How to plan for Success
1. Make SMART Goals.
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. How much does your
group want to raise? Set a challenging goal but make it attainable.
2. Develop a Plan.
Determine how much each member of your group must sell in order to reach your groups goal. Include an agenda for each member to reach that goal.
3. Make a Schedule.
Create a calendar of events with key dates. Pre-launch, Launch, Progress Update, Order Deadline, Delivery Date, Plant Distribution, Final Wrap-up. Be sure to share this calendar with your participants and other volunteers. It will help you to feel in control, and will keep your team in the loop and on track.
4. Best Prospects.
Who is most likely to buy from you and your group? Make a list and start with your top customers. Last-years buyers, relatives, neighbours, friends, and co-workers. Once you have gone through that list, move into expanding your list into local businesses and acquaintances.
5. Advertising.
You are selling a great product. It’s healthy, practical, and beautiful. Use one of our custom posters, descriptive wording, press releases, bulletin boards, parent letters, social media, emails, text messages, your team website, and word of mouth. Saturate your own resources. This is like a mini business, market it!
6. Excitement and Enthusiasm!
An excited coordinator motivates each participant. They are active in their role, and continually reminding and being involved throughout the fundraiser. It takes time and effort to keep a team motivated, but it can really boost sales and make your fundraiser even more beneficial for your group. Getting kids and participants involved in your campaign can help too. Pass along the enthusiasm and have participants take a role in progress updates, email reminders, or social media posts.
7. 100% Participation.
Aim for a 100 percent participation from your group. The more the merrier! If you have a large group, nominate sales teams and captains. You can even get younger kids involved by creating team names and making it a friendly sales competition between teams. If everyone is involved, and sells even a couple orders, it adds up into your grand totals. With fundraisers, every little bit helps.
8. One at a time.
Doing many fundraisers at one time does not necessarily mean more money. It usually means over loading volunteers, and giving less attention to each fundraiser and to your customers. It is understandable to mix things up with different fundraisers, but our advice is to focus on one or two complimentary fundraises at a time. Doing a few fundraisers throughout the year, and doing them well
produces better results.
How to Run a Successful Fundraiser
So, you’ve signed up to run a fundraiser. There are many reasons why people fundraise and every cause is important. So, lets make it a successful one. If you don’t stand for something you stand for nothing right?
Planning is your first step. Work backwards from your delivery date as your final order is due 10-14 days (depending on the season) before that date. Say you want to run a 3-week campaign. Take a look at your available delivery dates, choose one and count 10 days before and then 3 weeks before that.
After you have done the above you can start planning your advertising campaign. This is usually personal preference as everyone has their own style of getting the word out. We recommend starting with previous supporters as they are more likely to support you again.
Depending on how much the pandemic has affected your community we are also strongly encouraging the use of our website. You can manage sales, customers, prices, plants selection. You can add your own write up and give specific time frames for pick up. You can even offer coupons to keep your customers coming back.
There are many tools and strategies to use when you run a fundraiser. But the most important one is making sure you and your selling team are excited about what you are doing. People feed off your energy and will get excited if you are. Adding selling incentives for your selling teams is a great way to get your team excited about the cause.