Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software

Just as word of mouth can be the best form of advertising, sometimes the best method of fundraising is to enlist supporters to solicit donations for you—especially for small and midsize nonprofits with limited budgets.

This is the theory behind peer-to-peer fundraising, also known as "P2P fundraising" or "social fundraising." It's a form of crowdfunding that enables your donors to raise money on your behalf.

Facebook's charitable giving tools are an example of this process at work. Individuals can create fundraisers on behalf of a charity with the option to either send supporters directly to the charity to donate or collect the money themselves to donate in a lump sum after the fundraiser is over.

Facebook isn't the only tool available for this type of fundraising, though. Peer-to-peer fundraising software, either on its own or as one component of a fundraising or online fundraising software suite, can make it easier for your nonprofit to leverage supporters to bring in more donations.

In this Buyer's Guide, we'll discuss the key features of peer-to-peer fundraising software and how it can help you leverage the vast resource of your existing donors and supporters. We will also review some key questions you should ask of yourself and potential vendors before purchasing any software.

Here's what we'll cover:

What Is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software?
Common Features of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software
Key Considerations When Purchasing Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software

What Is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software?

Peer-to-peer fundraising software provides the necessary tools that enable your existing supporters to run individual and team-based campaigns to raise funds on your behalf. It let's them create personalized webpages to accept donations. You can spur them on with encouragement and support, track their progress and keep them (as well as their donors) updated about how you're using their donations to carry out your mission.

By using software to facilitate your peer-to-peer fundraising efforts, you stand to gain donations from people who would not otherwise be exposed to your message, without having to spend extra money on new marketing campaigns.

Nonprofit organizations are dedicated to doing good in the world, so it's no surprise that they often gain a following of good-hearted and fervent supporters. Whether they're donors, volunteers or just fans of your work, these supporters are a vital resource.

Not only are they likely to donate to your cause and volunteer at your events, but you can—and should!—also use them as fundraisers. Peer-to-peer fundraising software will help you to accomplish this.

Common Features of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software

Peer-to-peer fundraising software offers a variety of features. Here are a few of the most common software functions to look for when evaluating vendors:

Key Considerations When Purchasing Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software

Other factors to take into consideration when picking the best peer-to-peer fundraising software for your organization include:

• Integration with other systems. Before purchasing peer-to-peer fundraising software, make sure the system you choose integrates with other software you're already using. It would be a major pain, for example, if you started to receive a large number of donations through peer-to-peer fundraising, but the data from those donations didn't integrate with your accounting software. Double-check ahead of time with your vendor to avoid any integration issues such as this.
  
• Organization and donor base size. When deciding what kind of software to purchase, consider both the size of your organization and the size of your donor base. If you are a relatively large nonprofit with a high number of supporters, you may want a more robust set of tools to enable those supporters as much as possible. If you're smaller and tend to rely on government subsidies more than a large donor base, then you may only need a simple peer-to-peer fundraising system with the most basic features, such as campaign page creation and the ability to process donations.
  
• Stand-alone software versus a fundraising software suite. Though you can purchase some peer-to-peer fundraising software as a separate system, many software vendors offer this functionality as one part of a larger fundraising software suite. If you purchase such a suite, you may be able to get peer-to-peer fundraising tools added at a lower cost, with the additional benefit of ensuring that both your own core fundraising campaigns and your supporters' campaigns are using the same platform.
  
• Cloud-based versus on-premise software. Enterprise-level businesses using software from major vendors will sometimes use software that is deployed on-premise. This means that the business itself hosts the hardware that the software runs on, requiring resources in terms of both space and IT resources. This is a holdover from how software was traditionally delivered before the advent of cloud-based computing. These days, you're far more likely to purchase cloud-based software, which is hosted by your vendor and accessed over the internet. This deployment method can save you money in setup costs and IT resources, and doesn't require you have the physical space for the hardware. However, there's always a chance that some vendors only offer on-premise software, so check with them just to be sure.