At a glance: What this guide covers
What the Virtual Event Solution is
How it supports Virtual Challenges (previously called Facebook Challenges) and similar virtual events
What’s included in a Virtual Event setup (campaign, registration form, and email journeys)
Benefits for your supporters and your team
Get the complete Virtual Challenge Playbook
Planning your next virtual challenge? The 2025 Virtual Challenge Playbook gives you the step by step framework to deliver your most successful campaign yet.
Created in partnership with Bluestep Solutions, Social AF, and the Digital Fundraising Academy, this comprehensive guide covers everything from high converting Meta ad strategies to community stewardship that drives real results.
What is the Virtual Event Solution?
Virtual Events are designed for charities running time bound virtual fundraising challenges. (previously referred to as Facebook Challenges).
These events usually start with a Facebook ad that invites supporters to register for a challenge such as “Walk 100 Miles in March” or “Do 3,000 Push-ups in November.”
Supporters complete a Facebook lead form, join your event’s Facebook group, register through a GivePanel form, and create their fundraising page in just a few clicks.
The Virtual Event campaign type brings this full journey together in one place, giving you the tools to manage, engage, and steward participants from registration through to event completion.
Why it’s great for Virtual Challenges
The Virtual Event Solution is perfect for when you’re running a Virtual Challenge. It lets you:
Set up your campaign – Create a campaign in GivePanel that acts as your event hub. This campaign name becomes the event applied to fundraiser records, keeping your data organised and consistent.
Create your event registration form – Use the 1-Click Registration Form to enable supporters to register and create their fundraiser in just a few clicks. They can choose whether to fundraise on Facebook or JustGiving, and their fundraiser will be automatically linked to their registration.
Set up email journeys – Build automated, personalised email journeys to welcome, motivate, and celebrate your participants at every stage of the challenge.
Dashboard - for quick reporting on everything from total raised to number of registrations.
This creates a smooth, connected experience for supporters and removes the manual follow up work that often comes with virtual fundraising events.
Key features of the Virtual Event Solution
High converting registration forms – Collect supporter details through mobile-optimised forms that integrate directly with your fundraising platforms.
Automated supporter journeys – Trigger targeted, timely emails from registration through to event completion, boosting engagement and fundraising totals.
Multi platform fundraising – Let supporters choose whether to fundraise on Facebook, JustGiving and others while tracking everything in one place in GivePanel.
Real time reporting – See participant numbers, total raised, and fundraiser activity through your GivePanel dashboards.
Consent management – Use the built in consent button to capture supporter permissions and ensure compliance for ongoing communication.
Why charities love the Virtual Event Solution
Virtual events bring in thousands of new fundraisers for charities each year, but managing that journey manually can be time consuming and fragmented.
GivePanel’s Virtual Event Solution simplifies it all, connecting registration, fundraising, and communication in one platform so you can:
Deliver a seamless registration experience
Reduce admin by removing manual data matching
Keep fundraising totals up to date automatically
Send personalised, automated emails at key milestones
Gain better insight into performance and supporter behaviour
The perfect setup
For the best results, we recommend combining:
A well-structured event campaign – Create your event campaign in GivePanel and link it to your fundraising platforms.
1-Click registration form – Share your GivePanel form in your Facebook group or website for instant sign ups.
Engaging automated emails – Use email journeys to welcome, motivate, and celebrate your participants.
Together, these tools create a complete, end to end solution for running Virtual Challenges and virtual fundraising events at scale.
Find our step by step walk through for creating a virtual event campaign in GivePanel here.