Is Person-to-Person Fundraising Dead, or Just Getting Started?

My answer is neither! Person-to-person fundraising is certainly not dead (far from it), but it got started a long, long time ago.

When Salvation Army officer Captain Joseph McFee setup his kettle in San Francisco in 1891, he was conducting person-to-person fundraising with the technology of the day: a kettle and a bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_kettle). All we're doing in 2008 is allowing people to shift their historic fundraising practices to digital spaces. As we say here at Artez, "people like to give to people...even online".A bit of context for my perspective on this question: I'm the proud President & CEO of Artez (www.artez.com). We have been conducting online person-to-person fundraising campaigns since 1998, and we've been fortunate to grow since then to now provide technology to hundreds of charitable clients in Canada, the US, Australia, The Netherlands, and the UK.

Without a doubt I can report that if our data is any indicator of the health of online person-to-person fundraising it's far from dead!

The role of "a-thons"

Our first client was the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, who managed Canada's largest single-day fundraising event: The Run for the Cure. Back in 1998 we helped them raise $50,000 online through personal fundraising pages...and everyone was giddy from the success. Since then they've grown very nicely to almost $10 million last year through online personal-pages, which now represents almost half of their entire event revenue.

www.cibcrunforthecure.com

Certainly during the early years (approx 1998 - 2003) of online person-to-person fundraising the "a-thons" dominated. Any type of bike-a-thon, walk-a-thon, swim-a-thon was particularly well suited to leverage online personal fundraising technology. This is because these populations were already used to the concept of personal fundraising, it's just that before the internet they used pieces of paper called "pledge forms". Interesting note: the best online fundraisers still user paper pledge forms; they're hybrid fundraisers.

The concept of using this type of technology for a-thons is still relatively new in areas outside of North America. In the UK there is some evidence of strong growth of person-to-person fundraising online, but it tends to be associated with extreme physical feats such as running a marathon or climbing Everest.

When we started working with Comic Relief in the UK to add person-to-person fundraising pages to their campaigns (Red Nose Day and Sport Relief) the general sense was that it would be difficult for Brits to ask their friends to part with their pounds for something as simple as running a mile. As the past few years have shown however, it's less important what type of event the person undertakes, and more important that the individual asks in the first place.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Relief

To summarize what we've learned from a-thons over the past 10 years: without exception we see all of our clients growing person-to-person fundraising online...the only question now is "how fast".

Beyond "a-thons"

What about those charities and organizations who don't have an a-thon, and who can't envision starting one? This is a relatively new area in the world of person-to-person online fundraising, but may in fact have much more potential. To illustrate I'll describe some of our clients' campaigns that are particularly interesting.

In the US: The United Nations Foundation in Washington D.C. wanted to create a campaign that would generate awareness and raise funds to combat malaria in Africa. The result: the Nothing but Nets campaign. Individuals are encouraged to become a "Netraiser" and solicit their friends and family to make donations to their personal donation page. For every $10 they raise, the UN Foundation will send a mosquito net to Africa. Not only has the campaign continued to grow, but it won a Webby Award last year.

http://www.nothingbutnets.net/

In Australia: We're working with The Cancer Council of Australia to launch "Australia's Biggest Morning Tea". The concept is simple: host a morning tea at your home or office, invite your friends through your personal-giving page (which has been modified to act as an eVite page), and raise dollars for a great cause.

http://www.biggestmorningtea.com.au/

In Canada: The largest children's hospital foundation in Canada, SickKids Foundation, encouraged web-visitors to do something different this holiday season. On a big button entitled "How to Tell Them No Gifts Please" supporters learned how to setup a personal giving page and were encouraged to ask for donations to the foundation in lieu of gifts during the holidays. A hundred-thousand-plus dollars later and still chugging the concept clearly appealed to an anti-materialistic audience looking for something more meaningful than more plastic.

http://www.sickkidsfoundation.com/News/NewsNoGifts.asp

I could go on about the great campaigns our clients create...but for the sake of keeping this simple I'll stop. Suffice it to say that we at Artez see absolutely no signs of online people-to-people fundraising slowing down at all. Is it just getting started? The online version of this fundraising is certainly gaining steam, but has been occurring "offline" for a long, long time.

Happy fundraising!