Nonprofits that use peer-to-peer fundraising raise more money (twice as much on average), reach more donors, and build stronger communities than those that rely on traditional tactics alone.
Here is why it works so well. When your board member, volunteer, or longtime donor asks their network to give, that ask carries a level of trust your organization can never manufacture on its own. People give to people. A personal fundraising page from someone they know and respect will always outperform a cold email from an organization they vaguely recognize. Peer-to-peer fundraising takes that human connection and scales it across your entire community at once.
The numbers back it up too. Peer-to-peer campaigns consistently bring in new donors that your organization would never have reached through traditional channels, and those donors, acquired through a personal relationship, tend to stick around. You are not just raising money for one campaign. You are building a pipeline.
We have rounded up 25 peer-to-peer fundraising examples to show you what is possible, spark some ideas, and give you a clear starting point no matter where you are in your journey.
A Quick Recap of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
You give $50. You share the campaign with a friend, who gives $100. She tells her coworker, who gives $30, and her cousin who gives $20. Suddenly, that single supporter has generated $200 and four new donor relationships for your organization.
That’s peer-to-peer fundraising in action. Individual supporters create personal fundraising pages, share them with their own networks, and their smaller gifts stack up into something significant. The beauty of it is that it scales naturally: the more engaged your community is, the more powerful it becomes.
This model is especially well-suited for small and mid-sized nonprofits. You don’t need a massive budget or a full development team. You need enthusiastic supporters and the right tools to set them up for success.
25 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Examples
1. Honorary Fundraiser
People love fundraising when it feels personal. Whether it’s a birthday, a special holiday, or a memorial tribute, honorary fundraisers give supporters a meaningful reason to ask their network for support, and that authenticity translates into higher conversion rates.
Empower does this brilliantly by using running as a vehicle for purpose. They encourage supporters to run in honor of someone they’ve lost, which makes every ask feel deeply personal rather than transactional.
Empower’s peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with CauseVox
The key is making it easy for supporters to self-launch. Give them a template, a pre-written appeal, and a simple way to set up their page then let them run with it (no pun intended).
A peer-to-peer fundraiser’s page for Empower, sharing who she is running in honor of.
2. Outdoor and Active Events
Not every supporter wants to walk a 5K, some want a real challenge. Outdoor peer-to-peer campaigns work because they create experiences people actually want to talk about, and that word-of-mouth is fundraising gold.
Take Orangewood Foundation’s annual challenge: teams of four tackle a multi-sport obstacle course, combining a physical and fundraising challenge to enter. The 2025 event raised over $538,000 to support vulnerable youth, proof that when you make participation memorable, the donations follow.
Consider adding a fundraising toolkit for your peer-to-peer fundraisers to help them feel confident in their fundraising efforts.
3. Giving Day
A single focused day of giving creates urgency that spreads fast. When your supporters know the clock is ticking, they are far more likely to share their fundraising pages, follow up with their networks, and push toward the finish line. GivingTuesday alone raises hundreds of millions of dollars every year, but you don’t have to wait for a cultural moment to make it work.
Pick a date that resonates with your community, whether it’s your organization’s founding anniversary, a mission-related awareness day, or simply the end of your fiscal year, and build a peer-to-peer campaign around it.
COHS activated their supporters for a giving day around honoring what made their school special (in honor of a teacher, program, etc).
Give your fundraisers a goal, a deadline, and a reason to act today, and you’ll be surprised how much a single day can move the needle.
4. Sleep Out/Overnight Challenge
A sleep out is one of those fundraising formats that does double duty: it raises money and it builds empathy. Participants spend a night sleeping outside, often in a parking lot, a park, or a school gymnasium, to raise awareness around issues like homelessness, poverty, or housing insecurity.
Their personal fundraising pages become part of the story, with supporters sponsoring them for every hour they tough it out. What makes it so shareable is the visibility. Participants are posting from their sleeping bags, updating their networks in real time, and creating a night’s worth of content that keeps donations coming in. It connects the act directly to the mission in a way that a standard donation ask never could, and that emotional resonance is exactly what turns a one-time donor into a long-term supporter.
5. Golf Tournament
Golf tournaments are a nonprofit staple for good reason. They attract corporate sponsors, bring in higher-dollar donations, and create a relaxed social environment that is genuinely fun to be part of. What makes a golf event shine as a peer-to-peer format is the team structure. Each group becomes a fundraising team with their own fundraising page, competing against other groups to see who can raise the most.
Golf tournament peer-to-peer fundraiser hosted with CauseVox
That friendly rivalry between the finance team and the marketing crew can do wonders for your final total. Pair your tournament with event ticketing where you can easily set up a customized registration form that captures all of the information you need from registrants, including things like t-shirt sizes and sponsorship packages in one place.
6. Cook-Off
Everyone thinks their chili is the best. A cook-off fundraiser turns that friendly rivalry into real dollars for your cause. Participants register and spend the weeks before the event rallying donations from friends, family, and coworkers.
On the day itself, attendees pay to taste and vote, adding another revenue stream on top of what fundraisers have already raised. It is warm, social, and incredibly easy to rally a community around.
Local restaurants or grocery stores often jump at the chance to sponsor ingredients or prizes, which keeps your costs low. The competitive element does a lot of the heavy lifting too. Nobody wants to show up with the least-funded chili, which means your fundraisers are motivated to keep pushing their personal pages right up until the ladle drops.
7. Storytelling Campaign
The most powerful fundraising tool your organization has is not a matching gift or a deadline. It is a story. A storytelling campaign invites your supporters to share their personal connection to your cause on their individual fundraising pages, whether that is a short video, a written reflection, or a photo with a caption.
When donors hear directly from the people who care most about your mission, in their own words, the ask becomes almost unnecessary. The story does the work.
This peer-to-peer page built with CauseVox shares a powerful story from the fundraiser
Encourage your fundraisers with a simple prompt like “tell us why this cause matters to you” and you will be surprised how many compelling narratives surface from your own community. Those stories live on their pages, get shared across social media, and keep bringing in donations long after the initial post goes up.
8. Pickleball Tournament
Pickleball is having a moment, and your nonprofit should be taking advantage of it. It is the fastest growing sport in the country, it spans every age group, and it is social by nature, which makes it a natural fit for peer-to-peer fundraising.
On the day itself, teams compete in a bracket format while supporters cheer, donate, and share the leaderboard in real time. Local courts, gyms, and recreation centers are often eager to partner on events like this, which keeps venue costs low. The best part is that because pickleball is still fresh enough to feel exciting, it gives your campaign a built-in talking point that older tournament formats simply do not have anymore.
Pickleball tournaments peer-to-peer campaign for Volo Kids hosted on CauseVox
9. Social Media Takeover
A social media takeover flips the script on traditional peer-to-peer fundraising. Instead of just asking supporters to share a link, you hand them the keys to your organization’s Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook for a day and let them tell your story to their audience and yours at the same time.
Followers are far more likely to engage with a real person sharing why they care about a cause than a polished organizational post. It also gives your most passionate supporters a meaningful role beyond just asking for money, and that sense of ownership tends to produce your most motivated fundraisers.
Download the Ultimate Guide To Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
10. Live Crowdfunding
Live crowdfunding combines the power of peer-to-peer with the energy of an in-person event. The idea is simple: while your guests are gathered in the room, you open up the campaign to remote supporters watching a livestream or following along on social media, giving everyone a chance to participate in real time. Use a tool like a fundraising thermometer so people can see how close you are to your goal and the impact of their gift.
Free fundraising thermometer with CauseVox
This format works especially well when paired with a silent auction running alongside your event. Guests in the room can bid on auction items while remote supporters donate through personal fundraising pages, creating two revenue streams running simultaneously from a single event. Whether you are hosting a gala, a community gathering, or an intimate donor dinner, live crowdfunding turns a one-night event into a moment your entire community can be part of, no matter where they are.
11. Corporate Gift Matching
Did you know that corporations around the country offer matching gift programs for nonprofits? It’s true! You can access these programs to maximize your fundraising with your next peer-to-peer campaign. The best part of this strategy is that it can be incorporated into any of the peer-to-peer fundraising examples listed here.
Use CauseVox’s automated matching to help fundraisers and donors see the impact of their gift in real time.
Many corporations prefer to donate to nonprofits that their employees also support. As such, most companies prefer to have someone who works at the company submit a matching gift request. While this may seem like a difficult barrier to entry, it can actually work in your favor with a peer-to-peer campaign.
If you have a large community of professionals in your network, consider asking them to start fundraising pages and solicit corporate matches through their work. This type of peer-to-peer fundraising campaign can raise a large amount in a short time with the right level of engagement. Some companies will match only those gifts submitted by their employees, while others will match all gifts made during a certain time period.
12. Scavenger Hunt
A scavenger hunt is one of the most underused formats in peer-to-peer fundraising, and that is exactly what makes it stand out. Teams register and set up personal fundraising pages, rallying donations from their networks before the hunt begins. On the day itself, teams race to complete a series of challenges and clues across your city, campus, or community, turning your cause into an adventure people genuinely want to show up for.
The format is incredibly shareable too. Teams are posting photos and updates throughout the entire event, which keeps your campaign visible across social media for hours at a time. It works for all ages, requires minimal equipment, and can be themed around your mission to make the connection between the fun and the cause feel natural and intentional.
13. Volunteer Engagement
Volunteers are among the most important community members for every nonprofit. You may feel uncomfortable about asking them to fundraise for you in addition to all the other work that they do to support your mission. But you shouldn’t. Volunteers have been proven to be an invaluable asset for peer-to-peer fundraising.
The best part about signing your volunteers up as fundraisers in your next peer-to-peer fundraiser is that they can do double duty for your nonprofit. In other words, they can serve the community and your mission while they raise funds. You can even tie these two efforts together by having your volunteers challenge themselves to complete a certain number of volunteer hours while their community supports them with donations per hour worked.
Chances are, your volunteers are among the most knowledgeable and most engaged community members in your network. They will likely leap at the opportunity to spread the word about your organization to their friends and family.
Volunteer peer-to-peer fundraising team using CauseVox
14. Talent Show
A talent show fundraiser is exactly what it sounds like, and that simplicity is what makes it so effective. Ask your supporters to set up personal fundraising pages, record themselves doing something they are genuinely proud of, and share it with their networks. It could be a piano performance, a stand-up routine, an impressive cooking skill, or something completely unexpected. The more personality the better.
Because supporters are sharing something personal and entertaining, they are far more motivated to blast it across every channel they have, and every view is a potential donor. The format also translates beautifully to short-form video content on Instagram Reels and TikTok, where a compelling clip can take on a life of its own and pull in donors your organization would never have reached through traditional outreach.
Talent show fundraiser hosted with CauseVox
15. Pledge Campaign
A pledge campaign is one of the simplest ways to increase the average gift size across your entire peer-to-peer fundraiser without asking donors to give more upfront. Instead of a single lump sum donation, supporters commit to giving in a series of smaller installments over time.
The psychology is straightforward: a donor who might hesitate at a $500 ask will often say yes to $50 a month without a second thought, even though the annual total is the same. For your personal fundraisers, it also gives them a more compelling pitch. Rather than just asking their network for a donation, they are inviting people into an ongoing relationship with your cause.
Ask your fundraisers to set clear giving tiers on their personal pages so donors can see exactly what each pledge level makes possible. That tangible impact framing is what turns a maybe into a yes.
16. Board Fundraiser
Your board members are some of your most credible advocates, so why not put that to work in a peer-to-peer campaign? A board fundraiser asks each board member to set up their own personal fundraising page and reach out directly to their professional and personal networks. Because board members carry genuine weight with donors, their ask tends to land differently than a general appeal from the organization. It also creates healthy internal accountability.
When board members can see each other’s progress on a shared leaderboard, a little friendly competition tends to bring out their best fundraising instincts. It is a low-cost, high-trust campaign format that works especially well as a year-end push or ahead of a major organizational milestone.
Volo Kids board member peer-to-peer campaign helped raise over $22,000.
17. Walk-a-thon
Walk-a-thons can be localized, such as a local high school service group, or nationwide, occurring simultaneously in many cities. Like other activity-based events, supporters raise a set amount of money to participate.
Beyond this, walk-a-thons can layer in additional revenue through corporate sponsorships, matching gifts, and branded merchandise, while team-based competition and milestone incentives help keep participant energy high throughout the campaign. With relatively low upfront costs and high engagement potential, walk-a-thons consistently rank among the highest-ROI activity-based peer-to-peer fundraisers available to nonprofits.
Make it easy for supporters to sign up and become a fundraiser for your walk-a-thon.
18. Bowl-a-Thon
Bowl-a-thons have been a nonprofit staple for decades, and for good reason. They are accessible, social, and naturally built for team fundraising. The format is simple: participants form teams, set up personal fundraising pages, rally donations from their networks, and then come together on the lanes to compete.
That combination of online fundraising and in-person fun creates a level of energy and accountability that is hard to replicate with a standard donation campaign. Partnering with local businesses and corporations to field employee teams is a particularly effective strategy, since it expands your reach well beyond your existing donor base and brings in a competitive crowd who are motivated to out-raise each other. Whether you run one event or many, the bowl-a-thon format scales surprisingly well and tends to bring in a wide range of gift sizes from a wide range of donors.
Bowl-a-thon hosted with CauseVox
19. Build-a-thon
A build-a-thon flips the traditional “thon” format on its head in the best way. Instead of running, walking, or biking, participants build something, and their community sponsors them for it.
Record Robotics Build-a-thon peer-to-peer fundraising page with CauseVox
The format works beautifully for schools, maker communities, and mission-driven organizations whose work involves creating something real in the world. Supporters fundraise through personal pages, donors see exactly where their money goes, and everyone gets to celebrate something being built together.
20. Bike-a-thon
A bike-a-thon is one of those formats that works as well in person as it does virtually, which makes it incredibly versatile for any size organization. Participants set up personal or team fundraising pages, share their story, and raise funds from their networks before they ever clip into their pedals.
Rise Beyond All Odds bike-a-thon with CauseVox
The format is flexible by nature. You can organize a group ride along a scenic route, a point-to-point challenge across multiple days, or give supporters the option to ride virtually on a stationary bike at home. By removing the barrier of location you open the campaign up to a much wider pool of participants, which means more fundraising pages, more sharing, and a bigger final total. It is also a natural fit for team fundraising, where groups of riders compete to see who can cover the most miles and raise the most money for your cause.
21. Gifts for Grades
If you’re looking for peer-to-peer fundraising examples that can engage a younger audience, look no further! A Gifts for Grades campaign will inspire your young supporters to raise funds for your nonprofit.
Gifts for Grades campaigns involve having the students in your network ask for donations that correspond to the grades that they receive in school. For example, they could request $10 for every A, $5 for every B and so on.
Everyone wants to see children excel in school. So why not introduce a fundraising element and incentive to this desire. The added bonus is that you can use this event as an opportunity to show your community that you care about education and literacy.
22. Giving Circles
When it comes to fundraising, sometimes it’s best to keep it as simple as possible. When it comes time for your organization to choose from this list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples, it’s important to select one that is easily achievable. Why not return to the oldest form of peer-to-peer fundraising, the Giving Circle?
Giving circles are groups of philanthropic individuals who meet to pool their resources and support nonprofits. Before the Internet, these groups were responsible for the peer-to-peer element of nonprofit fundraising, since they would share information about organizations and bring in new donations.
Despite their more traditional format, giving circles are still alive and well today. If anyone in your community is a part of a giving circle, you can make an appeal to see if they will consider supporting your cause.
23. Livestream Fundraiser
If your supporters are on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, there is a fundraising opportunity sitting right there waiting to be activated. Livestream fundraising lets your most enthusiastic supporters broadcast to their own audiences in real time, whether that is a gaming marathon, a cooking session, a workout, or simply a candid conversation about why your cause matters to them.
Each streamer sets up a personal fundraising page and links to it throughout their stream, so viewers can donate without ever leaving the moment. The real time energy is what makes it work. Donors can see the total climbing, leave comments, and feel like they are part of something happening right now. It also reaches a younger donor demographic that traditional fundraising formats rarely touch. The barrier to entry is low too. All a supporter needs is a phone, an internet connection, and something genuine to say.
24. Trivia Night
Trivia nights are a consistently underrated peer-to-peer fundraising format. They are competitive, social, and appeal to a segment of your supporter base that might not show up for a 5K or a golf tournament. Teams register through personal fundraising pages, rallying donations from their networks before the event, and then compete on the night for bragging rights.
The team structure does a lot of the heavy lifting, since nobody wants to be the person who let their team down on the fundraising leaderboard. It is also one of the most flexible formats on this list. You can run it in person at a local bar or community space, fully virtually over Zoom, or as a hybrid event that brings both audiences together in real time. Local businesses make great sponsors for prizes, which keeps your costs low and adds another layer of community involvement to the night.
25. Double Dog Dare Fundraiser
You may have noticed that several of the entries on this list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples involve a predetermined challenge. As we’ve mentioned, challenges introduce a competitive element to your fundraising and help drive engagement. With a Double Dog Dare fundraiser, you can shift the power of the challenge to your donors.
Your supporters will set up personal fundraising pages, asking their friends and family for donations. But there’s a catch. In order to receive the donations, they will have to complete a dare submitted by that potential donor. The dares should be easily achievable, such as eating a stack of saltine crackers in under a minute, or running through a sprinkler. If your supporters are tech savvy, you can ask them to film these dares and post them on social media.
A Double Dog Dare fundraiser allows your fundraisers to have fun and connect with their communities while raising money for a great cause. The best part is that they can share their passion for your nonprofit both on their personal fundraising pages and in the videos that they make as they complete the dares.
Try One Of These Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Examples Today!
Did you happen to notice a similar theme in most of these fundraising events?
When you add a fun, funky, creative element, people come out of the woodwork to participate.
Another common denominator behind all of these peer-to-peer fundraising examples is that they all emphasize a quality user experience. Make sure you are set up for success with an optimized website.
Take these peer-to-peer fundraising ideas and incorporate them however you see fit to extend your reach and meet your goal. To use a cliché, you’ll be successful if you keep the “fun” in your fundraising.
Start your own peer-to-peer fundraiser today with CauseVox!
