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Peer-to-peer fundraising (also called P2P, social fundraising, or sponsored fundraising) is when individuals raise money on behalf of a charity. Instead of your organisation soliciting donations directly, your supporters become fundraisers. They create personal campaign pages, set their own goals, and ask their friends, family, and colleagues to give.
The mechanic is simple, and the simplicity is the point: one charity turns into dozens or hundreds of fundraisers. Each fundraiser reaches a network you would not have reached on your own. The flow looks like this:
1. Your charity creates a main campaign with a goal, story, and timeline.
2. Supporters sign up as individual or team fundraisers and create personal pages.
3. Those supporters share their pages with their own networks.
4. Donations flow back to your charity, attributed to the fundraiser who brought them in.
If your charity is not yet registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR (Scotland), or CCNI (Northern Ireland), you can still run a P2P campaign as an unincorporated association, a CIC, or a community group. Bear in mind, though, that Gift Aid is only available to HMRC-recognised charities with a Charities Reference Number. A village hall or Neighbourhood Watch group running P2P will not be able to reclaim the 25p per £1 from HMRC.
How does peer-to-peer fundraising work?
Peer-to-peer fundraising works by letting supporters raise money on behalf of your charity through their own personal campaign pages, then sharing those pages with their networks. Every donation flows to the charity, and the fundraiser gets credit for bringing it in. The platform handles page hosting, payment processing, receipting, and reporting so your team can focus on coaching fundraisers, not chasing logistics.
Underneath that, there are two perspectives worth understanding, because the mechanics on each side determine whether a campaign actually works.
What the charity does
Sets up the main campaign: goal, story, timeline, branded look. This is the umbrella every fundraiser page lives under.
Recruits fundraisers: usually starting with trustees, recurring donors, past event participants, and volunteers who already believe in the mission.
Provides materials: social graphics, sample email and text language, talking points, photos, FAQs. The lower the lift for the fundraiser, the higher the activation rate.
Handles Gift Aid: where fundraisers' donors are UK taxpayers, the charity can reclaim 25p per £1 from HMRC via Gift Aid, provided each donor completes a Gift Aid declaration. A £100 gift becomes £125 to the charity at no extra cost to the donor. The charity must hold HMRC-recognised status (a Charities Reference Number, separate from Charity Commission registration) and keep declarations for at least six years. Gift Aid does not apply to raffle tickets, event tickets, or auction lots at fair value.
Tracks progress: who has signed up, who has activated their page, who has raised what, and who needs a nudge.
Coaches and thanks: mid-campaign check-ins, milestone celebrations, and post-campaign thank-yous keep fundraisers engaged and willing to come back next year.
What individual fundraisers do
Create a personal page: add a photo or video, write a short personal story about why this mission matters to them, set a goal.
Share with their network: social posts, group texts, email to family and colleagues, in-person asks at work or events.
Donate to themselves first: a self-donation signals commitment and gives later donors a baseline to beat.
Thank donors as gifts come in: a quick reply, a shout-out, a handwritten note. Thanking donors is how you turn a one-time gift into next year's recurring supporter.
A typical fundraiser message reads something like: 'You know I've been volunteering at [Charity] for three years. They're running a campaign this month to fund [specific programme], and I'm trying to raise £500. Anything you can give helps. Here's my page: [link].' Short, personal, specific. That is the format that converts.
If you want a platform that ships these mechanics for charities, Zeffy's free peer-to-peer campaign tool includes individual and team fundraising pages, leaderboards, donor-board messages, and reporting at no cost.
Peer-to-peer fundraising vs. crowdfunding
Dimension
Peer-to-peer fundraising
Crowdfunding
Who raises the money
Supporters raise on behalf of a nonprofit through personal pages
One campaign owner raises directly for a project or cause
Page structure
One main campaign with many individual or team sub-pages
One-time project funding, emergency appeals, specific goals
Donor relationship
Fundraiser-to-donor (personal network) then nonprofit-to-donor
Campaign-to-donor (often a single relationship)
Typical duration
4 to 8 weeks, often annual or recurring
30 to 60 days, often one-off
Use case fit
Building a fundraising community over time
Funding a defined project with a hard deadline
The two are not mutually exclusive. Some platforms support both formats, and some charities run a crowdfunding campaign for a capital project while running P2P for their annual walk. Pick the model that matches the job: P2P for community and recurring engagement, crowdfunding for a defined one-time goal. Crowdfunder UK is the dominant home-grown option for project-based crowdfunding.
6 benefits of peer-to-peer fundraising
Expanded reach: every fundraiser brings a network you do not already have. Ten fundraisers with 200 contacts each is a 2,000-person audience your charity could not have reached directly.
Higher donor acquisition: a friend asking is more persuasive than a charity asking. P2P is one of the most reliable ways to bring in first-time donors who become recurring supporters later.
Lower acquisition cost: your supporters do the outreach. You provide tools and coaching. The cost per pound raised is structurally lower than direct mail or paid acquisition.
Deeper engagement: a donor who fundraises for you is more committed than a donor who only gives. P2P converts passive supporters into active ambassadors.
Storytelling at scale: hundreds of personal stories about why your mission matters land harder than one charity-voice appeal. Each fundraiser page is a piece of authentic, handwritten marketing.
Sustainability: recurring annual P2P campaigns (sponsored walk, Giving Tuesday, birthday programme) build a fundraising rhythm. Year two is easier than year one because you already have alumni fundraisers to re-recruit.
7 peer-to-peer fundraising ideas that work for UK charities
P2P is not one format. Here are seven ideas that work for small-to-mid charities, with a note on why each works and one practical tip.
1. Disaster relief and emergency funds
What it is: a rapid-response P2P campaign launched in the days after a humanitarian crisis. Supporters create pages to raise emergency funds for affected communities.
Why it works: urgency drives generosity. People want to help and want to feel useful. A fundraiser page gives them a way to channel that impulse.
Tip: have a campaign template ready before you need it. When a crisis hits, you have hours, not weeks, to launch. British Red Cross runs emergency P2P campaigns under the 'Join Team Red Cross' banner and is one of the strongest UK examples of emergency P2P done at scale. Their approach: a branded page that goes live within hours of a crisis, with a simple one-click sign-up for fundraisers.
2. Birthday fundraisers
What it is: supporters ask their network for donations to your charity in lieu of birthday gifts.
Why it works: birthdays come with a built-in audience (everyone who would send a message) and a built-in occasion to ask. It is also one of the easiest entry points for a first-time fundraiser.
Tip: make signing up a 60-second task. The longer the setup, the more drop-off. Your charity's own P2P platform or Facebook Fundraisers both work well for birthday campaigns. Brief the supporter on what to say and provide a short sample post they can copy and paste.
3. Charity walk, run, or ride
What it is: participants register for an event, create a fundraising page, and raise money in the lead-up.
Why it works: the event itself is the deadline that creates fundraising urgency. The shared experience builds community among fundraisers, which makes them more likely to come back next year.
Tip: UK mass-participation events such as the TCS London Marathon, Great North Run, Great Run series, Brighton Marathon, Ride London, and local sponsored 5Ks all anchor P2P fundraising programmes. Open team registration alongside individual. Teams raise meaningfully more than individuals because peer pressure inside the team drives performance. Note: if your charity has places at the TCS London Marathon or Great Run series, Enthuse is the mandatory platform through 2034 by exclusive partnership agreement.
4. Social media challenges
What it is: a branded hashtag challenge tied to a fundraising page (for example, a tagged activity, a personal commitment, or a video chain).
Why it works: challenges are designed to be shared. Each post recruits the next fundraiser, which compounds reach without your team doing the outreach.
Tip: build the challenge around something easy to film in 30 seconds. The lower the production lift, the more participants you get.
5. Giving Tuesday and UK calendar moments
What it is: a short, intense P2P campaign timed to a key giving moment, with fundraisers activated in the days leading up to it.
Why it works: the cultural moment does the awareness work for you. Supporters are already in giving mode.
Tip: Giving Tuesday is observed in the UK and remains a strong moment. But the UK calendar also offers the Christmas appeal, The Big Give Christmas Challenge (the UK's largest online matched-giving window), Macmillan Coffee Morning, Children in Need, Comic Relief / Red Nose Day, and Remembrance Sunday. Recruit fundraisers four to six weeks before the moment. Activate them with a co-ordinated launch the week of. Same-day sign-ups rarely raise meaningful money.
6. Mission-specific initiatives
What it is: a P2P campaign tied to a specific programme goal: funding a research project, a building, or a programme expansion.
Why it works: a concrete goal gives fundraisers a specific story to tell. 'Help us fund research into X' converts better than 'support our mission.'
Tip: the more specific the goal, the more personal the fundraiser's ask can be. Break the target into smaller milestones (for example, 'every £250 raised funds one session') so fundraisers can see and share the direct impact of each gift.
7. Recurring annual events
What it is: any P2P campaign you run year after year (gala P2P, summer walk, anniversary campaign) where alumni fundraisers re-enrol annually.
Why it works: year-two performance dwarfs year-one because you start with a base of trained, engaged fundraisers. The compounding effect is real.
Tip: the week the campaign ends, invite the top performers back for next year. Strike while the win is fresh.
How to launch a peer-to-peer campaign in 7 steps
This is the operating playbook for your first or second P2P campaign. Each step has a checklist, a timing recommendation, and a common pitfall to dodge.
Step 1: Set the campaign goal and structure
Timing: 8 to 10 weeks before launch.
Decide on a fundraising target tied to a specific programme or outcome your supporters can picture. Choose a campaign length (4 to 8 weeks is the sweet spot), decide whether you allow team fundraising alongside individuals, and set key milestones: kickoff, mid-campaign push, final week.
Pitfall: setting a round-number goal with no maths behind it. Goal = (target fundraisers) x (average raised per fundraiser). If you cannot back into that maths, your goal is a wish, not a plan. Use a fundraising calendar template to plot milestones backwards from launch day.
Step 2: Choose a peer-to-peer fundraising platform
Timing: 6 to 8 weeks before launch.
This is the single most consequential decision in the whole campaign. The fee structure compounds across every gift, the page UX determines fundraiser activation, and the reporting determines whether you can coach mid-campaign. We break down the selection criteria in the how-to-choose section below.
Pitfall: picking on feature lists alone and ignoring the effective fee load on a £25 gift. Read the fee and Gift Aid sections before you commit.
Step 3: Recruit your fundraisers
Timing: 4 to 6 weeks before launch (recruiting takes longer than you think).
Start with the people most likely to say yes:
Trustees (lead by example: them first, in writing).
Recurring donors (they have already cleared the giving hurdle; fundraising is a small next step).
Past event participants and volunteers.
Past P2P alumni from any prior campaign.
Major donors who might host a team.
Pitfall: posting 'anyone can sign up!' on social media and waiting. Personal asks convert. A direct email or phone call to a known supporter recruits a real fundraiser; a social post recruits almost no one.
Step 4: Create participant campaign pages and set goals
Timing: 2 to 4 weeks before launch.
Each personal fundraiser page should include:
A photo or short video of the fundraiser, ideally connected to the cause.
A personal story in their own voice about why this mission matters to them. Pre-written templates are fine as a starting point, but the page that converts is the one that sounds like the fundraiser.
An attainable goal: aspirational but not so high it discourages. A first-time fundraiser raising £300 to £500 is a reasonable expectation in most P2P campaigns.
Multiple payment options: credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay. Friction kills small gifts.
UK GDPR note: fundraisers are collecting donor personal data on your charity's behalf. Your charity remains the data controller. Ensure the platform you use has a lawful basis (consent or legitimate interest) baked into the fundraiser sign-up and donation flow, and that donor communications comply with PECR and the Fundraising Regulator Code of Fundraising Practice (current version effective 1 November 2025, including Section 9 on online platforms). Ask any platform 'are you UK GDPR compliant?' before you sign up.
Pitfall: skipping the page-build coaching session. A 30-minute group video call lifts activation rates more than any other single intervention.
Step 5: Fundraisers share their campaigns
Timing: launch day through week 2.
Give fundraisers everything they need to share without writing it from scratch:
Sample social posts (long and short).
Sample email and text templates.
Branded graphics sized for Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
A short 'why this matters' video they can repost.
Pitfall: posting once and going quiet. The fundraisers who win are the ones who post three to five times across the campaign, not the ones who post once on launch day.
Step 6: Engage and motivate fundraisers
Timing: throughout the campaign, with a major mid-campaign push.
The mid-campaign drop-off is the biggest risk in any P2P campaign. Counter it with:
Leaderboards: friendly competition keeps top fundraisers pushing and gives those who are behind a target.
Donor-board messages: let donors leave a public message on the fundraiser's page. The page becomes a wall of encouragement, not a static form.
Milestone celebrations: email or text whenever a fundraiser hits 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% of goal. Public shout-outs on your social channels go further than internal messages.
Weekly check-ins: a short note ('here is what is working this week') keeps the campaign front of mind.
Pitfall: treating engagement as a launch-day activity. The fundraisers who need motivation most are the ones at week three with £80 raised and no idea how to push past their first ring of friends. Reach them directly.
Step 7: Follow up and thank everyone
Timing: within 48 hours of campaign close.
Every fundraiser gets thanked. Every donor gets thanked. The top performers get a personal call or handwritten note. Public recognition on your channels matters, but private gratitude is what builds the alumni base for next year. Plan the thank-you sequence before launch so it actually goes out on time.
Pitfall: going dark after the campaign ends. The week after close is when you set up the relationship for the next twelve months. Skip it and you start year two from zero.
5 common peer-to-peer fundraising mistakes (and how to avoid them)
1. Not providing enough support materials
Why it happens: charities assume fundraisers will figure out what to post. Most will not. They want to help, but they do not know what to say.
The fix: build a fundraiser toolkit before launch. Sample emails, sample texts, three or four social posts, branded graphics, a one-page FAQ, a 30-second video. Make the lift to fundraise as close to zero as possible.
2. Setting unrealistic goals
Why it happens: a round-number goal feels aspirational. But when individual fundraisers see a £100,000 target next to their £300 contribution, they feel pointless, not inspired.
The fix: set the campaign goal as a function of (target number of fundraisers) x (realistic average per fundraiser). Set individual goals at a level a first-time fundraiser can actually hit. You can always raise the goal mid-campaign; you cannot un-set a deflating one.
3. Launching without a recruitment plan
Why it happens: teams build a great campaign page, hit publish, and assume fundraisers will appear.
The fix: recruit one-to-one before launch. Make a list of 30 to 50 likely fundraisers (trustees, recurring donors, past participants). Email or call each personally. Aim for 60% to 70% of your target fundraiser count signed up before launch day.
4. Forgetting to follow up with fundraisers mid-campaign
Why it happens: charity teams get busy. The launch is the visible moment, and the middle of the campaign feels quiet.
The fix: schedule mid-campaign check-ins as calendar blocks before launch. A short weekly update ('here are this week's top three pages, here is what is working') keeps fundraisers engaged. Personal nudges to fundraisers who have not posted recently lift activation more than any leaderboard.
5. Choosing a platform whose fees and tip prompts eat into donations
Why it happens: platform fees look small in isolation. But P2P is built on hundreds of small gifts, so the fee drag compounds. And in the UK, opaque donor tip prompts add another layer of cost that charities often discover too late.
The fix: calculate the effective fee load on a £25 gift before you sign up: platform fee + card processing fee + any cut of the Gift Aid claim. The JustGiving model, for example, includes a default suggested donor tip of around 17% on top of the donation amount, which Money Saving Expert and UK donors have widely criticised as a conversion drag and a source of donor confusion. Donors who feel they have been charged without their knowledge do not come back.
Layer in Gift Aid: a £25 gift from a UK taxpayer should be worth £31.25 to your charity. A platform that takes a 5% cut of the Gift Aid value reduces that advantage before it reaches you. When you add it all up, you can lose 8% to 12% of every gift across an entire campaign. That is the slice your fundraisers' supporters intended for your mission, not the platform.
How to recruit and coach your peer-to-peer fundraisers
The platform you pick determines the upper limit on what is possible. The way you recruit and coach fundraisers determines whether you get anywhere near that limit. P2P is a people programme, not a software programme.
Who to recruit first
Recruit in concentric circles, starting with the people most likely to say yes:
1.Trustees: they lead by example, and recruiting them first sets the tone. Make it expected, not optional.
2.Recurring donors: they have already cleared the giving hurdle. Fundraising is a small next step.
3.Past event participants: anyone who showed up for a walk, gala, or volunteer day has demonstrated commitment.
4.Prior P2P alumni: if you ran a campaign before, your highest-performing fundraisers from that campaign are your highest-probability sign-ups for this one.
5.Volunteers and major donors: volunteers are already invested. Major donors can sometimes be talked into hosting teams, which unlocks their network.
How to make the ask
The ask is one-to-one and specific. A template:
'Hi [Name], we're running our annual [campaign] in [month]. Last year [X] supporters raised [£Y]. I'd love for you to be one of them this year. It's about 15 minutes to set up your page, and we'll give you everything you need to share it. Can I count on you?'
Personal. Specific. A clear ask with a small lift. Group emails to 200 supporters generate almost no fundraisers; 30 individual notes generate 15.
What training and materials to provide
A 30-minute kickoff session: live (a video call is fine), walk through page setup, share the messaging templates, answer questions.
A fundraiser toolkit: sample emails, social posts, graphics, FAQ, a one-page 'how to share' guide.
An always-open channel: a dedicated email address, Slack channel, or text thread where fundraisers can ask questions.
Mid-campaign tactical guidance: 'here is what is working this week' updates with concrete examples from top fundraisers.
How to keep fundraisers motivated mid-campaign
Public shout-outs on your social channels for milestone hits.
Personal text messages from staff or trustees to fundraisers who have stalled.
Weekly leaderboard updates with names, not just numbers.
Small recognition: a thank-you video from a beneficiary, a behind-the-scenes update on what the funds are doing in real time.
A halfway-point team call or rally to reset energy.
Total raised is the number everyone watches, but it is the worst single metric for measuring whether your P2P programme is healthy. Track these five, and you will know whether to do it again next year.
Metric
What it tells you
What good looks like
Total raised
Top-line outcome
Above last year, ideally above goal
Number of active fundraisers
Recruitment + activation performance
Hit your recruitment target and 70%+ of those fundraisers raised at least one gift
Average raised per fundraiser
Coaching effectiveness
Trending up year over year; first-year campaigns often land £200-£500
New donor acquisition rate
Strategic value of P2P (this is the real prize)
50%+ of donors are new to your organization
Fundraiser retention rate
Program sustainability
30%+ of fundraisers return next year; top performers should be 60%+
Social reach and shares
Top-of-funnel awareness
Trending up; correlates with new donor acquisition
New donor acquisition is the metric most charities underweight. The pounds from a P2P campaign matter, but the strategic value is the donors you would not have reached otherwise. Those donors only become recurring supporters if you have donor management built into the campaign so they land in your database, get receipted, and enter your stewardship flow automatically. When a donor also completes a Gift Aid declaration at the point of giving, that record is the difference between reclaiming 25% from HMRC and losing it entirely.
Best practices for peer-to-peer fundraising
Before launch
Segment your contacts. Recruitment outreach should be tailored: trustees get a different note than recurring donors, who get a different note than past event participants.
Build the toolkit before you need it. Sample emails, social posts, graphics, FAQ. Have it ready on launch day, not three weeks in.
Host a kickoff training. Live, short, recorded. The fundraisers who attend the kickoff outperform those who do not, every time.
Encourage fundraisers to self-donate first. A self-donation signals commitment and gives the next donor a baseline to match or beat.
During the campaign
Make giving frictionless. Use a platform that accepts credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Every removed click recovers small gifts. For UK donors, Direct Debit is the gold standard for recurring giving (around 31% of all UK charity donations go via Direct Debit), so ensure your platform integrates it for anyone who wants to set up a monthly gift.
Lead with storytelling. The fundraisers who hit their target are the ones who shared a personal 'here is why' story, not the ones who posted 'donate here.'
Use leaderboards and milestones. Public recognition is a free motivation lever.
Promote matched giving. Many fundraisers and donors work at companies with employer-matched giving programmes and never check. A simple reminder to ask their HR can double individual gifts.
Check in mid-campaign. Weekly fundraiser updates and personal nudges to stalled fundraisers move the numbers more than any feature.
After the campaign
Thank everyone. Personalised emails to all donors and fundraisers, handwritten notes to top performers.
Report back on impact. 'Here is what your £X raised did' closes the loop and seeds next year's campaign.
Re-recruit top fundraisers immediately. The week the campaign closes, invite top performers back for next year while the win is fresh.
Debrief honestly. What worked, what did not, what would you change. Write it down. Year two starts the week year one ends.
How to choose a peer-to-peer fundraising platform
Most 'best platform' guides drown you in feature checklists. The real question is which platform makes your specific campaign maths work. Six criteria, in priority order:
1. Effective fee load on a £25 Gift-Aided gift
This is the most underweighted criterion and the most important one. P2P is built on lots of small gifts. A platform fee of 3% to 8%, plus card processing (typically 1.5% to 2.9% + a per-transaction charge), stacks up across hundreds of transactions.
Now layer in Gift Aid. A £25 donation from a UK taxpayer should be worth £31.25 to your charity once HMRC has topped it up. Some platforms charge an additional 5% fee on the Gift Aid value itself (JustGiving and Enthuse both do this). That fee reduces the Gift Aid advantage before it reaches your mission. Add it all together and you can lose 8% to 12% of every gift intended for your cause.
The one outlier: Zeffy is completely free. No platform fee, no transaction fee, no card fee, ever. On a £25 Gift-Aided gift, your charity receives the full £31.25. Donors are given the option (never obliged) to add an optional voluntary contribution to Zeffy at checkout. Enough donors do that charities never pay anything.
2. Gift Aid automation
This is a UK-specific criterion with no equivalent elsewhere. Does the platform capture Gift Aid declarations from donors at checkout, mark eligible gifts, and give you the HMRC-ready records to submit via Charities Online? Or does your team have to reconcile gift data and build the claim manually?
Also check whether the platform charges a fee on the Gift Aid claim itself (some take 5% of the Gift Aid value). A platform that automates Gift Aid capture and charges nothing on the claim is meaningfully more valuable than one that does not.
Your charity must be HMRC-recognised (hold a Charities Reference Number) to claim. The HMRC Gift Aid guidance covers what the declaration must include and how long you must keep records.
3. Fundraiser-side page UX
If your supporters cannot create and customise a page in under 10 minutes without calling support, your activation rate collapses. Test the page-builder yourself before committing. Look for: photo and video upload, story editor, goal setting, social share buttons, mobile-responsive design, and team page hierarchy if you want teams.
4. Engagement and gamification surface
Leaderboards, donor-board messages, milestone notifications, and progress thermometers are not nice-to-haves. They are how you counter mid-campaign drop-off. Verify these are included in the tier you are choosing, not gated behind an upgrade.
5. P2P-native vs. repurposed
Some platforms ship with team structures, fundraiser dashboards, and coaching workflows from day one. Others are crowdfunding or merchandise tools repurposed for P2P. Repurposed platforms leave you stitching together features that do not quite fit. P2P-native is meaningfully better if your campaign relies on team competition or recurring fundraiser cohorts.
6. UK GDPR and data-protection posture
UK charities must have a lawful basis to process donor personal data, and fundraisers collecting data on your behalf means your charity is the data controller. Ask any platform: are you compliant with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018? Do your donation flows capture consent or legitimate interest in line with PECR? Does your data processing sit within the UK or EEA? The Fundraising Regulator Code of Fundraising Practice (effective 1 November 2025, Section 9 on online platforms) sets out the expectations for platforms operating in the UK. UK VoC consistently shows charities ask this question before they sign up.
The only zero-fee P2P platform available to UK charities. No platform fee, no transaction fee, no card fee. Individual and team pages, leaderboards, donor-board messages, embeddable fundraising thermometer, native Gift Aid handling, unlimited support. On a £25 Gift-Aided gift, the charity receives the full £31.25. Optional voluntary contribution to Zeffy at checkout (never obligatory). Every pound your fundraisers raise reaches your mission.
2. JustGiving
The UK household name for P2P fundraising since 2001. Blackbaud-owned since 2017. Brand recognition helps with cold donors who recognise the URL. Card processing around 1.9% + 20p; a 5% cut of the Gift Aid claim; monthly subscription tiers. The default suggested donor tip prompt of around 17% is the single most-criticised UK platform pattern in the fundraising press. It can be a conversion drag and can embarrass the charity at the donate page when donors feel it was added without their knowledge. Strong P2P infrastructure for events outside the TCS London Marathon and Great Run channels. See current fees at zeffy.com/en-gb/compare/zeffy-vs-justgiving.
3. Enthuse
Branded P2P pages with the charity's identity front-and-centre. The exclusive online fundraising partner for TCS London Marathon and the Great Run series through 2034. If your charity has places at those events, Enthuse is mandatory. FCA-regulated. 0% platform fee headline, 1.9% + 30p card processing, 5% cut of Gift Aid value, optional £29.99 + VAT per month subscription. Outside the flagship events, the value proposition is weaker. See current fees at zeffy.com/en-gb/compare/zeffy-vs-enthuse.
4. GivenGain
International not-for-profit platform; UK launch 2022. Subscription-free with free automated Gift Aid. UK partners include Swimathon, British Heart Foundation, and Dame Kelly Holmes Trust. Solid P2P alternative if you do not need TCS London Marathon or Great Run integration. Less brand recognition than JustGiving means cold donors may need more reassurance. See current fees at zeffy.com/en-gb/compare/zeffy-vs-givengain.
5. Funraisin
Branded, highly customisable challenge and DIY P2P platform. Australia-origin with a growing UK footprint. Licence and subscription-based model. Powerful for mid-to-large charities running big branded challenge campaigns, but the licence cost typically puts it out of reach for the small-charity reader. See current fees at zeffy.com/en-gb/compare/zeffy-vs-funraisin.
6. CAF Donate
Built by the Charities Aid Foundation, used by 8,000+ small-to-medium UK charities. Trust-first positioning, low flair. Primarily a donate-page tool rather than a P2P-native platform, but trustees will recognise the CAF name and the trust signal is real for smaller charities.
7. GoFundMe UK
Dominant in personal and emergency UK fundraising. For registered charities, card processing is around 1.9% + 20p with Gift Aid passed through free. No real team-and-individual P2P hierarchy, no leaderboards, donor records do not unify with other channels. Best for personal causes rather than a structured charity P2P campaign. See current fees at zeffy.com/en-gb/compare/zeffy-vs-gofundme.
8. Run For Charity
A UK aggregator that places fundraisers into commercial events with a charity bib. Not a P2P platform in the software sense, but surfaces frequently in searches for UK P2P options. Worth knowing it exists; not a like-for-like comparison for running your own campaign.
first-time P2P fundraiser in the UK typically raises £200 to £500, though averages vary considerably by campaign type, event, and how well the charity coaches and supports fundraisers. Mass-participation event fundraisers (TCS London Marathon, Great Run series) often raise significantly more because the event itself provides motivation and urgency. Team fundraisers tend to outperform individual fundraisers because internal peer accountability drives performance. Treat £200 to £500 as a planning estimate, not a guarantee, and build your campaign goal from the number of fundraisers you expect, not a round-number target.
Activation rates vary widely. Charities that run a kickoff training session, provide a ready-made toolkit, and make personal one-to-one asks typically see 60% to 80% of sign-ups actually publishing and sharing their pages. Charities that rely on a blanket social-media post to recruit and provide no onboarding support often see activation below 30%. The gap is coaching, not technology.
Four to eight weeks is the sweet spot for most UK charity P2P campaigns. Shorter campaigns underperform because fundraisers do not have enough time to reach their full network. Longer campaigns lose momentum in the middle and make it harder to sustain energy. Plan a clear three-act structure: a strong launch week, a mid-campaign push, and a final push in the last few days. Time the campaign around a natural deadline, such as a sponsored event date, a charity anniversary, or a calendar giving moment.
The most effective fundraiser messages are short, personal, and specific. They name the charity, explain what the funds will do, state a personal reason for fundraising, give a concrete ask amount, and include a link. A sample that converts: 'You know I've been volunteering at [Charity] for two years. We're raising £[X] to fund [specific programme] this month, and I'm trying to raise £500. Even £10 makes a real difference. Here's my page: [link].' Avoid generic copy ('please support my fundraiser'). The fundraisers who personalise their message, even briefly, consistently outperform those who post only the default template.
Crowdfunding is led by the organisation: the charity creates one campaign, sets a goal, and asks the public to contribute directly. Peer-to-peer fundraising distributes that effort: supporters create their own pages and ask their own networks. P2P tends to generate more first-time donors because the ask comes from a trusted friend, not the charity itself. Crowdfunding tends to be better for a single defined project with a hard deadline. P2P is better for community building, recurring annual programmes, and events where participation is the product. Many platforms, including Crowdfunder UK, support both formats.
The ideas that work best for small charities with limited staff capacity are birthday fundraisers, annual sponsored walks or runs tied to existing community events, and short campaigns timed to UK calendar moments such as Giving Tuesday, the Christmas appeal, or Children in Need. All of these give fundraisers a built-in reason to share and a natural deadline. Mission-specific campaigns work well when the goal is concrete and the target is divisible into individual fundraiser goals. The most important factor is not the campaign format but the quality of support you give fundraisers: a toolkit, a kickoff session, and mid-campaign check-ins lift results more than any single idea.
Total amount raised is the headline figure, but it is not sufficient on its own. Track: total raised against goal, number of active fundraisers (those who published and shared their page), average raised per active fundraiser, new donor acquisition rate (the proportion of donations from first-time donors to your charity), and donor retention in the twelve months after the campaign. New donor acquisition is the strategic metric: the long-term value of a P2P campaign is the recurring supporters you would never have reached otherwise. Capture Gift Aid declarations at the point of giving to maximise the value of each new gift.
Yes, completely. Zeffy charges no platform fee, no transaction fee, and no card fee. Every pound a fundraiser raises from their network reaches your charity in full. On a £25 Gift-Aided donation, your charity receives the full £31.25. Donors are offered the option (never obliged) to add a voluntary contribution to Zeffy at checkout to help keep the platform free for charities. That optional contribution is how Zeffy sustains the model. Your charity's income is never conditional on it.
Yes. Zeffy captures Gift Aid declarations at the point of donation, marks eligible gifts, and provides your charity with the HMRC-ready records to submit a claim via Charities Online. Your charity must hold HMRC-recognised status (a Charities Reference Number, separate from your Charity Commission or OSCR registration) to reclaim. Zeffy charges nothing on the Gift Aid claim itself, unlike some platforms that take a percentage of the Gift Aid value. Note that Gift Aid does not apply to raffle ticket sales, event ticket purchases, or auction lots sold at fair value, as these are payments for goods or services rather than donations.
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Look for people who attend related events, follow relevant Facebook groups, or subscribe to aligned newsletters.These aren’t just potential donors—they’re your future advocates.
Look for people who attend related events, follow relevant Facebook groups, or subscribe to aligned newsletters.These aren’t just potential donors—they’re your future advocates.
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