Since its founding in 1887, Mercy Home for Boys & Girls has helped countless youth to escape poverty, abuse, or neglect. Mercy Home has turned to many types of fundraising campaigns to support its vital mission. In recent years, this has included an annual “peer-to-peer” (P2P) fundraising campaign focused on “Giving Tuesday,” which occurs each year in the USA on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Giving Tuesday has become the kickoff to the year-end giving season — and a major source of revenue for Mercy Home and thousands of other charities.
The Challenge
Mercy Home in prior years had resorted to hacking their regular donation form to fulfill their peer-to-peer fundraising needs. But as time went on, this “Frankensteined” P2P solution became much harder to maintain and, even worse, its P2P pages were not mobile-responsive. Mercy Home knew that there had to be a better way to execute P2P campaigns, so in 2016 they decided to embrace more sophisticated, purpose-built technology.
The Solution
Mercy Home decided to add the new mobile-friendly Engaging Networks P2P tool – an optional add-on that was co-created with Zuri Group – to the organisation’s software subscription with Engaging Networks. In short order, and with very little help from outside technical staff, Mercy Home was able to create a compelling and engaging P2P campaign to meet their needs. Mercy Home team members found the campaign’s back-end setup fast and intuitive, and using the tools was a breeze, greatly reducing the amount of staff time and effort needed. Team members also took advantage of the easy social sharing feature, a scrolling honor roll and a thermometer to show the campaign’s progress toward its fundraising goal.
The Results
It wasn’t only Mercy Home staff who found the system easy to use. Mercy Home supporters did, too. On Giving Tuesday 2016, the organization’s P2P campaign raised more than $57,000 USD – a dramatic increase over the previous year’s sum of $18,000 USD.
