9 peer-to-peer fundraising tips to reach and rally more nonprofit supporters

Peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the most effective ways to expand your reach, engage new supporters, and grow revenue. When supporters fundraise on your behalf, they introduce your mission to friends, family, and communities your organization might never reach on its own.

This model continues to gain momentum. In fact, America’s top 30 peer-to-peer programs raised $1.17 billion in 2025, up 3.4% year over year, while engaging 2.63 million participants, a 3.6% increase over the previous year.

The growth also reflects a broader shift in how people want to participate. Supporters increasingly want more flexibility, ownership, and authenticity in how they give. Rather than waiting for a single event, they want opportunities to champion causes in ways that fit their lives. Community fundraising builds on that shift, extending peer-to-peer beyond time-bound campaigns into everyday moments of generosity.

In this guide, you’ll learn practical strategies to strengthen traditional peer-to-peer campaigns while expanding into community fundraising. We’ll also show you how to empower supporters to tell your story in their own words, reach new audiences, and grow participation year-round, all while reducing friction with tools like GoFundMe Pro.

Empower your supporters, expand your impact

Traditional peer-to-peer campaigns often revolve around a single moment, like an in-person event. Community fundraising, on the other hand, expands that model by recognizing a simple truth: Support doesn’t only show up on event day.

Alongside traditional campaigns, community fundraising empowers supporters to raise money for your cause in ways that reflect their own lives and motivations, whether they’re celebrating a birthday, honoring a loved one, taking on a personal challenge, hosting a livestream, or responding to an urgent need.

The community fundraising tips below will help nonprofits embrace this shift without abandoning the peer-to-peer campaigns that already work.

1. Grow your reach through personal networks

Traditional peer-to-peer and community-led fundraising initiatives work because trust is at the core. New supporters are far more likely to give when a friend, family member, or colleague asks them directly, especially when paired with a personal story.

NonProfit PRO reports that 77% of donors who contributed through a peer-to-peer campaign were new to the organization compared with 56% of donors who gave through other campaign types.

To expand your reach:

• Encourage supporters to share why your cause matters to them, not just what your nonprofit organization does.
• Promote sharing across multiple channels, including social media, text, email, and group chats.
• Show supporters that participation doesn’t have to look like a run or walk.

Help supporters tell authentic stories

Strong storytelling makes these asks more compelling. One helpful approach is guiding supporters through a simple framework:

• Why I care (personal connection)
• Why now (urgency)
• How to help (clear call to action)

Providing resources like storytelling worksheets can help supporters shape authentic messages without sounding scripted.

Platforms like GoFundMe Pro also help extend your reach through a triple trust model. In addition to your organization’s credibility and supporters’ personal endorsements, our platform adds another layer of trust.

Supporters feel confident giving on GoFundMe because it’s secure, widely recognized, and designed to make giving simple. Together, these three layers of trust make people more likely to give, share, and return, strengthening your fundraising impact in ways no single channel could achieve on its own.

2. Keep traditional peer-to-peer events in your strategy

Community fundraising complements traditional peer-to-peer events. It doesn’t replace them. Time-bound campaigns—like galas, walkathons, and fundraising challenges—remain some of the most effective ways to engage supporters, reach new audiences, and raise significant revenue.

An analysis of three years of aggregated GoFundMe Pro platform data, conducted in partnership with GivingTuesday, reinforces that value. While just 47% of organizations in the dataset received at least one peer-to-peer donation, those organizations accounted for more than 80% of all donations processed on GoFundMe Pro.

The analysis also found that peer-to-peer donors were more likely than other donors to give again shortly after their first gift, making these campaigns a strong foundation for building long-term supporter relationships.

In short: The strongest fundraising strategies combine proven peer-to-peer events with year-round community fundraising opportunities. The initiatives that make the most sense will depend on your mission, audience, goals, and available resources.

Use the ideas below to identify opportunities that fit your organization.

Peer-to-peer fundraising ideas by cause

• Health and medical: Fitness or endurance challenges tied to awareness months, such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month or American Heart Month
• Environment: Pledge-per-mile hikes, bike rides, cleanup campaigns, and Earth Day fundraisers
• Education: Readathons, back-to-school supply drives, and classroom fundraising campaigns
• Human services and food security: Meal-match campaigns, community giving challenges, and Hunger Action Month fundraisers
• Animal welfare: Pet-themed walks, birthday fundraisers in honor of a beloved pet, or adoption anniversary campaigns

Peer-to-peer fundraising ideas throughout the year

• Q1 (January–March): New Year’s fitness or fundraising challenges, Valentine’s Day tribute campaigns, and awareness month activations
• Q2 (April–June): Earth Day campaigns, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day tribute fundraisers, and spring community events
• Q3 (July–September): Summer fitness challenges, outdoor adventures, and back-to-school campaigns
• Q4 (October–December): GivingTuesday campaigns, holiday fundraisers, year-end giving challenges, and seasonal tribute campaigns

Pro tip: Start planning peer-to-peer campaigns 6–8 weeks before launch to give supporters time to register, personalize their fundraising pages, and begin sharing with their networks. GoFundMe Pro makes it easy to create branded peer-to-peer campaigns, equip supporters with ready-to-use fundraising resources, and track performance from a single platform.

3. Adopt a community fundraising mindset

If there’s one tip that unlocks long-term growth, it’s to stop limiting how supporters can show up.

When practicing community fundraising, the nonprofit sets the inspiration and, at times, the framework, whereas the supporter drives the action. Participants might decide to stream a video game marathon, run 100 miles, host a dinner party, or shave their heads. They choose the activity that fits their lifestyle and their network.

Traditional peer-to-peer campaigns still play a crucial role in your strategy, but rounding out your approach with these supporter-led options means you can meet every kind of supporter where they are.

Give supporters ownership of your mission

This shift changes the dynamic of the relationship. Instead of simply asking supporters to participate, you give them agency. You invite them to become cocreators of your impact.

And this approach works, especially with Gen Z and Millennials, who are highly motivated by causes but less interested in rigid, event-based participation. They value flexibility, digital-first fundraising experiences, and opportunities to support causes in ways that reflect their identities and interests.

GoFundMe Pro makes community fundraising easier, whether supporters launch a fundraiser that directly benefits your nonprofit, take on a personal challenge, or rally around a moment that matters to them.

Once you claim your verified Nonprofit Page on GoFundMe, your GoFundMe Pro dashboard automatically captures donations and supporter data across both GoFundMe Pro and GoFundMe, giving you a unified view of engagement and making reporting easier.

4. Reduce friction with built-in coaching and guidance

One reason community fundraising can stall is a lack of confidence from supporters. They want to help you reach your fundraising goals, but they’re not always sure what to do next, when to share, or how to succeed.

That’s why providing coaching and ongoing support is one of the most critical elements of a successful community fundraising strategy.

Traditional approaches often rely on:

• PDFs and static toolkits
• One-time training sessions
• Manual check-ins that don’t scale

Effective community fundraising requires automated, data-driven coaching at scale.

Coach supporters every step of the way

Supporters who create fundraisers for your nonprofit on GoFundMe have support from start to finish through built-in coaching, activity tracking, and smart nudges that spark engagement. Each fundraiser has access to a personal command center with recommended next steps, prewritten social media posts and emails, and suggestions for whom to reach out to next.

This guidance helps supporters move forward with confidence, without feeling micromanaged. It also frees nonprofit teams to focus on strategy while our platform handles the heavy lifting, drawing on insights from a community of over 200 million who have raised over $40 billion.

When it’s easy for supporters to succeed, everyone wins.

5. Celebrate supporters to foster long-term engagement

Celebration isn’t just about motivation. It’s about retention.

When you celebrate supporters by recognizing first-time fundraisers, highlighting milestones, such as first gifts or goals reached, and sharing thank-you messages, you connect their efforts directly to impact. This reinforces that their participation isn’t a one-off initiative. It’s part of a lasting relationship.

6. Make giving easy and mobile-friendly

In 2025, mobile users accounted for 52% of all visits to nonprofit websites, making the mobile donation experience more important than ever.

Once supporters bring friends, family members, peers, or co-workers to their fundraiser on GoFundMe or their GoFundMe Pro campaign page, it’s critical that the process of donating to your organization is seamless from start to finish, no matter which device they use.

Mobile-first experiences support in-the-moment sharing and spontaneous giving, which are foundational to successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns and community fundraising efforts.

That means fast-loading donation pages, streamlined checkout flows, AI-powered donation forms, and clear suggested amounts with impact statements that make it easy to act in the moment.

7. Use data to track, learn, and celebrate success

Strong community fundraising strategies rely on ongoing measurement.

Tracking performance helps nonprofits understand what works, where supporters are most engaged, and where to focus next. Key metrics to monitor include:

• The number of active supporters/individual fundraising pages
• Average dollars raised per supporter
• Amount raised among top supporters
• Share activity
• Conversion rates

GoFundMe Pro’s reporting and analytics tools make it easier to visualize performance, take action, and support recognition and stewardship that drive repeat engagement and overall fundraising success.

8. Collaborate with influencers and community leaders

You don’t have to partner with A-list celebrities to successfully reach new audiences. In fact, the most powerful influences are often trusted voices within a niche community: teachers, creators, local leaders, or deeply passionate supporters.

This is especially true for younger donors, as Gen Z and Millennials are increasingly inspired by impact creators, or people who use their platforms to raise awareness and drive charitable donations. One in four Gen Z surveyed say they’ve been motivated to donate because of a social media creator, and more than half of Gen Z say they trust impact creators to donate on their behalf, highlighting the growing role of social media-driven philanthropy.

9. Share impact stories often

Finally, donors and supporters want to know that their efforts make a difference. Consistently sharing impact stories keeps supporters engaged and reinforces the power of community fundraising.

By highlighting the real people, programs, and outcomes made possible by community support, you turn participation into pride, and pride into long-term advocacy.

GoFundMe Pro helps nonprofits bring that journey to life. With flexible, branded donation pages, expansive community fundraising offerings, Meta social sharing, user-friendly live event tools, and so much more, nonprofits can reach millions and amplify impact storytelling across their community.

The future of peer-to-peer fundraising is community-led

Peer-to-peer fundraising is evolving. The nonprofits that will thrive are those that treat their mission as a shared cause and empower their community to lead.

Embracing community fundraising means building on the events and campaigns that already work, adding new ways to spark real connection, creativity, and momentum in ways that feel natural and seamless with supporters’ lives.

Now is the moment to modernize your community fundraising approach and unlock what you and your supporters can achieve together.

Set your peer-to-peer fundraising strategy with GoFundMe Pro today.

Copy editor: Ayanna Julien