Create a peer-to-peer campaign
A peer-to-peer campaign is a fundraiser that an organization hosts, but allows participants to sign up to raise money on their behalf. It is a great option for organizations who want to leverage their donors’ networks to raise funds.
There are 2 types of of peer-to-peer campaigns: simple and advanced. A simple campaign allows participants to create and share their campaign in one step. Advanced campaigns have a registration component, in which participants first have to sign up for the event through a separate form.
If you’re organizing a campaign in which participants will be required to pay a registration fee, you should go with an advanced campaign.
To create a peer-to-peer campaign, go to "Donations" and click on "New Form." Then select Peer-to-Peer campaign.
The first step is completing the "General Information" page. You can add a title, a campaign objective, and a description for your event.

To make the peer-to-peer process easier for your donors, you can provide a step-by-step guideline on how to navigate the campaign page in the event description. Check out our blog article with the complete steps for fundraisers.
Once you're done with the first step, you'll move on to the "Create your Form" section. Here you can add a logo and form banner to your campaign.
You can configure two thank you messages: One for your donors, and one for the fundraisers. Donors are individuals who donated to the campaign. Fundraisers are individuals who created a campaign through which others can donate.
Your peer-to-peer form will look something like this:

Donors who land on your campaign page can choose to donate, fundraise, or both.
If the donor clicks "Donate," they'll be asked if they want to give to the general campaign or to a specific team or individual's campaign. Selecting the general campaign will take them directly to the payment page. If they want to donate to team or individual campaign, they need to click on that campaign and then click "Donate."
If the donor clicks "Fundraise," they can create a team or an individual fundraising campaign, or they can join a team that has already been created. When creating a team, the fundraiser has the option to join the team, which will automatically create them an individual profile within the team campaign.

Campaigns created by participants have their own thermometer. You can see it when you click on the campaign. The amount collected gets added up to the parent campaign's thermometer.
An advanced peer-to-peer campaign requires donors to pay for a registration fee before donating or fundraising through the main campaign page.
Here are the steps to creating an advanced peer-to-peer campaign:
- 1.Create your peer-to-peer form! Follow the steps above to create the form.
- 2.Create your ticketing form. Add rates based on the different registration types and other goodies you may be selling.
- 3.Go back to your peer-to-peer form. Link the peer-to-peer form to your ticketing form in "Advanced parameters" by checking "Add a registration process to my campaign."

If you check "Include registration amount paid in the campaign thermometer," the registration fees that you collect will be added to your peer-to-peer campaign thermometer.
If you check "Mandatory registration through the ticketing form in order to fundraise," the "Fundraise" button will be removed from your peer-to-peer form. This means that participants will only be able to create fundraising campaigns at the time of registration.
4. Your registration and peer-to-peer forms are linked! Your peer-to-peer form now features a "Registration" button that will take donors to the ticketing form, where they can register for the event.
5. Customize the "Fundraise" and "Registration" buttons in the advanced settings of your form by checking the customize label option.

To ensure that your participants register correctly and understand the process of donating and fundraising, we recommend adding a step-by-step guide in the description of your registration and peer-to-peer forms. See the section "Making things easier for your donors" below for example instructions.
Here is an example of an advanced peer-to-peer campaign by the Chatham-Kent Hospice Foundation, as well as their campaign registration page.
Here are the steps that your participants will take in an advanced peer-to-peer process:
- 1.Participants will register through the ticketing form by paying the registration fee.
- 2.When payment is complete, they will be redirected to a window that asks them to create or join a campaign.

3. Once the participant has created their campaign, they will be redirected to a page where they can edit the campaign further or share it.

4. By clicking "See my form," the participant will be taken to campaign page. Their campaign is live! They can now donate, either to their campaign they just created, or to the general campaign.
If the participant who created the campaign wants his or her name to be displayed on the campaign (perhaps as a team leader), they must join the campaign by clicking on the "Join Team" button.
If a person only wishes to donate, they don't have to go through the registration process. They can donate directly through the peer-to-peer campaign.
The advanced peer-to-peer campaign is a multi-step process, so you might want to give your donors some pointers on how to proceed. You can include instructions in your form descriptions, as well as the thank you email.
On the peer-to-peer form, you might want to remind donors they need to register first, with a message such as:
"Participants should first register to the campaign through the registration form."
On the ticketing (registration) form, you can inform participants that they will be redirected to the peer-to-peer campaign after making the payment, with a message such as:
"Once you pay the registration fee, you'll be asked to create or create or join a fundraising campaign. You can then donate to the campaign you've created by clicking on the "Donate" button."
You can increase the peer-to-peer thermometer by adding donations to the campaign manually. Go to Donations in your Zeffy dashboard and click “Add donation” on the top right corner. Select the peer-to-peer campaign from the drop-down menu.
If you'd like fundraisers to sign up right away, add the term below to your campaign link and send it to them:
?openFundraiser=True
The page will open directly to create a campaign.
There are also other options, such as:
?openTeamCreation=True to open on the "Create a team" page
?openTeamJoin=True to open on the "Join a team" page
3. Pre-filling the target amount
You can send your donors a custom link that will have the target amount you’d like them to raise pre-filled. To do this, add this term to the end of your campaign link:
&target=20000
For example: https://app.simplyk.io/peer-to-peer/1bec4eda-7b6c-459f-b992-1cab4095924d?openFundraiser=True&target=20000
4. Renaming the "Registration" and "Fundraise" buttons
If you’d like to rename these buttons, you can go to the "Advanced Settings" section of your form. Click on "Customize button label". There, you can change the buttons to say the word(s) of your choice!

5. Preventing donors from editing their campaigns
Donors can make changes to their campaigns by logging into their Zeffy account. If you’d like to disable this option, write to us at [email protected]
6. Displaying your campaign on your website
If you have the resources to build a web page for your campaign, use this structure to create a streamlined page for your fundraisers and donors.
For the best user experience for your donors and fundraisers, try setting up your campaign website page with buttons and an embedded donation form. Use your website editor to insert three different buttons linking out to different campaign activities:
- Donate
- Create a fundraising campaign
- Sponsor a team or participant
Donate: Use this button to link out directly to the donation page of your campaign. You can email us at [email protected] to get this link, just be sure to include the URL to your peer-to-peer campaign.
Create a fundraising campaign: To help fundraisers sign up right away, add the term below to your campaign link and send it to them:
?openFundraiser=True
Sponsor a team or participant: Use the link to your peer-to-peer campaign provided in your dashboard, on in the Share section.
Finally, embed the thermometer and the simple donation page onto your website. This will give your donors a quick option to give directly to the main campaign page. Email us at [email protected] with your peer-to-peer link to get this embed code.
Last modified 8mo ago