The ‘Frosted Flakes’ of Fundraising

“Sugar cereals” were everywhere in the 80’s and 90’s.

But there was always one caveat – they were marketed as “part of a balanced breakfast” and pictured with orange juice, toast and usually some fruit. Like so:

Peer-to-peer fundraising should be marketed the same way – as “part of a balanced fundraising program.”

People love peer-to-peer for the same reason they love sugar cereals: it’s grrrrrreat in the short term.  In peer-to-peer, you get that spike of revenue, a bunch of new donors, and a ton of social media mentions.

But there’s a crash coming.  

You know your donor retention rate for all those new donors will be maybe 5%.  You know that all those social media mentions will amount to… a few new followers and not much else.  You know that unless you do that fundraiser again next year, all that revenue and all those relationships go away.

There IS absolutely a place for peer-to-peer fundraising in an otherwise healthy fundraising environment, just like there’s a place for the occasional bowl of Frosted Flakes.*

All those new donors, and revenue, and social media mentions are good and helpful, after all.

But our goal in fundraising should be to begin and cultivate long-term relationships. Donors who give to you for years.  

In the same way you can’t build a healthy body when your meals are predominantly sugar cereal, you can’t build a healthy fundraising program when your revenue and new donors predominantly come from peer-to-peer.

* Personally, I prefer Cap’n Crunch with “Crunchberries.”  And those little pink spheres stretch the definition of “berries” so far as to be unrecognizable… but dang they taste great.