How to Exceed Your High School Fundraising Goal

What you should do if you want to reach your sales goal.

If you want to exceed your high school fundraising goal, you must do three things. First, work to strengthen your prize program further. Offer more than just the basic prize program provided by your company. In other words, plan to offer additional incentives to motivate students to make more sales.

The second thing is to set a student sales goal. Set an initial fair-share goal that you want everyone to reach. You must know how much each student needs to sell to reach your group goal.

And third, set a high-achiever goal that's above the fair-share goal. Set a goal for those students who want a chance to win your additional incentives—a good round number, maybe 25 items.

1. Decide on an Additional Fundraiser Incentive

Choose additional incentives that high school students will find fun and exciting. What follows are some ideas:

• Students who sell 'x' items get to throw a pie (or a water balloon) in __________'s face (find an adult that students will be motivated to sell for).
• If the whole group sells 'x' items, everyone wins free pizza or ___________________.
• Students who sell 'x' items get their yearbooks for free.
• Students who sell 'x' items get a free ticket to the next school dance or ____________________.
• Find an adult on campus willing to participate in The Mystery Person Game.
• Incorporate The Money Game into your fundraiser.
• Use prize coupons and incorporate them into daily drawings.

2. Prepare to Incorporate Your Additional Incentive

Whatever additional incentives you decide to use, make sure to:

• Do the math
  • Spend the time to run your numbers ahead of time. For example, if you know that the yearbook retails for $50.00, you won't want to give one away for every student who sells ten items. Most students would probably sell ten items, but you wouldn't make any money.
  • Here are some numbers you'll want to use with your math calculations.
    • $4.00 profit for every item sold
    • Item profit x student goal. For example, to qualify for the yearbook, students need to sell at least 25 items (25 items x $4.00 profit/item = $100.00 gross profit - $50.00 yearbook cost = $50.00 net profit)
• Promote your additional incentive
  • Ensure a good return on your investment by promoting it. Why would you spend extra time or money on something and not make sure your sellers were working towards it?
  • Remind your sellers as often as possible about how it will benefit them.

Exceeding your high school fundraising goal means a few students may reach the higher goal. Even if others don't sell that much, they'll sell more than ordinarily.

See our brochure fundraisers.

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.