Getting supporters to participate in your peer-to-peer fundraiser is crucial in making sure your campaign is a success. But getting them involved isn’t always as easy as we’d like it to be. With these five engagement strategies, you can turn passive supporters into highly engaged and excited Team Captains and make this year’s peer-to-peer t-shirt fundraiser into your most successful event yet.
What is a Team Captain?
Peer-to-peer fundraising on Bonfire empowers others to launch t-shirt fundraisers on behalf of your nonprofit in a fun, risk-free, and cost-free way. Team Captains are the people you’re empowering to fundraise on your behalf.
1. Tell Your Supporters What You’re Fundraising For
Use the power of storytelling to help your supporters make a personal connection with the cause and become highly engaged with the fundraiser. Write out a message to them that describes the cause you’re raising money for, and how you will use the funds raised to make an impact. Try weaving in some personal stories about the individuals or communities who’ve been impacted to get your supporters emotionally invested. Don’t let yourself be limited to just text! Often, images or videos can be more impactful than anything you write.
Once your message is ready, share it wherever you can! Use everything from emails, blog posts, social media posts, and even word of mouth to tell your supporters what you’re fundraising for and how they can help.
Peer-to-Peer Apparel Fundraising
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2. Make it Easy for Your Supporters to Participate
A complicated signup process can be frustrating for supporters and could cause them to abandon signing up entirely if they get too frustrated. Your goal should be to make it as easy as possible for them to sign up and participate as Team Captains. We suggest providing them with clearly written instructions on what they need to do to get involved. If there’s anything they need to prepare ahead of time, highlight it here, so there are no surprises.
Use our new Classy integration to easily sell custom apparel alongside your Classy campaign and raise additional funds for your organization.
Then, make it as easy as possible for someone to find the link to your custom fundraising landing page where they can sign up as Team Captains. Avoid burying the link a drop-down menu on your site or only linking to it in a social media post. Instead, we recommend linking your fundraiser’s landing page in your website’s main navigation, in all your social bios, and any promotional emails or newsletters you send out.
3. Reach Out to Your Newer Team Captains
Those who are newer Team Captains often have a lot of energy and excitement about getting involved and helping your nonprofit, so make sure you’re reaching out to them to see if they’re confident in how to participate in your new campaign. Help them channel their excitement into a new fundraiser launched on behalf of your organization.
Personally reach out to your new Team Captains to let them know about your upcoming peer-to-peer fundraising campaign and see if they have any questions. Ask if this is their first time participating in a fundraiser like this, and if it is, offer to help them get things set up. Showing this kind of personal interest in your supporters can go a long way in making sure they stick around for years to come.
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4. Give Your Team Captains a Fundraising Toolkit
Give your Team Captains a fundraising toolkit with all of the tools and resources they’ll need to launch a successful p2p t-shirt fundraiser on your behalf. These toolkits are meant to make the entire fundraising process easier by providing them with anything and everything they’ll need throughout the fundraising process.
In our experience, a useful t-shirt fundraising toolkit should contain:
- All of your brand logos, graphics and slogans, and mission statements.
- Photos and videos that they can use to enhance their fundraising pages and in any promotions.
- The official t-shirt design Team Captains should be using on their shirts.
- Social media and email templates that they can copy and paste from to use in their promotional efforts.
- Guides that help them know how to run a successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.
5. Offer Your Team Captains Incentives
Incentives are a great way to get your supporters excited about getting involved in your campaign and raising money for your cause. Some of our favorite fundraising incentives include:
- Public shoutouts: include the names of the Team Captains who have raised the most money in the past week in your weekly newsletter or tag them on social media.
- Merchandise: create one of a kind merchandise for the Team Captains that raised the most money over the past week. It could be something as simple as a mug, tote bag, or t-shirt that includes your organization’s logo and a fun saying that shows that they’re a top supporter.
- Special events: celebrate the teams who raised the most money during the campaign by hosting a celebratory event in their honor. You can use it as an opportunity to highlight their success and to thank them for all their hard work.
You’re now officially ready to start reaching out to your supporters to get them involved and excited about your peer-to-peer t-shirt fundraiser. If you haven’t done so already, go ahead and get your nonprofit verified on Bonfire. Our platform is free to use, you keep 100% of the profits from your fundraisers, and you get access to exclusive tools & features like reduced donation fees and the contact information of everyone who purchased from campaigns benefiting your cause. Get started on Bonfire today!
