It's Spring, which means it's time for outdoor fundraising festivals! Whether you’re having a cooking event, a walk or a music festival – Spring events are popping up as quickly as the flowers. While these events are fun and can increase name recognition for your nonprofit, they often don’t capture donor information or fully drive home the mission of your organization.

Here are 3 tips to consider to help you see those fundraising dollars raining in once your event ends: 

• Capture All Guest Information: Having 2,000 people at your outdoor festival is only really good for your nonprofit if you also capture 2,000 names and emails. It’s easier to not sell tickets, or to use a site like Groupon, but you’re putting a lot of work into this event and your ultimate goal is to turn these guests into fundraisers. Sites like Groupon don’t give you guest information, so if you use them make sure to build in another way to capture their information. Ideally, use a software for ticketing that gives you guest information. It’s better to ask them to buy “free” tickets than to not ticket, or get their information, at all.
• Make Every Activation Relevant to your Cause: You likely have sponsors for your event and you want to make sure they receive the biggest bang for their bucks. However, you also want to make sure that their activation is relevant to your cause. If you’re having a cooking event, ask each team to include a fact about your cause at their booth. Or maybe you’re throwing a music festival to raise awareness for heart disease: have a sponsor conduct free blood pressure checks. Your entire event should point towards why your mission is important. BizBash did a review of sponsor areas at Coachella and is a great read to stir up creativity. 
• Do it for the Insta: Millennials love outdoor events, social media and a good cause. Wrap all three in one and you’ve got yourself a trending event. Make sure you play to social media at your event. Have a social media screen (like Swell Slides) that pulls through real-time activity. The more guests see themselves on the screen, the more they’ll post. Just trust us on that one. To drive those posts even more, make sure you have built in “instagrammable” decorations or spots at your event.

As we always say at Swell, fundraising events are a lot of hard work, but you can make them work more for you. Your guests know that – even if they’re going to a big outdoor fundraiser – it’s a fundraiser, so don’t be afraid to make sure you get their information and ask for donations! Your mission depends on it.