The impact of sponsorships on fundraising: data-driven insights

In the ever-evolving world of peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising, sponsorships have emerged as a powerful tool for boosting donations and enhancing the success of fundraising campaigns. An analysis of donation data across multiple campaigns reveals that integrating sponsorships into P2P fundraising campaigns can significantly increase average donations, offering substantial benefits for charities and non-profit organisations.

In this blog post, we look into the impact of sponsorships on donation behaviour, highlight the benefits of this fundraising strategy, and explore how charities can leverage sponsorships to amplify their fundraising efforts.

What are sponsorships?

Sponsorships are a form of pledge-based fundraising within the P2P fundraising model, where supporters commit to donating based on the completion of a particular activity or milestone by a fundraiser. As described on our page about our online Pledge Fundraising software, this feature allows fundraisers to secure pledges in advance, encouraging larger donations by linking contributions directly to their personal or physical challenges, such as running a marathon or achieving a fitness goal.

Sponsorships not only motivate fundraisers to achieve their targets but also incentivise donors by providing a tangible connection between their financial support and the fundraiser's success.

This dynamic interaction fosters a deeper commitment from both fundraisers and donors, resulting in increased engagement and higher donation amounts.

Analysing the impact of sponsorships on donations

Our analysis of 14 campaigns that utilised sponsorships reveals compelling results, with two standout examples that highlight the power of sponsorships:

• A golfmaraton: This campaign, which challenges participants to see how many holes of golf can be played in 24 hours, saw a significant increase in average donation amounts when sponsorships were involved. Donations without sponsorships had an average donation size of  31 € (232 DKK). However, for sponsorships, this average was 86 € (645 DKK), representing an average 177.54% larger donation size. This demonstrates how sponsorships can motivate donors to contribute more.
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• A cycling event: As a classic example of a cycling challenge event also benefitted greatly from sponsorships. The average donation without sponsorships was 71 € (529 DKK), but this was 92 € (706 DKK) for sponsorships, a 33.41% improvement. Biking races are highly sponsorable events, where donors are likely to pledge more when they know their contributions are tied to the distance or difficulty of the race completed by the fundraiser.
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• Overall impact: Across all campaigns, the average donation was 119.2% larger for sponsorships (86€) than for normal donations (40 € ). This data demonstrates the powerful impact sponsorships can have on boosting the financial success of fundraising campaigns.

An experienced P2P professional or just any data-savvy person will probably intervene if we might have an issue with how we did the analysis. The above analysis compares sponsorships and donations for the same campaigns. This has the benefit of comparing the results within the same population and campaign setup. The downside is that high-net-worth donors might self-select into sponsorships. If that is the case the results are not surprising. 

We believe that the general reasoning behind it supports our interpretation, but to check, we have tried comparing the results of these campaigns with campaigns that match them in style, type, and size. 

Specifically we compared the cycling event mentioned above and other cyclin events in the dataset with other cycling challenge events that don’t use sponsorship from the same years. The average donation size for cycling events that use sponsorships is 68 € kr whereas it for cycling events that don’t use sponsorship is just 40 € kr, another words it was up 45%! 

The benefits of sponsorships

The benefits of integrating sponsorships into fundraising campaigns are multifaceted:

1. Higher engagement: By linking donations to specific milestones or achievements, sponsorships create a more interactive and engaging experience for donors, leading to stronger emotional connections and higher donation amounts.
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2. Motivation for fundraisers: Sponsorships provide fundraisers with clear, tangible goals, motivating them to perform better and achieve their fundraising targets. This, in turn, drives donor confidence and encourages larger contributions.
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3. Enhanced donor experience: Sponsorships offer donors a more personalised giving experience, as they can see the direct impact of their contributions. This transparency fosters trust and encourages repeat donations.
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4. Increased visibility and reach: Sponsorships often involve public challenges or events, which can attract media attention and generate buzz, thereby increasing the visibility of the campaign and attracting more donors.

BetterNow's documentation on sponsored fundraisers provides more detailed information on configuring and utilizing sponsorships effectively.

The impact

The data speaks for itself: sponsorships are a powerful tool that can significantly enhance the success of P2P fundraising campaigns. By driving higher average donation amounts and fostering deeper donor engagement, sponsorships offer charities a compelling way to maximise their fundraising potential.

As the fundraising landscape continues to evolve, integrating sponsorships into your campaigns can provide a competitive edge, ensuring that your organisation meets and exceeds its fundraising goals. With the right strategy and tools, only you can achieve amazing results through the power of sponsorships.