What Makes Peer Fundraisers Successful? Examining Peer‐to‐Peer Fundraising Success in the Context of Peer‐to‐Peer Nonprofit–Business Collaboration

Abstract

To advance the conceptual understanding of what drives peer‐to‐peer fundraising success, this study takes a first step toward conceptualizing antecedents of peer fundraiser success based on a real‐world nonprofit–business collaboration. Drawing on social network and signaling theories, combined with knowledge from peer‐to‐peer fundraising literature, the authors developed and tested a mid‐range theory‐driven framework of peer fundraising success. The study collected observable data from a peer‐to‐peer collaboration between UNICEF and Les Mills, labeled “Workout for Water” campaign, and analyzed a unique dataset of 1899 fitness instructors who were engaged in the campaign as peer fundraisers. By contrasting characteristics and actions of successful and unsuccessful peer fundraisers, the empirical evidence from the two‐part model affirms several antecedents distinguishing between those peer fundraisers who achieve fundraising success and those who do not. The personal efforts to initiate additional actions and peer fundraiser's professional reputation within the peer community are particularly important. Furthermore, personalizing the individual's online fundraising page is important for overcoming the barrier of receiving no donations. As a key implication for practice, we present how to better realize peer‐to‐peer fundraising campaigns within a nonprofit–business collaboration setting.