From Minimum Viability to Maximum Value: Transforming Social Fundraising Challenges

Investing in a new tech stack is unlikely to lead to a breakthrough in your social fundraising success. After four years of cranking out Facebook Challenges as a sector, we've seen that there is currently no secret sauce that one particular vendor or organization is using that another is not.

Sure, there are different sets of ads, methodologies, communication styles, or tools that might save you time or lead to incremental increases in performance, but ultimately, the problems that Facebook Challenges are facing revolve much more around the "human stack" than they do the "tech stack"...

Covid comps and natural product lifecycles aside, there are some endemic reasons that the model is struggling to produce a positive ROI.

Minimum Viable Input vs Maximum Value Outcome

For those who buy into the cult of agile, you'll often hear about the "Minimum Viable Product" approach, which emphasizes launching a product or service with the minimum features necessary to satisfy customer needs.

While this strategy works well for startups and product development, it's proving not to be as effective when it comes to creating engaging experiences for social fundraising challenges. ??

When running social challenges, we need to prioritize the participant experience, tell stories, and foster a sense of community and motivation. A bare-bones approach that focuses solely on the functional aspects of the challenge will leave participants feeling disconnected and uninspired. ??

To overcome this challenge, it's crucial to shift our mindset from "Minimum Viable Input" to "Maximum Value Outcome." Instead of settling for the bare minimum, let's aim to deliver an extraordinary experience that captivates and energizes participants. ??

Here are a few key considerations to help you achieve this goal:

1?? Cultivate a sense of true belonging: Encourage participants to form connections and build relationships within the Facebook groups. Facilitating discussions, highlighting success stories, and creating opportunities for participants to support and cheer each other on are straight from the challenges playbook. But fostering a truly vibrant community is more than this; it means showing up every day, authentically taking on the challenge, and embracing the "give before get" mentality that powered challenges to success vs trying to nickel and dime your community. ??

2?? Emphasize personalization: Tailor the experience to each participant's interests and motivations. Providing them with relevant content, milestones, and challenges that align with their passions is what we're told. But this isn't about merging tags in email, SMS, WhatsApp, and Messenger; it's about truly understanding what the community needs and providing that. Often you need to play the role of a fitness coach, therapist, and post office well before the role of a fundraiser. ??

3?? Leverage storytelling: Share powerful stories of impact to inspire and motivate your participants and highlight how their contributions are making a difference in the lives of those you serve. But it's not enough to recycle soulless branded content; you need to make the people in your community feel like the hero. You can do this by acting as the guide that provides a plan and a call to action but ultimately helps them achieve THEIR success and not yours. ??

Remember, it's not just about the functional aspects of your P2P challenge; it's about creating an immersive and unforgettable experience that keeps participants engaged, motivated, and ready to go the extra mile.

Fundraising is an outcome of that experience. ??

Short-term success over long-term results

Compounding on a general overinvestment in acquisition for Facebook Challenges at the expense of investing in the experience during a Facebook Challenge is the way that budgets (and to some extent job roles) are written at NPOs. As a sector, we tend to focus on short-term returns, which undermines efforts to address silos and prioritize long-term commitment and experiences. The tendency is to optimize for results within the financial year. ??

While we throw around platitudes about the importance of breaking down silos, optimizing for lifetime value, and fostering sustainable engagement, the reality is that the limited budgetary scope often hinders the allocation of resources necessary to tackle these critical issues. ??

To truly elevate participant experiences and achieve maximum results from social fundraising, it is crucial for organizations to align their budgetary frameworks with a long-term vision. This alignment allows for investments in building a robust community infrastructure, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and nurturing ongoing participant engagement beyond immediate returns. ??

Got Milk?

Finally, when something is proven to generate a return on investment, we're not afraid to invest in it. And why not? If it means we're one day closer to achieving our missions, then this makes sense. ??

However, this approach can lead to bubbles. We have certainly been in a bubble of easy money from social fundraising, and it wouldn't be unfair to say that the explosive growth of Facebook Challenges has accelerated that bubble. In fact, it's not uncommon for me to hear that the only avenue for P2P engagement that's been working over the last three years has been social challenges. ??

Combined with the first two challenges, this has undoubtedly contributed to exhausting Facebook as a channel. Although it is unlikely to limit the long-term growth of social fundraising and virtual P2P challenges, we should be careful about quickly moving on to the next pot of gold without focusing on the fundamentals of good stewardship, cultivation, and supporter experience. ??

In conclusion, achieving continuing success in social fundraising requires a shift in mindset and a commitment to delivering exceptional experiences for participants. It's not about relying on new tools or following a minimum viable input approach, but rather focusing on maximum value outcomes.

Additionally, we need to break free from the short-term mindset for virtual events as a whole and align our thinking more with multi-year frameworks behind P2P events as a whole. As part of this, we should align budgetary frameworks with a long-term vision that allows for investments in community infrastructure and sustainable engagement.

While we may have experienced success with Facebook Challenges in the past, it's essential to avoid relying solely on past operating systems and instead prioritize trying and failing, good stewardship, and the 11* supporter experience. By embracing these principles, the future of social fundraising holds tremendous potential for creating meaningful impact and achieving our collective missions.

#SocialFundraising #P2PChallenges #CommunityBuilding #MaximumValueExperience

P.S. DM me if you are looking to find out more about some of the exciting projects going on with GivePanel and our partners surrounding "Beyond Facebook", Conversational SMS and Event Calling BUT remember that any tool is only one part of the "stack" that you're going need for success here.