Virtual challenges have become one of the most consistent income streams in peer-to-peer fundraising – and one of the most misunderstood. Done well, a virtual step challenge or distance event can activate thousands of supporters, generate significant income, and build lasting relationships with your most engaged donors. Done badly, it produces a big sign-up number and a disappointing amount raised.
This guide covers what virtual challenge fundraising is, why it works, the common mistakes that limit results, and what the highest-performing charities do differently. If you’re running your first virtual challenge or trying to improve an existing programme, start here.
A virtual challenge is a fundraising event where participants complete a challenge in their own time, in their own way, and raise sponsorship from their network. Unlike a traditional mass participation event (a marathon, a colour run, a charity bike ride), there’s no fixed location and no set date – participants log their own progress and fundraise independently.
The most common formats include step challenges (walk 10,000 steps a day for a month), distance challenges (run, walk, or cycle 100km in June), cold water challenges, and fitness-based events tied to a theme or awareness campaign. The format is flexible: you can run a step challenge for a few hundred local supporters or a distance challenge that attracts tens of thousands of participants globally.
What makes virtual challenges particularly valuable for charities is the combination of accessibility (anyone can take part, regardless of fitness level or location) and peer-to-peer reach. Each participant brings their own network. A well-promoted virtual challenge doesn’t just raise money – it expands your supporter base.
Three things make virtual challenge fundraising consistently effective for charities:
1. Low barrier to entry for supporters
A virtual challenge doesn’t require someone to travel to a start line, pay an entry fee, or train for months. Most virtual challenges can be completed by anyone, which means your recruitment pool is far larger than for a physical event. That accessibility drives higher sign-up volumes – and sign-up volumes are the starting point for everything else.
2. Peer-to-peer reach
When a supporter signs up for your virtual challenge and shares their fundraising page, they’re doing your marketing for you – reaching friends, family, and colleagues you’d never reach through your own channels. The average JustGiving fundraiser raises money from around 11 donors. A virtual challenge with 5,000 participants doesn’t just raise money from those 5,000 people; it reaches their combined networks.
3. Fundraising platform integration
Virtual challenges have become closely associated with JustGiving and Facebook fundraising, which makes supporter behaviour more predictable. Supporters know how to set up a fundraising page. They’ve done it before. The friction is lower than it would be for a less familiar format – as long as your registration process connects them to their fundraising page quickly.
Despite their potential, many virtual challenges underperform. The gap between sign-ups and actual fundraising is usually where the money is lost – and it’s almost always caused by the same set of problems.
The registration-to-page-creation gap
This is the single biggest problem in virtual challenge fundraising. A supporter registers for your challenge with genuine enthusiasm, receives a confirmation email, and then… nothing happens. They never set up their fundraising page. They forget. The moment passes. By the time they get another email, the motivation is gone.
The drop-off between registration and fundraising page creation varies significantly between charities, but it’s common to see 30–50% of registrants never create a page. That’s a direct loss of fundraising income – and it’s almost entirely preventable.
Generic, scheduled communications
Most charities send the same emails to all participants on a fixed schedule: a welcome email, a mid-campaign update, a final push. The problem is that a supporter who registered six weeks before your campaign starts needs different communications to someone who signed up last week. A supporter who has already raised £500 doesn’t need the same nudge as someone who hasn’t started yet.
Generic communications feel like broadcasts, not conversations. They get lower open rates, lower click rates, and lower fundraising uplift than personalised, trigger-based messages.
Fragmented data across platforms
If your participants are fundraising on JustGiving, Facebook, and GoFundMe — and your registrations came through a separate form – your data is spread across at least three systems. Most charity teams reconcile this manually, which takes hours every week and still produces an incomplete picture. You don’t know who’s fundraising on which platform, who needs a nudge, or who your top performers are.
The charities that consistently get strong results from virtual challenges share a set of practices that separate them from those who don’t.
They close the gap between registration and page creation immediately
The best performers don’t send a welcome email and wait. They get supporters to their fundraising page as fast as possible – ideally in the same session as registration. A Custom Fundraiser link, which pre-fills a supporter’s fundraising page with your campaign’s cover image, title, and end date, lets a supporter go from registration to active fundraising in a single click. When you combine that with an automated email that prompts page creation within hours of registration, the drop-off rate drops significantly.
They communicate based on behaviour, not a calendar
A supporter who has raised £0 three weeks before the campaign ends needs an urgent, specific message. A supporter who has raised 80% of their target needs a celebration and a push to the finish line. Top charities use automated email journeys with triggers based on registration date, fundraising progress, and campaign milestones – not a pre-planned broadcast schedule. Every supporter gets a message that’s relevant to where they actually are.
They treat multi-platform fundraising as a feature, not a problem
Charities that allow supporters to fundraise on JustGiving, Facebook, or GoFundMe – and bring that data into one view – consistently outperform those that force supporters onto a single platform. The reason is simple: supporters are more likely to fundraise on the platform they already know. More choice equals more active fundraisers.
They start with a high-converting registration form
A registration form that’s too long, doesn’t work well on mobile, or requires supporters to leave your website to complete it loses a meaningful percentage of people before they’ve even signed up. The best charities use short, mobile-optimised forms that capture the data they actually need – and connect directly to fundraising page creation on completion.
GivePanel is built specifically for the kind of complex, multi-platform, supporter-led fundraising that virtual challenges require. Here’s how the platform addresses each of the challenges described above:
High-converting registration forms
GivePanel registration forms are short, mobile-optimised, and designed to move supporters from interest to commitment in as few steps as possible. Nine out of ten supporters who start a GivePanel registration form complete it. Forms can be embedded directly on your website, or shared as a standalone URL across email, social media, and paid ads.
Custom Fundraiser link
GivePanel’s Custom Fundraiser link (formerly called 1-Click) lets supporters create a pre-filled fundraising page in a single click – cover image, campaign title, and end date already configured. It works across JustGiving, GoFundMe, and Facebook. Paired with an automated email that arrives shortly after registration, it’s the most effective tool available for closing the registration-to-page-creation gap.
Automated email journeys
GivePanel’s email journey tool lets you build sequences that trigger based on each supporter’s registration date, fundraising progress, and campaign milestones. A supporter who registers six weeks before your campaign gets a different sequence to someone who signs up a week before it ends. Milestone messages fire when a supporter reaches 50% of their target. Pre-event reminders land at the right time for each individual. Set it up once – GivePanel runs it automatically for every participant, across every campaign.
Multi-platform reporting in one place
GivePanel imports and unifies fundraising data from JustGiving and Facebook automatically, with manual import tools for GoFundMe. Your team sees total raised, active fundraisers, average raised, and donation data across all platforms in a single dashboard – without exporting anything manually. Campaign dashboards update in real time. Individual supporter profiles bring together registration, fundraising, and communication history in one place.
“Tools like automated email journeys, high-level dashboards and detailed report builder functionality have streamlined event management and made it easier to access the data we need to make timely, informed decisions.”
— Lauren Muldowney, Fundraising Project Lead, Samaritans
Find out why 400+ charitable organisations choose GivePanel →
How much can a charity raise from a virtual challenge?
There’s no single answer – it depends on your audience size, challenge concept, how you promote it, and how well you steward participants through to active fundraising. The range is enormous: small charities running their first virtual challenge might raise £10,000–£50,000; larger charities with established P2P programmes and strong social audiences can raise hundreds of thousands in a single campaign. The most reliable predictor of income isn’t sign-up numbers – it’s the proportion of registrants who create a fundraising page and start raising. That’s the number to optimise.
What makes a good virtual challenge concept?
The best virtual challenge concepts share three qualities: they’re achievable by a wide range of supporters (not just the very fit), they’re tangible and trackable (steps per day, kilometres completed, cold water dips), and they have an emotional connection to your cause. A step challenge run by a heart charity, a distance challenge run by a cancer charity, a sleep-out run by a homelessness charity – the concept reinforces the cause. When the challenge itself tells your story, recruitment is easier and fundraising motivation stays higher through the campaign.
How long should a virtual challenge run for?
Most successful virtual challenges run for 4–8 weeks. Shorter than four weeks and participants don’t have enough time to build momentum and reach their fundraising targets; longer than eight weeks and engagement typically drops in the middle. A four-week challenge in a strong month (January, May, September) is often the sweet spot. Your communications schedule matters as much as the duration – a well-stewarded six-week challenge will outperform a poorly stewarded four-week one.
Do supporters need to use a specific fundraising platform?
Not with GivePanel. You can offer supporters a choice of JustGiving, GoFundMe, Facebook, iDonate, and PayPal Giving Fund – they select their preferred platform when they register, and your team sees fundraising data from all of them in one place. Offering choice consistently increases activation rates, because supporters are more likely to set up a page on a platform they’ve already used.
How do I recruit participants for a virtual challenge?
Most charities use a combination of Meta (Facebook and Instagram) advertising, organic social content, email to their existing supporter database, and PR or media coverage. Meta lead ads – which capture potential participants’ details without leaving Facebook or Instagram – are particularly effective for virtual challenge recruitment, and GivePanel’s Lead Ad Performance report connects your ad spend directly to fundraising outcomes so you can see which ads are actually driving income.
Can I run a virtual challenge alongside my other fundraising programmes?
Yes – and many charities do. GivePanel supports multiple campaigns running simultaneously, with separate dashboards and stewardship journeys for each. Your virtual challenge campaign, your DIY programme, and your third-party event recruitment can all run in GivePanel at the same time, with all your supporter data in one place.
Whether you’re planning your first virtual challenge or looking to improve results from an existing programme, GivePanel can help. Over 400 charitable organisations across 16 countries use GivePanel to run virtual challenges, DIY programmes, and third-party events.