Crafting connections: Creative approaches to Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

The men and women of Wellness Warriors, Massachusetts’ first dragon boat paddling team composed entirely of cancer survivors, are intimately aware of the healing power of community. The 40-foot dragon boats they propel fly across the water through the coordinated effort of 16 to 20 paddlers and, similarly, their shared cancer diagnoses are easier to bear through the potency of connection, collaboration and the joie de vivre felt watching the sunset over Boston’s Charles River after practice.

Dragon boating and cancer-survivor sports 

Dragon boating has been around since at least the third century BC, but only became prevalent in the cancer community after 1996, when a first study refuted the previously held belief that women with breast cancer should limit upper body activity. The study, using dragon boating as the vigorous, upper body–centric workout, found not only that upper body activity was safe, but that the women in the study reported better physical and mental health through the team-building exercise and camaraderie. 

The exciting results of the study led to the formation of cancer-survivor sporting teams throughout the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, China and across Europe. According to Wellness Warrior’s website, there are almost 90 cancer survivor clubs in the United States, about 30% of which are all-cancer paddler (ACP) clubs, like Wellness Warriors. 

Creative and diverse fundraising practices

Being part of a team doesn’t mean all paddlers take the same approach to fundraising. The creativity and resourcefulness of the individual paddlers are crucial to the success of the team as a whole. 

One paddler hosted a bottle drive and asked her friends and family to give her their recyclables. 

Another hosted a comedy show. Six entertainers volunteered their talents and the location was donated for the evening. At the event, donors used a text code to give via their mobile devices through Text-to-Donate, and Live Display was shown between acts to reveal progress and encourage giving. (Learn how to use Text-to-Donate and Live Display at events with our ultimate guide.)

Tapping into their artistic talents, some paddlers spent an evening hand-painting 3D-printed model dragon boats. These were offered as keepsake “thank you” gifts to the first 50 donors on an the Power Wellness Warriors to Worlds Event Ticketing page.

Campaign Pages help track fundraising progress

Wellness Warriors organizes its yearly fundraising efforts primarily around special events and GivingTuesday. For each occurrence, it creates a Campaign Page to which paddlers then connect Peer-to-Peer Fundraising pages. Managing the pages in this way helps Wellness Warriors track fundraising progress. 

Erica Bernstein, past president and current (at the time of writing) treasurer of Wellness Warriors, believes that the intuitive and user-friendly design of Give Lively fundraising pages is especially useful for both donors and nonprofits. “We are a volunteer-run organization and many of us are limited by our cancers. I have cognitive deficits from my cancer and everything takes me 10 times as long, which is why I look for automated systems (like automated “Thank You” messages) like those offered by Give Lively. I love all the tools, because I don’t have to do as much work.” 

The paddlers themselves are a diverse group, with different cancer diagnoses, ages (ranging from 20 to 80 years old), backgrounds, ethnicities... and levels of confidence using technology. 

Peer-to-peer fundraising makes a big difference

Togetherness and community are integral to the success of Wellness Warriors. Like racing dragon boats, fundraising is a team effort to cover the yearly expenses of gear for 60 to 80 people, obligatory boat maintenance, travel costs and more. Each paddler contributes through a personalized Give Lively-powered Peer-to-Peer Fundraising page. 

This peer-to-peer fundraising is core to keeping Wellness Warriors afloat. Membership dues cover about a third of what it costs for each paddler on the water, and Wellness Warriors offers a sliding dues scale to ensure that every cancer survivor can participate, regardless of financial hardship. “Everyone puts their heart and soul into fundraising, so everybody can enjoy it fully,” explains Bernstein.

The Peer-to-Peer Fundraising page example below raised over $10,000 for the Wellness Warriors Competing in the 2024 Club Crew World Championships campaign. When asked how Jessica Goldhirsch and the other paddlers got so good at fundraising, Bernstein shared that Jessica, like many people, struggled at first with the fear of asking for support. But Jessica resolved to overcome that fear and wrote personal letters to her network, friends and family. Her community rallied, playing a large part in funding the team’s trip to the prestigious 2024 Club Crew World Championships in Ravenna, Italy, raising over $10,000 of the Campaign Page’s $57,000+. Jessica was only one of 20 peer-to-peer fundraisers for the Campaign Page supported by over 600 donors.  

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Importantly, the ability to recognize creative offline fundraising is important to the organization’s efforts. “If somebody goes to 10 businesses and gets $1,000 checks from those 10 businesses, I can actually go to their Peer-to-Peer page and add in that $10,000,” shares Bernstein. “It allows folks to have that encouragement of seeing each other on a leaderboard.” (Learn how to add offline donations to Peer-to-Peer Fundraising pages.)

Branded Donation Widget collects donations on its website

While Wellness Warriors’ Campaign Pages and associated Peer-to-Peer Fundraising pages change through the seasons, its Branded Donation Widget, connected to the organization’s Core Profile, collects donations through the organization’s website all year round. 

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