P2P fundraisers within each one, your organization could potentially add 150 new donors to their database of supporters.
Why is P2P fundraising an effective way to bring in new support? It’s simple: Your nonprofit can’t solicit your supporters’ family members and friends to support your cause, but your supporters can certainly talk to their own family members and friends about your nonprofit and encourage them to donate to a page they’ve set up on your behalf.
We liken this to the “Faberge method” of fundraising: The iconic 80s commercial said that if you like it, “Tell your friends, and they’ll tell their friends, and so on …” The same is true of P2P fundraising — you’re more likely to support an organization a friend supports than to support an organization a stranger tells you about.
According to The Guardian’s 2015 article, “The Science Behind Why People Give to Charity,” one of the top reasons donors give is because a friend asks. “One study shows that people give significantly more to their university if the person calling and asking for their donation is their former roommate,” the 2015 article shows.
Increase Engagement Among Donors
After years of giving, we all know our donors can become creatures of habit — they give the same amount in response to the same appeal from the same organization each year. They may peruse your donor newsletter from time to time, but for the most part they’ll want for that annual mailing or email prompting them to give. Otherwise, they fly under the radar.
Make no mistake — there’s a reason donors give year after year. They feel passionate about what you do and the impact your organization has is clear to them. That’s what makes this group the perfect group to turn into ambassadors by inspiring them to fundraise for your cause.
Event fundraising can be an easy opportunity to make donors true supporters of your cause. With platforms like ColoradoGives.org, you can invite fundraisers to join your event's fundraising efforts with a click of a button, and it takes them just two clicks to set up their page to start fundraising. By eliminating the amount of steps it takes to get a fundraising page up and running, you’re increasing the opportunity for event members to be successful.
Plus, event organizers that effectively manage their event focus on the group’s efforts as a whole through updates and event emails. By reminding the event of milestones and recognizing the top fundraisers for the week, events organizers are indirectly continuing to build up the sense of community for supporters.
Elevating Your Existing Campaigns
Event fundraising can help you boost fundraising campaigns you already do without re-inventing the wheel. Are you hosting a Mother’s Day fundraising appeal? You may send out a direct mail appeal encouraging donors to make a donation in honor of their Mom. Then you’ll engage your online donors with an email and a link to donate online. You may even host a “Volunteer with Mom” event at your organization.
Event fundraising can be a great complement to your multi-channel strategy. For a Mother’s Day appeal, you can encourage staff or board members to start a fundraiser in honor of their mom for your event. Plus, this will give you the benefit of having event members share testimonials about why this cause is important to them or how it honors their mother.
With an event fundraiser in addition to your other channels, you can take advantage of the benefits of event fundraising for any fundraising appeal and build camaraderie among your event members, increase engagement among existing supporters and bring in new support.
Next Steps
Convinced yet to start your next event on ColoradoGives.org? Click here to get started setting up your event fundraising campaign today. And, contact our support event here for help along the way!