To Write Love on Her Arms reached new supporters by shifting its peer-to-peer and paid ads strategy
Mission
To present hope and find help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide
Challenge
Modernize a peer-to-peer fundraising strategy to connect with a younger audience
Solution
TWLOHA ran a peer-to-peer fundraising challenge on GoFundMe and shifted its Meta ad strategy to Instagram with Paper Napkin Agency
“We had hit a wall with peer-to-peer fundraising challenges and were looking for a fresh strategy. We heard about the ability to run challenges on GoFundMe, so we were excited to have the opportunity to try something new.”
– Kimberly Smith, Supporter Relations Manager at TWLOHA
GoFundMe challenge results in one month*:
Almost 4,000
fundraisers started
98%
of individual fundraisers were new to the organization
More than 2x
return on ad spend
53%
of leads were ages 18-34
*Based on 2026 GoFundMe data
Developing a new peer-to-peer fundraising strategy
To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) has run hundreds of traditional peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. Those campaigns had been reliable, but results stagnated. So the team turned to Paper Napkin Agency, an expert in Meta ads and peer-to-peer fundraising, to build a strategy that fit its needs and supporters’ preferences, and decided to use GoFundMe’s challenge functionality for the first time.
A report developed in partnership with GivingTuesday found that peer-to-peer campaign volume grew 18% in 2024, even as dollars raised per participant fell 20%. This is a sign that traditional challenge formats haven’t kept pace with how younger supporters actually want to participate. TWLOHA’s strategy shift mirrors that finding: meet a younger, relationship-driven audience on the platform and in the format where they already show up.
Moving the needle by meeting supporters where they are
TWLOHA created a GoFundMe challenge that linked daily movement and time outdoors to mental health, the heart of its mission. Supporters agreed to walk a mile a day for one month and tapped their peer networks to fundraise along the way.
Paper Napkin dug into TWLOHA’s audience data and prior campaign performance. They found a donor base notably younger than a typical challenge audience, one that spent more time on Instagram than Facebook, where TWLOHA had historically focused its ad spend. That finding drove the strategy: meet younger supporters on the platform where they already spend their time.
This was our first time seeing Instagram beat Facebook, so we actually took all of our ad spend, paired it with creative built around TWLOHA’s tone and audience, and moved it over to Instagram mid-campaign. It was 100% because we found the right audience that resonated with TWLOHA.
Creating a strong return and a repeatable playbook
Meeting supporters on the platform where they were already active paid off. This pattern tracks with findings in the Gen Z nonprofit report: Gen Z is 14 percentage points more likely than other adults to say family and peers shape their giving decisions.
GoFundMe is a well-known and trusted name in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising. The platform’s tools and reporting made it easy to recruit and support our fundraisers and donors while meeting our campaign goals.
The month-long challenge saw almost 4,000 fundraisers started, with 98% of them new to TWLOHA. Only 2% had previously fundraised for TWLOHA on a GoFundMe Pro peer-to-peer campaign.
Younger female audiences anchored the campaign’s success, with those aged 25–34 delivering 49% of all leads and those aged 18–24 adding another 14%. In total, female cohorts accounted for more than 9 out of 10 leads.
The return on ad spend (ROAS) was more than 2x, which is a notable result given how few of the fundraisers were repeats, typically the easier group to convert.
TWLOHA plans to build on this success with GoFundMe and Paper Napkin Agency. A recent cycling challenge is trending in a similar direction, an early sign that the strategy holds up beyond a single campaign.
Results reflect To Write Love On Her Arms’ campaign strategy and may vary for other organizations.
