Strategies That Work: Fundraiser Recruitment Tips From A Nonprofit 3350

Strategies That Work: Fundraiser Recruitment Tips From A Nonprofit

Published
Fundraiser recruitment is the vital first phase in any peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. But let’s be honest – it’s a challenge! To tackle the topic, we sought out a nonprofit we admire for their success with peer-to-peer fundraising: P.S. ARTS.

96bbd1898c419c16842b72bc350c9a57-huge-sc

Each week, P.S. ARTS provides a high-quality arts education to nearly 25,000 students in California’s most underserved public schools. They've found that students in in their programs have an increased capacity to solve problems creatively, innovate, and collaborate. Fundraising and individual support is critical to the ongoing success and excellence of their programs.  

So they embarked on a peer-to-peer campaign.

Everyday Allison and Chelsea work to bring quality art programs to the schools of Los Angeles through the charity PS Arts. They continually raise funds and seek to expand their base of support. When they decided to participate in a running event they anticipated it would be fun, and that the race would allow them to reach beyond their usual audience. At their first event meeting the LA Marathon asked the charities to raise their hands if they themselves were going to participate for their charity. Allison and Chelsea saw their peers raise their hands. Then they thought:
 

"This is what we ask our kids to do. Everyday our artists ask Los Angeles school children to do something that scares them, to make art and show it to the world. If we can’t challenge our bodies to do more than we think possible how can we ask that of our kids?"


a1676935bb2ba8ad7b03f19b80885046-huge-16

Allison and Chelsea focused on getting people to run the 5K their goal was to have 5 people run the marathon and 35 run the 5k. They thought these 40 people could raise $20,000. They thought it was ambitious, and they were nervous about achieving it.

During their first year of peer-to-peer fundraising, they tripled their fundraising goal to bring in $60,000 and gained hundreds of new donors into their database. In fact, Over 700 of their 850 donors were new to the organization. How did they do it – you ask?

We decided to sit down with the innovative nonprofit and see what we could learn from them. Here’s what we took away:

1.   Tap into the resources you have
Ask anyone and everyone, friends, friends of friends, co-workers, friends of coworkers, etc. This is an opportunity to get new supporters to be involved in your organization.

2.   Follow up
Follow up with everyone you have asked or people who have expressed interest in participating in your fundraiser. People are often just busy and need reminding to get the information they need to take the right steps.

3.   Lead with your mission
Connect your mission and vision to your participants. People like stories, the more stories you can include that connect the campaign and your mission, the more people will be inspired to join you! For example, not only did our staff participate, but also our Teaching Artists joined in as well. It was inspiring to see people from the inside believe in our organization.

Other Ways to Boost Recruitment
The staff at P.S. ARTS also added incentives to help recruit participants. Their event was a run, so they had runner swag bags, t-shirts, and offered to pay each runner’s registration fee if they completed a specific goal.

P.S. ARTS did a great job of harnessing their social media channels to recruit key participants. They spread the word in all the channels available. In addition, they featured their supporters on Facebook and Twitter each week to highlight the great fundraising that was being done.  In doing so, they provided important acknowledgement and recognition for fundraisers, and reached new networks through their supporters' followings.

P.S. ARTS and their staff collaborated with previous participants to help with recruiting. They tabled at some of their other events to outreach to their extended network about the opportunity to support P.S. ARTS in an impactful way.

We hope you have enjoyed these top tips from P.S. ARTS about recruitment: the first phase, and vital foundation, to a successful peer-to-peer fundraising effort.  Next week, join us to as we discuss .
 
News everydayhero Blog 07/18/2017 8:30am EDT

Leave a Comment

Check back soon!

Share: