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Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising is getting new, first-time donors in the door, but they aren’t sticking around and that’s probably the fundraisers’ fault. The second ask often is the same amount that was intended as a one-time gift and a donor might not be ready to make that jump.
If the first gift was $25, the idea is to try a lesser amount, say $10, as an initial recurring gift. And, Gen Z is becoming a dominant force in this space, with a focus on social change and, by 2035, becoming the wealthiest generation.
That’s some of the data in a new report from GoFundMe Pro with the numbers and trends analyzed by staff at GivingTuesday, which also co-authored the report. Spanning 2022 to 2025, the analysis explored which models of giving resonate with donors, how P2P engages and converts new supporters, and how to convert those donors to sustainers.
Recurring giving is largely untapped in P2P campaigns. Just 0.4% of donors who come in through a peer-to-peer fundraiser choose to make their gift recurring. This points to a significant opportunity to make recurring giving more visible, compelling, and easy to choose, according to the report’s authors.
Across the three-year period studied, 77% of donors who contributed through P2P fundraisers were new to the organization, compared with 56% of donors who gave through other campaign types, underscoring P2P’s role in expanding the donor base.
Nonprofits where P2P fundraising is implemented generally have larger donor bases and greater overall donation volume than those that do not. While fewer than half of organizations in the research (47%) received at least one P2P donation, those organizations accounted for more than 80% of all donations on GoFundMe Pro. In other words, the organizations leveraging P2P are driving a disproportionate share of overall giving.
Among organizations that received P2P donations, one-third of their total donor base gave through a P2P fundraiser. The findings suggest that P2P is not just an add-on donation. It’s closely associated with scale, reach, and stronger fundraising performance, pointing to significant opportunity for broader adoption, according to the report’s authors.
Almost half of new donors to “very small” organizations of one to nine staff, were acquired via a P2P fundraiser, rising to more than half for “small” (50-99 employees) and “medium”-sized organizations with 100-249 staff members. Among “very small” to “medium”-sized organizations, those making the most use of P2P fundraisers had substantially larger donor bases than organizations that didn’t use P2P, the data showed.
Specifically, “very small” and “medium” organizations had roughly four times as many donors, while “small” organizations had eight times as many.
But numbers alone don’t fully reflect its power. At a time when institutional trust is wavering, P2P offers a distinct advantage: trust transferred through personal relationships. When supporters fundraise on an organization’s behalf, they lend their credibility, voice, and community to the cause, according to authors of the report.
The full report is available here … https://pro.gofundme.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/P2P-giving-analysis.pdf
