The study separates the peer-to-peer fundraising events into four categories – Cycle, Endurance, 5K and Walk. Additionally, the report looks at three different donor types – Participating donor: donors who participate and donate, but don’t fundraise; Fundraising Self-Donor: donors that make a donation AND fundraise; Non-Self-Donor: donors that fundraise but don’t make a donation.

"Peer-to-peer participant fundraising continues to play a key role for nonprofit organizations. In the last three years, we've seen a number of trends emerge; for example the percentage of individuals who answer the call to fundraise remains flat, but donors gave more and more participants returned online each year.  There is opportunity out there for traditional peer to peer programs, but to grow new strategies may need to be adopted," said Amy Braiterman, principal strategy consultant for Blackbaud and co-author of the report. "Additionally, returning participants are passionate, loyal, and very effective online fundraisers - they continue to outperform their newly acquired peers.  It may be time to shift the focus from acquiring new participants to retaining fundraisers to ensure ongoing success."

Key findings from the study include:

·         Events and Fundraising: Endurance events generate the most revenue from fundraising efforts (94%); 5K events generate the least (33%)

·         Events and Participants: Cycle events get the most participants in online fundraising at 70.57%

·         Number of Participants Flat: The percentage of people raising money has remained flat across all four event types the last three years, but donors gave more each year

·         Average Online Gift: The average online gift for Endurance events was the highest at $80.05; the lowest was 5K events at $54.96. Cycle events saw the biggest percentage jump YoY in average gift at 9% (average cycle gift is $73.42)

·         Returning Participants: Returning participants significantly outperform new participants across all events when it comes to fundraising. For example, the average amount raised by a returning participant for Endurance events is $1,150.22 — for a new participant, it’s $694.18 

·         The Role of Email: While the percent of participants who send emails across all events is on the decline (Endurance events sees the highest percentage of email senders at 39.64%), the amount of dollars raised is still greater than non-email senders (Endurance events also sees the greatest amount of average dollars raised by email senders at $1,559.24)

To view the study in its entirety, visit: www.blackbaud.com/fundraising-study.