Fundraising events serve nonprofits as an essential opportunity to gather friends, colleagues and community leaders around your cause, and as fundraising professionals, we know you are always looking for ways to raise more money at your events. However, in the midst of the party planning, table seating charts and decor, it’s easy to forget that events are the ultimate (and original) peer-to-peer fundraiser.   

Need proof? What is the first thing that a person looks toward when he/she receives an invitation? They look at who invited them or who is going. When you have a guest seated at the table of one of your board members -- that is peer-to-peer fundraising.    

1) Event Committee Development
Your event committee and/or board are the heart of a peer-to-peer campaign and your event. As such, it’s critical to spend time on the front end crafting the committee to help you reach new groups of donors.  

Make a list:
-Groups/Organizations that you want to cultivate;
-Geographic locations that you need to reach; 
-Program recipients/beneficiaries of your program that should be included; and/or
-Social mavens of your community that attract people to causes/events. 

Deliberately cultivate and involve people who help you reach those targets.

2) Equip your guests/core group with information to support their “ask”.
Provide your committee/board with an example email to send to their friends. The email needs to begin with why they support your cause. It should be succinct and feel personal. Additionally, provide instructions to guests on how to support and engage friends on social media.This includes example social media posts, specific actions they can take to reach more people and direct links to support your cause on social media. 

3) Reward your core supporters for their effort. 
-Engage in pre-event goal setting: Announce committee/board members who raise a certain amount in the weeks leading up to an event and publicly acknowledge them on social media or in your internal communication.
-Create a visible acknowledgement for your committee member to wear at the event -- (I was involved in an event 5 years ago and we decided that the event committee members should wear all black and then we had a jewelry company decorate us with fantastic accessories -- a great way to market a sponsor and a fun way to make the event committee stand out. 5 years later that committee still wears black!)

4) Have Fun! (And yes, this is as important as the first three.) 
Your committee/board will feel your energy for this event. Bring positivity, energy and a smile to meetings and the tone of communication. There will be days when you are overwhelmed, frustrated by board members or other staff, and perhaps you even dislike the event theme. Regardless, do not forget that those event committee members are donors and your major connection to additional donors. 

Bring fun to your committee meetings:
-Create a spoof invitation with their pictures transposed on funny images (wonder women, football team - whatever applies).
-Find a fun way to introduce committee members to each other (google fun icebreaker activities).
-Wine and/or desserts always help.
-Narrow the scope of your committee work to creative, room-filling, donor cultivation focused work.

Be honest about your event. Is it fun - enjoyable - a good use of time for your guests? If not, re-evaluate the theme and engage your committee a year in advance to re-vamp. Change is good for existing events. Treat your events like peer-to-peer campaigns and enjoy loading new names into your donor database and more revenue into your bank account!  

Need a tool to help you manage your peer-to-peer event? Check out how Swell does just that!