Every year, our team looks forward to gathering together with thought leaders in the peer-to-peer fundraising space at the P2PForum21 AKA the Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum Conference. This year was certainly different, but the caliber of content shared plus the connections gained during the P2P Run FOR GOOD remained unparalleled. Our team is still recovering from lengthy Zoom days and can’t wait to dig in deeper, but as we return back to our day-to-day, we wanted to share some fast learnings that each of us will be taking with us into 2021.
Thanks for actively participating, sharing, being vulnerable, and for all the work you do to make the world a better place for your constituents. Keep an eye out for a recap of our session plus more details on joining the 5x5K FOR GOOD program next week, or contact us here.
Cyrena Hillyard
Director, Creative Services
Going virtual this past year was necessary and worked in many cases. As we move into 2021, hybrid is where we are going and will continue to be an ongoing component of events even after we’re back in-person. This new model allows people from around the country and world to participate and fundraise when they may never have been included in the past, creating new opportunities for non-profits to expand fundraising reach and awareness. And, while new technology is being evaluated and incorporated every day, an easy and free tool already in use is Facebook Groups. They were critical this past year and will be going forward as ways to connect both current and past/alumni participants.
Molly Fast
Local Operations Director
Apart from learning that you should always be prepared to be on camera, even for a virtual conference, I learned how absolutely resilient the peer-to-peer fundraising industry is. Non-profits, vendors, partners and other event production companies have stepped up in truly inspirational ways and have gone the extra step to share their lessons learned, successes and failures. The truth is, I’ve always known this. But it was front and center in every aspect of the conference. I left feeling invigorated and inspired. It’s been an unbelievably hard year, but I remain grateful to *get* to do this work alongside some of the best humans on the planet.
Jillian Schranz
Director of Business Development
My biggest learning from the P2P Conference was that we can and will safely return to live and hybrid event experiences this year. From the introduction of the term “phygital” to an immersive Run FOR GOOD on Tuesday morning, our team walked away with the confidence to continue expanding upon our return to live events. Whether that’s a hybrid model like our Run FOR GOOD where we created an immersive LIVE virtual experience, the safe, contactless 5x5K FOR GOOD event concept we discussed in our session, or helping organizations rethink the time, space, and volume on their events to maximize participant safety, we are eager to get back out there and produce fantastic experiences that fundraisers enjoy.
Katie Zupancic Wymer
Senior Manager, Digital Marketing
We can be agile and move quickly. Our industry traditionally has so many stakeholders, and in an effort to ensure we’re staying true to our missions, we are often risk-adverse at the cost of innovation. The creativity, new technology, and brilliant out-of-the-box thinking that fueled success in 2020 cannot go away in 2021. We’ll never go back to “how it was”, and the organizations that master multisensory event experiences while offering the flexibility of virtual options will emerge as thought leaders. New tech and innovation should not be thrown to the wayside…they should complement the triumphant return of the immersive, in-person experiences that we—participants, volunteers, donors, non-profit organizations, and partners—all crave.
