5 Tips for Hosting a Successful Challenge Fundraiser

2024 marks the tenth anniversary of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a wildly successful fundraiser that involved participants dumping buckets of ice water on themselves, taking a video, posting on social media, and challenging friends and family to participate.

Over 17 million people worldwide participated in the challenge—including notable figures like Oprah, Bill Gates, and Taylor Swift—raising $115 million to fund ALS research and care for people living with the disease.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a testament to the potential of challenge fundraisers, which are fundraising campaigns that require participants to complete a specific challenge or activity to spread awareness for a nonprofit cause. In this guide, we’ll provide tips to help you host your own challenge fundraiser and mimic this success. Let’s get started!

1. Define your goals.

Start by outlining your goals to give your challenge fundraiser a clear focus. Depending on what you aim to achieve, these goals may include:

• Raising a specific amount of money
• Spreading awareness for your cause
• Growing your donor base
• Expanding your nonprofit’s reach

No matter which goals you pursue, they should follow the SMART goal framework, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, a crisis relief organization may aim to raise $500,000 over the course of three months to help repair homes damaged by a recent hurricane.

This goal specifies exactly what funds will go toward, provides a measurable dollar amount the organization hopes to raise, relates to the nonprofit’s mission, and has a clear timeline.

To ensure this goal is achievable, the nonprofit’s team must pull data from their online fundraising software to compare their projection to past fundraising results. Keep this in mind as you prepare your data and reports ahead of your upcoming fundraising campaign. Ensure data is as clean and updated as possible to drive your goal-setting process.

2. Select the right challenge for your audience.

A large component of planning a challenge fundraiser is choosing the challenge itself. It’s important to select a challenge that aligns with your audience’s demographics, interests, and abilities to maximize participation.

For example, if your audience skews younger, it may be more impactful to host a phone detox challenge than it would be for a group of older supporters who don’t rely on technology as much. Look through your constituent relationship management platform (CRM) to analyze your supporter base and help determine which challenges they would most enjoy.

Additional factors to consider when choosing a challenge include:

• Mission alignment. When you select a challenge that connects to your mission, it will likely resonate more deeply with your supporters. For instance, an environmental organization may host a give-it-up challenge that encourages supporters to adopt a more minimalist, sustainable lifestyle.
• Accessibility. Your challenge should be easy for all interested supporters to participate in. Choose something that doesn’t require specialized skills, resources, or a lot of time. Additionally, consider offering alternative options to promote participation, such as a walking option for a running-based challenge.
• Safety. The challenge you choose should not put participants at risk of serious injury or distress. Create guidelines on how supporters can stay safe while participating in your challenge fundraiser.
• Social media friendliness. Social media is a great avenue for amplifying your challenge and encouraging participation. Select a challenge that uses the power of social media, whether that’s something like a viral video challenge that directly relies on social media or something more similar to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in which social media helped push the challenge forward.
• Compatibility with existing fundraising efforts. Ingrain your challenge fundraiser into your existing fundraising strategy. For example, you may host a month-long fitness challenge leading up to your silent auction and procure items like sports gear, gym memberships, and signed sports memorabilia.

If you’ve narrowed down your challenge options but still can’t decide, survey your supporters. After all, they’ll be the ones participating, so getting their input can help steer your fundraiser in the right direction.

3. Leverage peer-to-peer fundraising.

To expand your challenge fundraiser’s reach, incorporate a peer-to-peer fundraising element. As Qgiv’s peer-to-peer fundraising guide explains, this fundraising strategy “provides your supporters a way to raise money on your behalf by allowing them to create their own personalized fundraising campaigns that they use to appeal to their personal networks for donations.”

Enable peer-to-peer fundraising by investing in a dedicated software solution. Then, follow these steps to get started:

• Recruit fundraising participants. Explain to your supporters how peer-to-peer fundraising works and the impact they could have on your cause by participating.
• Teach them how to create their own fundraising pages. Each participant will create their own fundraising page using your peer-to-peer fundraising platform. According to Bloomerang’s donation page guide, it’s important to include a compelling reason to give using both text and images to draw donors in, which is especially true for peer-to-peer fundraising. Have participants add storytelling elements to demonstrate their connection to your cause and why they’re participating in your challenge, accompanied by photos and videos for further personalization.
• Encourage them to share their pages with friends and family. Lastly, participants can share their pages with friends and family to rack up donations for your cause. They may secure pledges, such as a certain dollar amount per mile walked, or flat donations.

To maximize results, stir up friendly competition by introducing teams to your fundraiser or offering prizes to whoever raises the most for your cause. These extra incentives will motivate participants to promote your fundraising efforts and secure more donations.

4. Work with corporate sponsors.

Take your challenge fundraiser to the next level by reaching out to corporate sponsors who may be willing to lend their support. Try to find sponsors that relate to the specific challenge you’re hosting.

For example, if you’re hosting a viral video challenge, you may team up with a company that produces ring lights or other video creation tools.

Then, determine where you need your sponsors’ assistance. There are a variety of ways corporate sponsors can help with your challenge fundraiser, including through:

• Financial support, such as direct donations, matching gifts, or challenge grants
• In-kind donations, such as branded merchandise, prizes, and venue space
• Marketing and promotion, such as shoutouts on their social media, newsletter, or website

Partnering with sponsors for your challenge fundraiser can be a stepping stone to long-lasting relationships with these businesses. Make these partnerships mutually beneficial by showcasing the good work your sponsors do to support your organization.

Additionally, highlight additional benefits companies can receive through partnering with your nonprofit. For example, 90% of businesses indicate that their relationships with nonprofits enhance their brands, and 70% of employees think it’s important to work for an employer that shares their values.

5. Provide regular updates.

Since your challenge fundraiser will last for an extended period of time, keep your supporters updated on your progress. You may do so by:

• Creating a dedicated newsletter. Invite challenge participants to subscribe to a newsletter specifically for sharing challenge-related news and updates.
• Using fundraising thermometers. A fundraising thermometer is a visual representation of your progress toward your fundraising goal. Put one on your campaign page for all supporters and participants to see.
• Posting on social media. Share quick updates on social media, and post shoutouts for participants who are going above and beyond.
• Messaging participants and donors directly. You may also message participants and donors directly to share your progress using their preferred communication channels. For example, if a donor contributed via text-to-give, provide them with quick updates over text.

Remember to thank your donors as well. Match your appreciation strategies to their gift sizes with thank-you notes for smaller donors and more intensive methods like phone calls and donor walls for major donors.

At the end of your challenge fundraiser, collect feedback from your supporters. If participants enjoyed it, consider making it an annual or recurring campaign to boost your fundraising efforts and give supporters something to look forward to.