Last week, I published an article about new donors and how they typically make their first gift to a nonprofit after a friend, family member, or colleague asks them to support the organization. If most new donors find your nonprofit through a friend, family member, or colleague, it seems like you need to empower those connectors to share your mission… But how do you do that? Enter the Friend-Raiser.

What is a FRiend-raiser?

A “friend-raiser” is a campaign, an event, or even a simple conversation that has the goal of attracting new supporters to your nonprofit. Unlike a fundraiser, which has the primary purpose of raising money for your nonprofit, a friend-raiser’s goal is just to spread the word about your mission so you can find likeminded individuals who want to support it.

How do you plan a Friend-Raiser?

Just like there’s no one way to fundraise, there’s no one way to attract new “friends” to your nonprofit! But my favorite way to find new friends is to empower your existing supporters to spread the word about your nonprofit.

There are three key steps to hosting a friend-raiser campaign:

Segment Your Supporters — Decide who you want to ask to spread the word about your nonprofit during this campaign. Ideally, you’d be able to empower all of your supporters to do this, but realistically, you probably won’t be able to manage that many requests all at the same time. For this one friend-raiser campaign, pick one segment of supporters you can ask for help. Maybe the segment is made up of your board members, your weekly volunteers, your major donors, or another group.
Set a Goal — Be specific about what you want your supporters to do during the friend-raiser. Do you want them to invite 5 friends to a friend-raising event? Do you want them to host a small dinner or cocktail party where you have the chance to talk about your mission? Decide exactly what you want them to do so they know how to support you.
Set Them Up for Success — If your supporters have never engaged in fundraising or “friend-raising” before, they may feel overwhelmed by the goal you’ve set for them. Set them up for success by taking care of all the heavy lifting. If you’re hosting a friend-raising event, give them a stack of invitations they can hand out to their loved ones and colleagues. If you’re asking them to host a dinner/cocktail party, help them every step of the way with the logistics. Create a clear timeline and outline exactly who is responsible for which task so they don’t feel left in the dark.

7 more ways to make a friend-raiser successful

The steps I outlined above are the most crucial. But if you want to have an even greater impact with your friend-raiser, try these tips:

1. Develop 1-3 key talking points for your friend-raisers.

Remember that all of your supporters are passionate about your mission for different reasons. If your nonprofit is an animal shelter, one of your supporters may REALLY love your catch-and-release program while another REALLY loves your affordable spay/neuter community services while yet another REALLY loves your volunteer program. That’s awesome! But you also want to make sure that all of your ambassadors are sharing the same message and representing your organization the way you want it to be represented.

Come up with 1-3 key talking points that you train your friend-raisers to cover whenever they’re out in the community talking about your nonprofit. The fewer the number of talking points you have, the more likely it is that they’ll remember what they’re supposed to say.

2. Create toolkits for your supporters to use.

I LOVE a good toolkit! Toolkits give supporters everything they need, all in one place, to start “raising friends” for your nonprofit. Your toolkit may include:

A timeline for your friend-raising campaign
A sample message supporters can copy and paste in a text message or email to their friends, family, and loved ones talking about your nonprofit
1-3 photos/images supporters can send out to help illustrate your mission
Direct links to your key pages (like your website, donation page, and social media channels) that supporters can copy and paste to send to their loved ones
A strong call-to-action you want supporters to use when they talk about you (Examples: RSVP for our friend-raising event; Sign up for our email list; Follow us on Instagram)
Your contact information that supporters can use if they have a question during their friend-raising initiative

3. Set up a way for supporters to collect their friends’ contact information.

Friend-raising isn’t effective unless you have a way to contact your new “friends” so you can continue developing relationships with them after the friend-raising campaign ends. Here are some examples of how you can collect your new “friends” contact information:

If you’re hosting a friend-raising event, collect attendees’ email addresses as part of the registration process (such as through Eventbrite)
If your existing supporters are hosting their own friend-raising events, ask them to collect their loved ones’ email addresses if/when their loved ones express interest in learning more about your mission
If your existing supporters are inviting their loved ones to a volunteer event, collect the new volunteers’ email addresses as part of the orientation process

IMPORTANT NOTE: You cannot add someone to your email marketing list unless they’ve given you permission to do so. You can ask something like, “Is it OK if we send you an email once per week to share stories about our work?” or “Do you mind if we keep you updated about volunteer opportunities through our email list?”

4. Incorporate an impactful story into your friend-raising campaign.

It’s great to give people a high-level view of your nonprofit’s mission and the work you do, but telling impactful, relatable stories about your beneficiaries is the most effective way to obtain new “friends.” Make sure your existing supporters either (1) have a personal story about how your work has impacted their lives that they can tell their friends, family, and colleagues, or (2) know a handful of stories about how others have benefited from your mission work that they can share.

People don’t buy into a mission because they hear about a problem you’re solving or learn a statistic about how many people you serve. They buy into your mission because they feel like they can relate to a story about an individual whose life has been changed thanks to your work.

5. Incorporate evidence of your impact.

Research about fundraising best practices concludes that one of the best ways to attract new supporters is to show evidence that your nonprofit has a positive impact on people, animals, or environments. Don’t just say:

We support children in need.
We save stray animals.
We preserve land.

You need to demonstrate the real impact your work has on your beneficiaries. Instead, try:

When children have strong literacy skills by fourth grade, they’re significantly more likely to pursue secondary education after graduating high school, get a higher paying job, and be able to support their families’ future. Every year, our tutors help 300 underserved third graders learn the literacy skills they need to succeed.
Before we opened our doors, the shelters in our community weren’t able to keep up with the number of stray dogs and cats who were rescued. Since we started our program six years ago, we’ve been able to save over 500 animals from kill shelters.
We believe our community deserves open spaces where we can learn about wildlife and have places for our children to play. Last year, we were able to protect the land used to create NAME Park, which allowed us to save homes for over 20 species of animals and 10 species of plants.

6. Be prepared for your supporters’ loved ones to buy into your mission.

During your friend-raising campaign, don’t be caught off guard when new “friends” are ready to support you right away! Be prepared with answers when people ask:

How can I help?
What are you working on next? How can I support that project?
Are you taking new volunteers?
What is your greatest need right now?

7. Build a donor journey to cultivate new relationships.

Once you get new “friends” for your organization, it’s important to steward those relationships properly so you can convert them into donors, volunteers, board members, and other important types of stakeholders.

Learn How to Develop Your Donor Journey

What is a Friend-Raiser, and How Do You Plan One?