How to Choose Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software: Follow the Fundraiser’s Journey

The first drop-off happens here, before anyone has raised a dollar. What to watch for: how many steps between “I want to fundraise for you” and having a live page. Whether your team has to build each fundraiser manually. Whether there is a cap on how many fundraisers you can run.

What to ask: show me the page-creation process from the supporter’s side, not the finished campaign page. Then ask how many fundraisers a charity can have running at once, because some platforms price by that number.

Where we sit: supporters create fundraising pages dedicated to your cause themselves, and we do not cap the number, so you can run unlimited fundraisers without your team building each one.

A page that looks like a form performs differently from a page that looks like a person asking. What to watch for: whether the supporter can add their own words and their own reason for fundraising, and whether the donation form itself can be tailored rather than being a generic checkout bolted on the end.

What to ask: what can a fundraiser change, and what is locked? Some charities want tight brand control, some want the page to feel personal. Know which you are choosing.

Where we sit: we provide the best of both — you keep your branding but also give supporters the ability to personalise their donation page with why they are doing it, add images, create teams and more, with links to all the major social media sites and email making it easy to share.

Some supporters will run their own fundraiser. Many would rather do it with a workplace team, a running group, a family or a school class. What to watch for: whether teams are a real feature or a workaround — a genuine team has its own page and a shared goal, not just a tag on individual pages.

What to ask: can supporters choose between an individual and a team fundraiser at sign-up, without you running a second campaign to accommodate them?

Where we sit: supporters can team up towards a shared fundraising goal, and each team gets its own personalised fundraising page to share with their peers, friends and family.

This is the moment that matters most, and the easiest to skip past in a demo. The person donating usually does not know your charity — they know your fundraiser. Everything they see in the next sixty seconds forms their entire impression of you.

What to watch for: where the money actually goes, how quickly the donor gets a receipt, and whether anyone on your team has to issue that receipt by hand. Manual receipting is manageable for twenty donations and a serious job at four hundred.

What to ask: walk me through the whole journey in one sitting, as the donor — donation, payment, receipt, supporter record. Then ask what a donor sees if their card is declined.

Where we sit: donations are taken directly into your account and automated receipts go out instantly with no manual intervention. Our payment processing includes fraud protection and PCI compliance.

Fundraisers often get their early donations from the people closest to them, and what happens after that depends partly on whether the platform gives them a reason to keep going. What to watch for: visible progress the fundraiser and their network can both see, and encouragement that comes from other people rather than from your charity. A message of support from a friend, attached to their donation, reaches a fundraiser differently from a reminder email you send.

What to ask: what does a fundraiser see when a donation comes in, and what does their network see?

Where we sit: we include leaderboards and fundraising thermometers to create healthy competition, shared goals for teams, and we let friends and family leave comments and messages of support alongside their donations.

A peer-to-peer campaign involves a lot of communication: welcoming new fundraisers, sharing tips that actually help them raise more, reminding people of key dates, and thanking everyone afterwards. What to watch for: whether communications run from the same system that holds the fundraiser and donor list, or whether your team is exporting and re-uploading every time the list grows. In peer-to-peer that list keeps growing while the campaign runs, which makes the export approach harder to sustain than in a fixed campaign.

What to ask: are email and SMS built into the platform or a separate integration, and can a new fundraiser be welcomed automatically rather than by someone remembering?

Where we sit: email and SMS are managed inside the platform, with automated journeys as well as one-off campaigns.

Plenty of charities set up peer-to-peer for one event, then find supporters asking to fundraise for a birthday, a memorial or a personal challenge months later. What to watch for: whether the platform only supports fixed-date campaigns, or whether it can also sit on your site as a standing option for anyone who wants to fundraise.

What to ask: can we run a dated challenge and an always-open fundraising option at the same time, without building a second campaign?

Where we sit: the same tool works for an individual fundraising event or as an ongoing crowdfunding option integrated into your existing website. If you want to see the supporter-facing side of that, our guide to creating your own charity fundraiser is written for the supporter rather than the charity.

Here is what makes peer-to-peer different from most campaigns you run: many of the people who donated were introduced to you by somebody else and may never have given to you before. That is the strategic value of peer-to-peer, and it is what gets thrown away when the campaign lives in its own system.

What to watch for: whether a donor who gave through a fundraiser’s page becomes a supporter record you can work with, or a row in a spreadsheet you export once and never open again.

What to ask: where does donor information go when the campaign closes? Can we segment those new donors for follow-up? And what happens when somebody who donated is already in our database under a different email address?

Where we sit: we create an individual supporter profile for every supporter, so each person’s history sits in your charity CRM alongside everything else, and you can segment donor data for future outreach.

The total raised is the number everyone asks for. It is not the number that helps you run a better campaign next time. What to watch for: reporting that shows you which fundraisers performed and which never got past their first few donations, so you know who to thank properly and who needed help earlier.

What to ask: show me a real report from a finished campaign with names removed, and tell me which breakdowns I can get — by fundraiser, by team, by new versus existing donor.

Where we sit: our reporting tracks all donations and supporter activity so you can analyse how each campaign is performing, identify your high-performing supporters, and identify gaps for improvement.

It lets your supporters create their own fundraising pages and collect donations for your charity through their own networks. Your charity sets up the campaign, the supporter personalises a page and shares it, and the donations come to you. Nearly every platform does that much. Where they differ is either side of the page: how easily somebody gets started, what a first-time donor experiences, whether receipts are automatic, and where the new donors end up once the campaign closes.

Follow one fundraiser end to end rather than reviewing a feature list, and watch the demo as the supporter rather than as the administrator. The admin view is where vendors are strongest. Check how many steps it takes to get a page live, whether teams are properly supported, what a first-time donor sees, whether receipts are automatic, whether you can email fundraisers without exporting a list, and where donor data goes at the end.

Yes, in our platform. Supporters can team up towards a shared fundraising goal, and each team gets its own personalised page to share with their peers, friends and family. With other platforms, check whether teams are a real feature or a workaround, because a genuine team fundraiser has its own page and shared goal rather than a tag on individual pages. Ask whether a supporter can choose individual or team at sign-up without you running a second campaign.

In our platform, straight into your account, with automated receipts sent instantly and no manual intervention. Payment processing includes fraud protection and PCI compliance. With any platform, ask where the money lands, when it lands, and who issues the receipt, because some hold funds and pass them on later. Also ask what a donor sees if their card is declined, since that person is forming their first impression of your charity in that moment.

Yes with our tool, which works for a single fundraising event or as an ongoing crowdfunding option integrated into your existing website. Some platforms support only fixed-date campaigns, so check this if you expect supporters to want to fundraise for a birthday, a memorial or a personal challenge outside a scheduled campaign. Ask whether a dated campaign and an always-open option can run at the same time without rebuilding pages.

In our platform, every supporter gets an individual profile and donor data can be segmented for future outreach. This is the question that matters most, because many people who donate through a fundraiser’s page were introduced to you by somebody else and may never have given to you before. Ask where donor information goes when the campaign closes, and what happens when a donor already exists in your database under a different email address.

Give them visible progress, and encouragement that comes from other people rather than only from your charity. We include leaderboards, fundraising thermometers, shared team goals, and comments and messages of support alongside donations. Fundraisers often get their early donations from the people closest to them, so what a platform offers after that first wave matters. A message from a friend attached to a donation reaches a fundraiser differently from a reminder email you send.

It depends on where your charity and your fundraisers are, because fundraising is regulated at state and territory level rather than nationally. Peer-to-peer involves people collecting money in your name who are not staff in the usual sense, so check what your jurisdiction expects around authorising somebody to fundraise on your behalf, and have a written process in place before you launch. The ACNC fundraising pages link through to each regulator.