Blue Sea Foundation

Our P2P fundraising events take a lot of the heavy lifting off your plate. That means you can create a heart-racing, buzz-building, donor-delighting fundraising campaign by focusing on a handful of exercises. The most important one being: team captain recruitment! 

That’s right, team captain recruitment must be your #1 priority, because team captains are the key to a successful campaign – hands down, every time. 

Get Your Recruitment Muscles Warmed Up

Team captain recruitment isn’t complicated, but it does take time and effort. You might work up a bit of a sweat, but if you’ve got the heart, we’ve got a foolproof plan. So squeeze into that spandex (yep! Spandex is cool again), do a couple of stretches, and let’s get recruiting! 

First things first, set your fundraising goal and do the math to calculate how many captains you need to reach it. You can try to recruit the 100, 200, or 500 people you need to hit your fundraising goal, or you could recruit a handful of your charity’s salt-of-the-earth supporters as team captains and let them do the recruiting, leading, and fundraising for you. Hint: the second idea is so. much. better. Team captains will be your best recruiters and most invested fundraisers, among many other awesome qualities. 

Plan Your Workout

What makes a great team captain? Where can you find them? How do you get them onboarded in time? 

Our game-changing recruitment strategy maps all of your charity’s contacts and relationships in concentric circles. These circles house your best potential team captains: 

Start with the core, recruiting those closest to you – those who already know and love you – and move out from there. This core consists of your board members, management team, and major donors – all the people you regularly interact with who make your awesome work come to life. 

As leaders don’t forget your friends and family too. They are your inner core fan club and most events can count on Mom, Dad, siblings and others to team up and fundraise!

Gear Up + Get Moving 

Ready to turn up the speed for real results? Let’s go!

• Use your core! Ask each board member, management team, or major donor to be a team captain. Encourage these core captains to tap into their own varied and diverse networks to recruit a fabulous team, do some spirited fundraising, and get the word out about your charity.
  • Your Board of Directors can engage with your event in two ways: 
    • If your primary focus is on raising funds, the Board Chair can champion a super-team of board members who commit to raising a lot of money together. 
    • If you hope to build a lot of awareness through the event, the board can divide and conquer, captaining multiple teams that tap into the reach, influence, and rolodex of these key players (no, rolodexes are not cool again, sadly.)
  • Major Donors are great potential team captains. Don’t assume they are one-and-done with their last big cheque. Invite them to start a team, be on a team, and fundraise from their rich network like everyone else.
  • Look for a way to ask these folks during a face-to-face interaction – bring it up at the next board gathering, ask them to connect over coffee, and commit to discussing it at your next meeting. 
• Add some weight! Successful campaigns need buy-in from leadership. Set the expectation that your leadership team all sign up to be enthusiastic captains. Be clear and do what it takes to secure buy-in as early as possible.
• Practice muscle memory! Remember alllll those people who have participated and donated in the past? Invite them back and ask them to lead their own teams. They are an often untapped, but readily accessible, resource. (Hop into your WAVES account, download the last 5 years’ participant data, and reach out to anyone who raised more than $500 to see if they’d consider leading a team this year.)
• Don’t skip leg day! Do leg work for big returns: with each interaction/meeting/pumpkin spice latte, ask: “How can I invite this person to be a team captain?” That volunteer group that shows up to paint and do odd jobs every May? Put it on their radar. That business that loves to do semi-yearly drop-offs? Let them know. Those teens who do their service hours with you? Sign them up! These interested groups will appreciate another touch point and a new way to support your work. 
• Stretch! Once you’ve done the work of getting your inner circles on board, think bigger: what businesses in your community might want to join in? Remember, this work is important, but often doesn’t yield the same results as exploring your active base. 

Sure, this workout takes… work. Team captain recruitment needs a little time and energy but it pays off big time. Results guaranteed. 

By focusing on team captain recruitment and going all in on these exercises, you’ll be building an amazing community of individuals who are engaged in your work, charting the path to fundraising success, and potentially finding new relationships to further your mission. Grab that water bottle, headband, and runners – it’s time to sweat it out and make it happen. 

Next Steps:

• Login to WAVES and read through the Team Captain Recruitment Generator. 

When a major or mid-sized donor writes a cheque for $2,000, $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 the response from most charities is usually very prompt and very personal.

A warm call from your CEO perhaps, a personal hand-written note from your development director at the very least, and likely a swag-bag full of acknowledgment in appreciation of their generosity. And rightly so – you or your gifts officer likely worked very hard nurturing that relationship over many months or even years, so that when the cheque finally got written it was worthy of the acknowledgement and celebration. 

What’s often the icing on the major or mid-sized donor cake is what happens after you bank their gift.  Donors like these, who are stewarded well, have tremendous potential to deliver additional value to your charity including:

• Additional gifts in the future
• Peers they willingly introduce you to 
• High capacity volunteer skills and a willingness to help
• Committee or even Board of Director leadership potential

Your Other Major Donors 

Here’s the big secret: the very qualities you seek in these donor prospects (the ones you and your development team spend hours, days, and weeks searching for in your database) are mirrored in many donors who are already supporting your charity – team captains. 

Yes, team captains. 

Buried in the dusty participant list of your well-loved peer-to-peer fundraising event are some faithful and passionate major and mid-sized donors that you may be missing out on. These generous, faithful influencers are right under your nose and deserve your attention. 

Here’s a short list of why you should dedicate MORE time and attention to your team captains:

1. They Often Self-Donate – Most team captains make the first donation to their campaign. They pull out their credit card and self donate to get things going. Some give quite generously, but regardless of the amount, these folks are known for having skin in the game. 

2. They Fundraise Well – Team captains are often outstanding fundraisers and the longer they fundraise the better they get at it. It’s not enough to give themselves, they expect their friends and families to give too. They are your unpaid development team: a captain who fundraises $1,000 will personally ask 15-20 donors that your charity would likely never meet otherwise.

3. Their Team Fundraises Too –  Not surprisingly, they inspire their friends and family to fundraise with them. The average team fundraises about $2,000 but many hit higher levels of $5,000, $10,000 and $20,000.

4. They Come Back Year After Year – Team captains often take part in a well-run p2p fundraising event for a minimum of 4-5 years. They are incredibly faithful. Take a moment and do the math: what’s the value of even a modest team that raises $2,000 annually for 4-5 years? (And that’s not taking into account the anecdotal, undocumented benefits of additional gifts, volunteering, etc.)

5. They Recruit Religiously – Captains tend to be great at recruiting the people in their network to walk, run, ride, hop, etc. with them. Most team captains take their role very seriously. If you ask them well, make your expectations clear, and help when they need it, they’ll recruit to heaven and back for you. 

6. They Spread the Word – During your event (and after) team captains like to talk about their experience, your charity, and why they got involved. It comes naturally to them. Does your $20,000 major donor evangelize for you this way? I wonder… 

7. They Sing Your Praises –  Team captains are often your biggest, loudest, and most vocal cheerleaders. They love your cause and they may even love you. Imagine what they would do if they got your attention? If they felt acknowledged and seen? 

8. They Can Introduce You To Others – A captain’s high fundraisers and large donors could be valuable prospects for your charity. Treat captains well and then ask for an introduction. This is one way to ensure your event feeds into your year round fundraising efforts.

9. They Have Great Ideas (If You’ll Ask Them) – Imagine how much insight a team captain might have about your annual p2p event if only you’d ask! They see stuff you can’t. They want you to be successful. Ask them for advice! Plus, asking team captains for advice doesn’t just help you, it helps them feel connected and in relationship with your charity. 

10. They Often Have Potential To Give More – If your team captain self-donates then they are prime candidates for giving directly, outside the event. This is one of the easiest asks you’ll have all year. You know they give, they gave to you so, what’s stopping you?  

11. Some Of Them Own Businesses – Leaders in business often find themselves as leaders in p2p events. So as you scour your registrants and notice their email is a business be sure to get to know them better. They could become matching donors, major donors, sponsors, or centres of influence.  And if you notice a business owner on a team who isn’t a team captain then look to get an introduction to see if you can’t get to know them a little better. 

12. Youth Team Captains Have Parents Worth Noticing – There’s not much more to say here except before potentially turning your noses up at lowly youth teams, remember who their donors might be: parents, grandparents, and other adults who want to support their youthful zeal. It’s kind of funny to think that the gatekeeper to the wealthiest donor prospects in town might be on one of your youth teams. You can’t make this stuff up. 

13. They Will Take Your Call – If a team captain has self-donated, fundraised, recruited, and led their own team in your event then you can be pretty confident that they know who you are (as event director). They will take your call. You can’t abuse this access, but you can be confident that at the very least they’ll pick up when you dial. 

14. They Are Humble And Kind – Well no, not all of them are nice, but honestly, after 17 years in p2p I can say that the vast majority of team captains are incredibly decent human beings and a joy to work and talk with. They give without strings or expectations, other than perhaps throwing them a little bone once in a while acknowledging how they are busting their butt for you and your charity. Please give them that. 

Team captains really are wonderful. And better yet, they are low maintenance, often living off the scraps of their meaningful experience in your event, or the briefest of discussions with you on event day. Can you imagine how they might respond if they received your full attention? They’ve already bought in to some extent, it’s time you give them what they deserve, considering all they are giving to you. 

So by all means, keep digging for new prospects in town. Have at it. But when you get tired of that exhausting excavation, dig up your participant list from last year’s walk-a-thon and open your eyes to the rich potential your team captains list offers you. They are the hidden gold in your p2p fundraising event. 

Next Steps

• Do a deeper-data dive on your team captains – discover your treasure. 
• Write a plan to better love, acknowledge and nurture your team captains. 
• Include a communications plan to give them ‘insider’ info on your charity or event.
• Begin to think through an individual stewardship plan for each identified captain. 
• If you are in the middle of your campaign, be sure to call them to say thanks today. 

A few years ago I finally threw it out. 

The paper was ripping and the light blue ink was hard to read, but still, I paused at length before finally tossing it in the trash. I’d kept it since October 1991 when it came, stamp affixed, in a nice embossed envelope. 21 words, written by hand, and sent from someone I deeply respected. 

A thank you card.

“Brian, What’s in the water up there? What an amazing month! Thanks for your business and thanks for being you ~ Bob”

Were those the exact words? No, they were not. But the “Brian” and “Bob” parts were there and something about him appreciating what I’d done was in there too. Also, holding on to it for years and years was absolutely true. I kept that note in the top right drawer of my desk and read it more times than I’d like to admit. 

That thank you mattered to me. 

The impact of a sincere, well delivered thank you cannot be overstated. A thank you is the easiest and most effective way to nurture any relationship. Honest, heartfelt thank yous build trust, inspire confidence, lift loyalty, and make an impression that lingers long after they are first experienced. 

Now of course, you’ve been thanking people for years, and if you’re running p2p fundraising events, you already know successful events require a lot of thank yous. So, whether you’re looking for some inspiration and new ideas, or somewhere to start, here are seven high-impact thank you ideas that work.

7 High-impact Thank You Ideas

1. Postcards – Never forget the basics because they work everytime! Handwritten thank yous never go out of style. Use one of our designs, a postcard with your charity branding, or better yet, pick one up from a not-quite-exotic Canadian location and write, “I was in ________, thought of you, and wanted to say thanks for _________.” Stick a stamp on that puppy and you’ve got yourself a thank you that will land on someone’s fridge for months. Postcards, yes, it’s 1957 again. 

2. Personal Video – Last year I gave to a local shelter who emailed me with an ask I couldn’t resist. A few days later, I received a one-minute video from their CEO who gushed some words of appreciation. It was way too much for the level of gift, but guess what? I shared it with most of my friends. That thank you landed well. So well that I gave again this year. You could do the same with your p2p event. When thank yous are personal, thoughtful, and shareable – you’ve hit the thank you trifecta. 

3. CEO Call/Card – Your VIP fundraisers or Team Captains would be blown away to hear from your CEO/ED directly. How to make that happen?
   • Draw up a short list of your top 10 fundraisers, including their addresses and phone numbers, their team names, and how much they raised.
   • Give the list to your leader(s) and ask, “Please call these folks, thank them, and ask if they have any questions. If they don’t have any questions, ask them one simple question – ‘Why did you do this?’” 
   • These simple steps will lead to a sweet discussion that leaves both parties feeling encouraged.  

4. Chair of the Board Call/Card – Same idea as above, except when you ask your Board Chair to make these calls, they have the advantage of saying, “I’m a volunteer just like you and I can’t begin to tell you how much this means to the charity, our leadership team, and of course our beneficiaries (you’d use another word)…” It’s always worthwhile for a board member to connect with the community of supporters. It’s a fiduciary ear to the ground that will instruct their BOD decision making and it leaves your Top 10s feeling recognized and appreciated.

5. Social Media Shout Out – If the person(s) you want to thank are active on social media, imagine how they’d react to a public expression of thanks! Post meaningful shout outs online and tag those VIPs. Ensure the captions and sentiment feels personal and specific to each individual you’re thanking (think about including the same content/length as you would in a hand-written thank you card). Consider sharing a picture of the person (if it’s flattering) and tagging your CEO to widen the impact. 

6. Group Thank You Email – A couple of years ago I gave to a walker who was participating in the Coldest Night of the Year. The day of the event I received an email where he named (by first name only) and thanked everyone who gave to him and what they meant to him. I was blown away. Not only did I love seeing the cohort of givers and reading what was great about each person, I blushed at his kind thank you to me too. They were short bullet points, nothing too fancy – but they were words from the heart and they had a real and lasting impact on me. It was an efficient use of his time too. Consider how you might use this approach with your groups of event volunteers, donors, vendors, or other stakeholders who deserve a thank you this year. 

7. Connect the Dots – When a team captain or participant raises some big money (whatever big means to your charity) in a p2p fundraising event, one way to thank them is by connecting their fundraising dot to your charity impact dot. When you reach out to thank them, share a specific example of  how the funds they helped raise made a difference. 

“Do you remember the $3,500 your team raised a couple months ago? That money let’s us do this, that and this other thing, and because of that, we see or expect to see these things happen (insert impact).”

Make it easy for them to connect the dots and then say, “I want you to know how much we appreciate the way you busted your butt for us this year. THANK YOU.” 

Be Strategic With Your Thank Yous 

To maximize your stakeholder engagement you’ve got to be strategic with your thank yous. Make a plan, estimate the time it will take to recognize everyone, and have a budget in place to support these efforts. Think about who can help you complete these thank yous in a timely manner, and most of all, think about who gets what kind of thank you and from whom. 

Start at the top without apology. Thank your biggest fundraising captains and participants first. Thank your sponsors second. Then your key volunteer leaders and their teams. And then your average (but oh-so-important) fundraising participants. If they both self-donated and fundraised, be sure to acknowledge that. They’ll love it.

If your event has less than 150 participants and 100 of them fundraised for your charity, make sure those fundraisers get a thank you from you. In the early years, it’s worth the investment of your time. Don’t waste time thanking participants who didn’t do anything thinking that it will motivate them to do something next year – it probably won’t. 

Finally, send a thank you to your spouse, partner, kids, or parents because let’s be honest, there has never been a p2p fundraising event anywhere that didn’t include someone’s family stepping up to the plate to help. Thank them too. 

What makes a thank you land? Exactly what you’d expect – sincerity, warmth, and friendliness. According to Time magazine, we shouldn’t overthink it. Don’t agonize over the words. There is a lot of grace when gratitude is concerned. We love being thanked and as it turns out, thanking people is also good for us. 

There are hundreds of thousands of peer-to-peer fundraising events across North America every year. A myriad of walk, run, ride, dance, read, hop, skip, and spin-a-thons are everywhere with the numbers growing annually. And why not? A successful p2p event can build buzz, momentum and your bottom line. A well executed a-thon can gather your community, rally your staff, bring attention to your charity and harvest thousands of sponsors and donors dollars. 

What’s not to love?  

Well for one, it takes a lot of energy to keep your event going if not growing. Sustaining that adrenaline-fused first year buzz is a challenge. People get bored, move on, or bump into new interests. As the stress of keeping up that momentum grows, so too does the tendency for charities to focus more on attendance rather than fundraising performance and as a result, the culture of fundraising suffers, and eventually, the event dies off from lack of fundraising oxygen. 

6 Signs Your Event Has a Culture of Fundraising

There are 6 major signs that your event has a culture of fundraising. Consider this a checklist to review with your board or committee to ensure your event isn’t slipping into awareness participation rather than fundraising satisfaction.

1. Obvious Fundraising Goal 
   • When you go to your event page do you see a super-obvious fundraising thermometer with your goal in bold? 
   • Is your fundraising goal known by everyone on your staff? 
   • Is it discussed often between those in management, program, and support roles? 
   • Is it shared on social media and in social circles? 
   • If it is, that means it’s embedded in your charity – and that’s a good sign. 

2. Unapologetic Fundraising Language 
   • Does your website and public-facing content make it crystal clear what your event is about? 
   • Do you invite people to fundraise first and walk/run/spin (or whatever it is your a-thon is doing) second? 
   • Does your auto-registration email thank people for registering to walk or registering to fundraise? 
   • Do you make it clear to your team captains what you need them to do in terms of fundraising? 
   • Give yourself a high-five if you aren’t beating around the bush with your fundraising language – this is also a good sign. 

3. Helpful Fundraising Tools + Support
   • Does your website and printed material provide useful, current tools to support fundraising?
   • Have you created fun, engaging social media images and content that support fundraising? 
   • If you’ve built these tools it’s likely because you understand fundraising (yay!) and it’s a positive indicator of your fundraising culture. Keep investing in training and asking. 

4. Big CEO Buy-In 
   • Does your CEO care about this event? 
   • Are they registered, leading a team, recruiting and fundraising? 
   • Do they inquire often as to the progress of your event and bring it up often in meetings?
   • Are they modelling what’s expected? 
   • If your CEO is a champion for your event and fundraising personally, chances are your event has a strong culture of fundraising #welldone

5. Percentage of Participants Fundraising 
   • How many of your participants are fundraising for you? 
   • Are at least 50% fundraising, with your real goal being between 60% and 70%?
   • If you have 50% or less your event is at risk of failure long term. It will implode on itself if you don’t correct it. 
   • When the majority of team captains and participants are fundraising the expectations, accountability and results change. 

6. Number of Donors – Sometimes an apparently successful fundraiser can be buoyed by a generous sponsorship or large donation. The final campaign revenue figure is high but when you dig down the fundraising metrics are actually weak. A key metric to track then, isn’t just the amount raised per participant but the number of donors who give to each participant (and the total number of donors in your event). 
   • Are these numbers growing? What’s the trend? Don’t hide behind large donations. 
   • Track your number of donors carefully to ensure a growing culture of fundraising. 
   • NOTE: great online fundraising systems track the number of emails ‘asks’ your participants send – this is also a helpful metric to track.

Building a successful fundraising culture in your p2p event takes planning, intentionality, and nerves of steel. Don’t fall for the “more participants is better” lie or it’s close cousin, ”if we get more participants this year they’ll convert to fundraising next year”. That almost never happens. Hold your ground, expect and encourage fundraising and you’ll get a lot of committed, passionate participants fundraising their hearts out for you without apology for years to come. 

So, you’ve just opened your calendar and see that your peer-to-peer fundraising event is less than two months away. How do you know you will succeed? How do you know you’ll hit your fundraising goals? The short answer is that while you can’t be 100% certain, the leading indicator of your future success is tied to your team captain recruitment. 

You need to ask “have we asked enough people and do we have enough team captains to hit our goal this year?” Now is the time to check in and ensure your recruiting is on pace, remembering that you need about 75%+ of your captains onboard 3-4 weeks before Event Day in order to give them enough time to recruit and fundraise well. 

But just how many captains do you need? It’s a simple math equation: divide your charity fundraising goal (for example, $30,000) by $1,500 (the average raised per team):

So now do your math. Where are you at? 

Ideally you should be at 25% of your team captain recruitment goal 45-60 days out. Are you close? Under or higher or on track? Recruitment should be your daily focus to ensure your success. The sooner captains register the sooner they can begin recruiting and the sooner they begin fundraising. Whatever your schedule looks like, be sure to clear enough time to focus on recruiting and communicating with your team captains and prospects. 

If you need MORE team captains:

• Refresh Your List
  • Open up your list of team captain prospects and walk your team through the Team Captain Prospect Generator in WAVES
• Loop Back
  • If you’ve already asked some folks and they’ve not yet responded, don’t assume their answer is no. Forward your original recruitment email to them with a friendly note,“Hey, you might have missed this – can we talk about it this week?” 
• Teamwork
  • Where possible make this a group effort. Don’t try to be the hero – get others in your charity to help ask as well. Make it a science by giving your team a list of prospective captains to ask. In your weekly or bi-weekly event management calls, be encouraging and accountable to each other, ensuring every prospect on your list is asked and followed up with.
• Challenge
  • Use the power of the Corporate & Community Challenge to uncover new Team Captain prospects. 

If you have ENOUGH team captains:

• Check-in and say thanks regularly
  • No matter what, send short, sweet emails to thank, support, and encourage your team captains. Throughout the campaign we recommend sending bi-weekly emails, then weekly emails for the final three weeks before event day. It’s a small action that can make a big difference!

• Equip captains to lead their teams
  • Share our new Team Captain’s Tips Sheet with all of your recruits, downloadable here:
    • rideforrefuge.org/captains
    • thegrandparade.org/teamcaptains
    • cnoy.org/captains

• Share Fundraising Advice
  • We have a lot (a lot, a lot) of advice, tools, and resources that you can use and share with your captains. From super helpful how to fundraise basics (RIDE, TGP, CNOY) to fundraising campaign ideas (RIDE, TGP, CNOY), to our Oscar nominated fundraising videos (not true, but let’s try and make that happen!?) (RIDE, TGP, CNOY), share our tools with your teams to keep those donations rolling in.
  • Not sure where to find them? Check out WAVES or contact your campaign success rep. 

Key Takeaway

Take inventory of your campaign. Do you have enough captains? Do you have enough prospects? Are you on track? Is your calendar open enough to allow you to focus on recruitment 60 days out? You still have time if you are behind, so dig in today!