For Blue Sea Philanthropy’s Brian Carney, successful P2P fundraising campaigns aren’t about money. They are about community.
Successful campaigns do more than raise money — they bring people together around a shared experience to advance an important cause.
Few P2P campaigns in Canada have been more adept at bringing people together than Blue Sea Philanthropy’s Coldest Night of the Year, which recently brought together nearly 18,500 walkers at 92 locations to raise money for organizations that help the hungry and homeless.
While the final numbers are still being tallied, the February event is expected to generate more than $3.85 million in donations for charities across Canada — or roughly 17 percent more than the $3.3 million raised by Coldest Night in 2015.
The strong results come on top of a particularly strong year for the campaign in 2014. Coldest Night saw its fundraising revenue increase by a whopping 62 percent to more than $2.5 million in 2014, making it the fastest-growing P2P program in Canada, according to a study by Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Canada.
Carney cites a number of factors behind Coldest Night’s continued growth.
Blue Sea continues to invest heavily in its systems — from a state-of-the-art campaign portal to its cutting-edge website. It has also put a heavy emphasis on building new corporate partnerships, which has helped fuel greater participation and generate new revenue.
But Carney says the campaign’s greatest resource is the community it has built. Unlike most P2P campaigns that represent a single organization, Coldest Night supports a coalition of local nonprofits — big and small — all of which work on addressing the same issues.
As the program has grown and developed, many of these organizations have developed their own partnerships — sharing information and best practices that are helping all of them succeed. Blue Sea has helped foster those relationships, setting up conference calls and providing opportunities for its charity partners to connect and share.
“If you spend the time on relationship development, you see wonderful results and amazing relationships form,” Carney says. “That, above all else, has been really rewarding to see.”
You can learn more about Coldest Night’s success during a free April 13 webinar hosted by Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Canada. Brian Carney will discuss the campaign’s growth and share insights with fellow P2P fundraisers.