Peer to peer fundraising is a powerful tool to generate donation revenue. When it goes right, you deepen your network and bring in more fundraising revenue.

Unfortunately a common outcome is increased workload for your staff, few donations and a low first-dollar raised rate. Choosing a new P2P fundraising platform isn’t a decision to make lightly. If you’ve ever had staff drowning in support requests and fundraisers bailing early, this guide is for you.

The best platforms will help your supporters raise more, reduce staff workload, and give your teams clear campaign data in one place. Let's look at how a modern peer to peer fundraising platform fits into broader nonprofit fundraising solutions.

Start With What Actually Matters to Your Team

Before you look at features or sit through another demo, take a step back and define what success looks like for your organization. A peer to peer fundraising platform only works if it can accomplish your goals.

To align your needs and goals with P2P fundraising capabilities ground your evaluation in a few practical questions:

Where are we losing momentum today, participant signup, fundraising activity, or reporting?
Are we trying to grow revenue, reduce workload, or both?
How important is the participant experience to our results?
Do we need something that scales beyond a single campaign?

The platform you choose should flow naturally from the answers to those questions.

Don’t Get Distracted by Features, Focus on What Drives Results

One of the biggest challenges in selecting a P2P platform is that most of them look similar on the surface. They all have fundraising pages, donation forms, and reporting dashboards.

The difference shows up in how those pieces actually perform.

Participant experience is a good example. If your fundraisers struggle early, they simply won’t raise as much. Small points of friction in the sign up or outreach process cause disengagement and fatigue.

The same is true on the staff side. A campaign that engages your community shouldn’t create operational headaches behind the scenes.

So while peer to peer platform features definitely matter, the better question is this. What outcomes do those features actually produce?

What is a P2P Fundraising Platform?

A peer to peer fundraising platform gives your supporters the tools to raise money on your behalf. It lets you launch a campaign, manage your fundraisers, and enable them to reach out to their network. Each participant creates a personal fundraising page, shares it with their contacts, and collects donations tied to your campaign.

That sounds straightforward, but the reality is that there are two main challenges P2P campaigns face. First, you need to make that process simple enough that people actually follow through. Second, you need to be able to connect your peer to peer efforts with your wider fundraising strategy

In the end, you’re not just buying software. You’re building a system that either encourages or discourages participation at every step.

Key Peer to Peer Outcomes to Evaluate

Participant Experience and Fundraiser Adoption

The fundraiser and donor experience drives your fundraising results. If fundraisers or donors hit friction early, they’re far less likely to continue.

A strong P2P fundraising platform doesn’t just make fundraising possible on a technical level. The best solutions in this category actively help your participants follow through on their fundraising goals. That shows up in a few ways:

Guided outreach and messaging support so participants know what to say and who to ask
Clear progress tracking and milestones that keep people motivated after the initial signup
Built-in incentives or recognition that reward effort and encourage continued participation
Timely prompts and nudges that help fundraisers stay active throughout the campaign based on their activity level

When these elements are in place, you see higher activation rates. That in turns leads to more consistent outreach and high fundraising average per fundraiser. Be sure to evaluate if these capabilities are possible within any peer to peer platform you’re considering.

Just as important, participants should be able to move forward without needing staff support. When they can’t, your team becomes the workaround.

Staff Usability and Operational Efficiency

From an internal perspective, your platform should reduce workload, not redistribute it.

This is where many tools fall short. They technically work, but require constant manual effort to manage.

Look beyond the campaign itself and consider how your team operates day to day. Platforms that include integrated CRM functionality, automated reporting, and built-in communications reduce the need to move between systems. All of those capabilities save your staff time in the long run.

Registration and Donations Should Work Together

If fundraiser registration and donation processing live in separate systems, you’re introducing unnecessary friction.

A unified system creates a more consistent fundraising journey and ensures your data stays aligned. Over time, that translates to fewer manual fixes and cleaner reporting.

Real-Time Reporting and Campaign Visibility

Fundraising isn’t static, and as performance shifts throughout a campaign, you need to adapt.

Your team needs access to real-time data to:

Identify which fundraisers need support
Understand what messaging is working
Track progress against goals

Being able to see individual fundraiser performance is especially valuable, and still not as common as it should be.

Without that visibility, you’re managing campaigns after the fact instead of during them. That means that you end up missing out on opportunities to course correct before things go wrong.

Flexibility Beyond a Single Campaign Type

Peer to peer fundraising is important, but it’s only one part of your overall strategy. As you evaluate platforms, consider whether they support other campaign types without adding complexity. Otherwise, you risk solving one problem while creating another by adding more tools to your stack.

A P2P fundraising solution with flexible capabilities also extends to how you can drive greater giving. Features like corporate matching and time-bound challenges can significantly increase revenue by creating urgency and amplifying individual donations. When built into the platform these techniques become repeatable, so your team can use them across campaigns without a significant workload increase.

Vendor Support and Partnership

This is easy to overlook during the buying process, but it has a tremendous impact once your campaign is live.

Onboarding, training, and ongoing support all influence how successful you’ll be. A strong partner helps your team get up to speed quickly and provides guidance when things get busy.

At minimum, you should expect:

Structured onboarding
Training based on staff roles
Responsive support during campaign periods
Ongoing strategic input

If support from the peer to peer platform vendor is an afterthought, your team will feel it.

A Simple Way to Evaluate Your Options

Rather than reacting to each peer to peer fundraising platform demo passively, it helps to define a consistent way to compare platforms.

Focus on a few core questions:

Will this help us raise more revenue?
Will it make participation easier?
Will it reduce staff workload?
Can we rely on it as we scale?

Align internally on your top priorities and use that lens for every vendor you evaluate. It keeps the process grounded and avoids decisions based on whatever sounds best in the moment.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Even with a clear process, there are a few pitfalls that come up repeatedly:

Choosing based on peer to peer features alone
Overlooking fundraiser and donor friction
Ignoring the impact on staff workload
Separating registration from fundraising
Treating reporting as an afterthought
Skipping a thorough integration review
Underestimating onboarding and support
Planning for one campaign instead of long-term growth

Most of these don’t seem like major issues upfront, but they tend to compound over time.

A Practical Checklist for Evaluation

If you need a quick reference point during your search, these are the capabilities that matter most:

An easy fundraiser signup process
Mobile-friendly fundraising pages
A fast, intuitive donation flow
Built-in sharing tools
Unified registration and fundraising
Real-time reporting
CRM and marketing integrations
Corporate matching capabilities
Flexible campaign and donor journey setup
Clear, usable data and analytics
Reliable onboarding and support

You can also use this process as an opportunity to simplify your overall tech stack. In some cases, the right platform replaces multiple tools.

Where haku Fits in The Peer to Peer Platform Decision

Using the same evaluation criteria, haku aligns with key priorities across fundraiser experience, donor management, operations, and campaign performance. haku serves as a best-class peer to peer fundraising platform with core capabilities around unified fundraising, real-time reporting, and scalable campaigns.

Unify Event Registration and Fundraising with haku

haku combines participant registration for events, fundraiser registration for peer to peer campaigns, fundraising, outreach, and donations into one system. That approach supports smoother participant journeys and consistent data across campaigns like runs, walks, and challenges and email giving drives.

Reporting, Integrations, and Supporter Data

haku supports you beyond execution by ensuring that your data is connected and available for use. With haku you get:

Real-time reporting
Structured supporter data
Integration with nonprofit systems

These capabilities fit the needs of modern nonprofits, including nonprofit reporting, supporter profiles, and common nonprofit integrations.

Support for DIY and Scalable Campaigns

haku supports flexible campaigns including DIY fundraising. While you can run a peer to peer campaign with haku, the benefits lie in our all-in-one fundraising capabilities. You also get our customizable fundraising suite. It lets you support both DIY and supporter-led fundraising.

By using haku, nonprofit organizations can expand their capabilities beyond their current campaign strategy without adding new systems.

Frequently Asked Questions About Choosing a P2P Fundraising Platform

What should a nonprofit look for in a P2P fundraising platform?

Focus on fundraiser and donor experience, staff usability, reporting, integrations, and support.

How does peer to peer fundraising software support campaign growth?

It expands reach through supporter networks, bringing in new donors and increasing total revenue.

Why does mobile experience shape fundraiser performance?

Many fundraisers (and donors) rely on phones for setup and sharing. Strong mobile design supports higher completion rates. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need a fundraising tool with an app. Responsive web design principles help fundraisers collect more revenue for your organization.

Should event registration and fundraising live in one platform?

A unified system reduces friction, improves data accuracy, and simplifies workflows.

How important do integrations become during peer to peer platform selection?

Integrations connect systems. When done correctly, they reduce manual work and improve data quality. However, integrations add risk and often require upfront effort.

Which reporting tools help nonprofit teams during a live peer to peer campaign?

Live dashboards, fundraiser tracking, and revenue pacing tools support faster decisions. Being able to track individual fundraiser performance is an uncommon but powerful capability

How can a nonprofit compare vendor support and onboarding?

Ask about onboarding structure, response times, and ongoing support. Speak with current customers.

When does a nonprofit outgrow its current fundraising platform?

Signs include low activation, high staff workload, limited reporting, and difficulty scaling campaigns.

Final Takeaways for Peer to Peer Fundraising Platform Selection

Choosing a P2P fundraising platform comes down to alignment across fundraiser, donors, staff, and performance. Those aren’t the only factors though. Sometimes getting the right platform for peer to peer fundraising actually means finding a partner for the long run.

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Don't take our word for it. The executive director of the Eagles Autism Foundation had this to say. “haku’s willingness to ideate and innovate alongside us is unmatched.” Let's schedule a demo to walk you through our peer to peer fundraising capabilities.

For a quick look at how haku sets up P2P fundraising accounts, you can also check out the product tour below.
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How to Choose a P2P Fundraising Platform for Your Nonprofit