Fundraising is one of the most important parts of any new business, product, or change in life. While everyone's free to follow their dreams, their dreams will meet a quick end if they can't secure reliable funding. 

In the 21st century, peer-to-peer fundraising (P2P) has democratized the world of fundraising. 

In the same way that YouTube made it possible for anyone to become an entertainer, and social media gave a platform for everyone's voice to be heard, peer-to-peer fundraising is a form of social fundraising that anyone can make use of when collecting donations. 

But what exactly is peer-to-peer fundraising? How does it work? How do you make use of it for collecting donations in your fundraising campaigns? 

This article will answer those questions, and teach you a bit about peer-to-peer fundraising along the way. 

What Is Peer-to-Peer Fundraising?

If you've heard of the term crowdfunding, you're not that far off from peer-to-peer fundraising. Crowdfunding, which generates billions of dollars every year, is the general umbrella category that peer-to-peer fundraising falls under.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is the process of creating a fundraising campaign directly. You can share the campaign with your friends and family, and they can donate directly to you. 

As you can see, peer-to-peer goes beyond typical online crowdfunding. It allows you to integrate the connections you make online with live in-person events. This sort of hybrid technology is what contemporary businesses need to move forward. 

Why P2P?

P2P provides many new opportunities for forward-looking people looking to start ambitious projects by themselves. 

It eliminates the barriers put up by proximity and prestige, and lets the market completely determine whether or not a business succeeds. Someone no longer needs to get a loan to pay for the damage that their locally beloved ice cream shop received during a storm. They can start a crowdfunding campaign, and if it's as beloved as it claims to be, people will donate and practically buy the ice cream shop back into the business. 

P2P works because there are systems in place to ensure the safety of every transaction. The best crowdfunding services have many money verification applications that ensure your trust. They work together with these applications to make the transition of money safe. 

Start By Setting a Goal 

The first thing you need to do for your company, charity, or organization is to set up a goal. Setting a goal that's too high might mean you don't meet your goal. Depending on the P2P service, you might not even make money at all if you don't reach your goal. 

However, you don't want to set your goal too low. This will make it easier to hit, but give you less to spend. You also might think people will stop donating once you hit your goal, however, you can always adjust your goal mid-campaign. You don't want to set your goal too high either so that it may not be attainable and make your campaign appear to be unsuccessful.

It's best to pick a certain thing (a very particular goal) you want to pay for with your P2P campaign. When you do this, you have a simple goal to accomplish when you get your money. It becomes extremely easy to let your customers know that you're putting their money to good use.

For example, if you're trying to buy more beds for a hospital wing or equipment for an animal shelter, you can start a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to fund these items. This is extremely doable and accessible.

Another thing to remember is communication is key. You will want to share your goalposts and your accomplishments with your donors to keep them in the loop. 

Providing Benefits Always Helps

The main reason why people donate to your P2P campaign will always be your project. If people have faith in you, they'll be willing to trust you with their money. 

However, for people on the fence, giving them exclusive benefits might help win their support.

One of the best parts of peer-to-peer marketing campaigns is that you can provide people with unique, tiered benefits for investing in your project.

For example, if they buy a ticket for a walkathon, you could throw in a custom t-shirt as an added benefit. Think outside the box when it comes to giving these additional benefits.

The Main Advantage of Choosing CrowdChange

Crowdchange is one of the most robust fundraising platforms on the market due to the ease-of-use and intuitive nature of the platform, and the comprehensive features available. Let's look at some features below:

• It has all the features you might need for a successful fundraising campaign - you can switch them on or off depending on what you need or don't need.
• It is mobile optimized - which means you don't need to be at a desktop to fiddle around with your campaign and make necessary changes.
• It is highly secure - never worry about your data or your customer's data being shared with the world.
• It can accept one-time donations, or monthly donations - if you wish to build a subscription-based fundraising campaign, you can.
• It allows gift matching - if you wish to match donations CrowdChange allows you to do so effortlessly.
• It has a merchandise sales option as well - if you wish to build your revenue stream from several different avenues, you can sell merchandise using CrowdChange.

The features listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more where this came from, so check out CrowdChange's website for more of its features.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Is Important

As you can see, peer-to-peer fundraising is a fantastic option for any person looking to raise money in today's world. It allows you to interact directly with your customers and cut out the middlemen. 

Take advantage of this way to make money and embrace the future of business and marketing. 

For more information, check out our features.