My son Linus was born at 26 weeks - more than 3 months early - and I'm awed and grateful that, despite what he's been through, he appears remarkably unscathed as he approaches his 1st birthday. Let's pause to admire him, shall we? 
My wife and I decided to turn his birthday party into a benefit for Any Baby Can, a local nonprofit that assists kids with developmental delays who weren't as lucky as Linus. We're calling it Linusapalooza. Our favorite Mexican food joint is staying open after hours, some friends' bands will play, and we'll be collecting donations at the door. It should be a nice little fundraiser, but I found myself wishing I could create a Linus's Birthday donation page on their site (a la Convio Tributes).
I just know I could drive dozens of donations to a Linus page on the ABC website - and could do it all over again on his next birthday as well. We'll raise some money and make the donation on their behalf, but as it stands, ABC won't capture my donors' info and so can't continue communicating with them. They missed a chance to take advantage of The Story Of Linus to build deeper relationships with a bunch of people that love him.
Thinking about this missed opportunity prompted further musings (lucky you!) about the underlying factors that make peer-to-peer fundraising (and activism for that matter) so powerful. I think it has to do with storytelling, and the chance to complement your Master Narrative with the thousands of individual personal narratives that really move people to action.
Every single one of your donors has a personal story that connects with your mission, a story that explains why they spend time, money and attention on you rather than the million other good causes out there. Your fundraising tries to distill your organization's story into something that connects with the broadest possible set of potential donors...and you succeed when donors do the math to connect your abstract words to their own concrete emotional story. In a lot of ways, the success of your fundraising efforts is a function of how easy you make it for the donor to make the connection.
Peer-to-peer fundraising simplifies the emotional math because it puts the constituent much further down the path to making the connection. For our friends and family, Linus's story slams home the importance of Any Baby Can much more powerfully than their best fundraising ask ever could.Walkathon/event fundraisers excepted, peer-to-peer is clearly not yet a major component of most online fundraising strategies - despite my enthusiasm. I've got some ideas about why, but would love to hear your thoughts on how best to realize its potential (I've got a party to plan).
