When the St. Johns Riverkeeper team set out to celebrate their 25th anniversary, they wanted more than a typical fundraiser. They needed a creative way to bring awareness to their mission, connect with new communities across Florida’s 310-mile watershed, and engage supporters in a fun, memorable way. The result was 25 Taps for the St. Johns, a brewery passport challenge that paired craft beer with clean water advocacy.

The campaign attracted strong interest from the community. More than 540 people signed up, with nearly 400 actively participating and logging check-ins. Collectively, participants completed more than 1,600 brewery visits, averaging about four check-ins each. A group of highly dedicated fans went all in, with 13 participants reaching 25 or more breweries, and the most determined completing 33 check-ins in just two months.

In this case study, we sat down with Rebecca Vecera, Communications Specialist at St. Johns Riverkeeper, to learn how her team designed, marketed, and executed their passport event and what other nonprofits can take away from their success.

• What inspired you to create the St. Johns Riverkeeper passport event, and what were your main goals?

St. Johns Riverkeeper, a nonprofit organization fighting for clean water in Florida, is celebrating its 25th anniversary throughout 2025. We have been trying to find fun and creative ways to connect with our community, get the word out about our work, and also raise funds to ensure we can continue our important mission for another 25 years. The idea of a "20 Taps for the St. Johns" brewery passport actually came up for our 20th, but alas, that was in 2020 - so it ended up getting scrapped at the time. We were excited to bring the idea to life as "25 Taps for the St. Johns" this year! The event was meant to be a fundraiser to an extent (many participating breweries did fundraisers for us, such as donating $1 per beer of a specific brew during the campaign), but our main goal was to reach new people and get the word out about our organization.

• Who was your target audience, and how did you want them to engage with the event?

Our target audience was people within the St. Johns River watershed - and of course all of our participating breweries were in our watershed. Our home-base is in Jacksonville, Florida, but the St. Johns River is 310 miles long - as a small organization, it is always difficult to have a presence throughout the entire watershed. Some of our participating breweries were in the river's "Middle Basin" (the Orlando area), so we were able to reach a lot of new people in this region. We also hoped to raise awareness about the vastness of our watershed, and draw attention to the fact that the different basins/regions of our watershed are all connected by the river. We did, in fact, have a good number of people (compared to our expectations!) who traveled to complete their passports with 25+ stamps.

• Which features in Proxi were most valuable in achieving your goals?

The fact that you could view the map and see the locations along the different areas of the watershed, and also just see a list of breweries/locations I think was helpful to users. It was also nice to be able to update each location using Google Maps to make it faster on the front end, but also have the ability to customize it as needed (for instance, we added in the location description which beer they could buy at that specific brewery to make a donation to our organization). The ability to do extra "challenges" was also great for us. We were able to capture lots of photos that way, as well as encourage people to wear/buy SJRK merch for their photos - which made for great content.

• Can you walk us through your marketing plan from initial promotion to keeping momentum during the event?

1. Art: We had a local artist create a fun, shareable graphic to get people excited about the event, and to use for merch.
2. Web: We had a dedicated page on our website for the event, and made a shortlink to make it easy to get to. We also purchased an easy/cheap URL and redirected it directly to the Proxi sign-up page, so that we could put it on posters, Instagram posts, etc. and make it easy for people to just type in "25Taps.com."
3. For the participating breweries, we initially asked them what would be helpful/what they would really use as far as marketing materials. We ended up creating and sending them paperboard coasters, table tents, and posters. All of these materials had info about the campaign, the shortlink, as well as a QR code to scan and take you directly to the Proxi registration page. We also gave them the one-pagers for people to scan and automatically check in to their unique location, but the extra materials gave us more visibility. In addition, we provided breweries with a digital social media kit. I provided them with graphics they could use/a Canva template they could edit, sample social media post language, a copy of their check-in one-pager, and included all of our social media handles which I encouraged them to tag/collaborate with.
4. Email: I included the campaign in our own regular emails to our members/constituents throughout the campaign, and did some specific emails about the campaign.
5. Social Media: For social, I used the artist graphic previously mentioned, tried to feature individual participating breweries, and posted user-generated content. We have a lot of other "stuff" going on of course, but I tried to post about the campaign once a week.
6. Media: A brewery passport is pretty universally fun and easy to sell (especially attaching it to a good cause!), so we also got some decent media coverage with a press release.

• What results or outcomes are you most proud of such as participation, engagement, awareness, or fundraising?

We were so impressed by the participation, and dedication of many of the participants! As I mentioned, we were able to raise awareness in areas we generally do not get to reach as often. More than 500 people signed up for the challenge, 13 people/teams went to 25+ breweries in just 2 months, and more than $8,500 was raised (gross) for our river. It wasn't as huge of a fundraiser as originally imagined (we are partnering with small businesses here, not corporations after all), but the engagement and reach was amazing and more than worth it. All of our brewery partners seemed to enjoy participating and had positive feedback, so it is also great to strengthen those connections in our community.

• What advice would you give other nonprofits who want to replicate your success using a passport event?

I think buy-in from the businesses/places you are including in your passport is very important. I could tell the difference between businesses who really put up the posters/table tents etc., and the ones (personal experience!) who just sort of had the coasters sitting somewhere not obvious to the public, with how many check-ins that location had. Also, of course, making sure the staff of the business knows what is going on in case anybody asks. One thing we talked about post-event was having some sort of simple "training document" that bartenders/baristas could have printed out so they can be easily briefed on the campaign (so, we'd be taking that task off of the owner/manager a little bit). I also think the fact that our passport was for a finite amount of time mattered - I don't think we'd have that buy-in to continually put out our materials for an extended period of time, say, if it was an ongoing or year-long project. Set your partners up for success and make expectations obvious, and make it as EASY as possible for them to participate!

The 25 Taps for the St. Johns passport was more than just a fundraiser. It became a movement that deepened connections between breweries, community members, and the river itself. With over 500 sign-ups, hundreds of active participants, and thousands of check-ins, the event proved how a digital passport can generate excitement, expand awareness, and strengthen local partnerships.

For organizations considering their own passport event, Rebecca’s advice is clear: secure buy-in from participating businesses, make participation as easy as possible, and keep the timeframe defined to build momentum. When done well, a passport activation not only raises funds but also builds relationships and inspires people to go further than you expect.

If your nonprofit, chamber, or community group is looking for a new way to engage supporters, a digital passport event could be the spark that carries your mission forward.

‍