4 Goal-Setting Tips for Ambitious School Fundraisers

Let’s say you want to take a road trip this summer. What’s the first step you take?

While the journey is important during road trips, you first need to have a final destination in mind. From there, you can start to figure out how you’ll get there. Your school fundraisers are the same way. Before you decide what actions you’ll take to make the fundraiser a success, you need to identify the campaign’s goal. 

In this guide, we’ll walk through the tips you can use to set effective goals for your creative school fundraising idea, helping you drive the results that benefit your school the most.

Identify your top priorities.

Before getting bogged down in fundraising event logistics or granular objectives, your fundraising team must align on the school’s top priorities. As NXUnite explains, identifying these priorities at the beginning of the planning process will help you decide which type of event to host and how to move forward.

School-wide priorities might relate to:

• Improving your educational programs and resources (e.g., purchasing new textbooks)
• Repairing or renovating facilities
• Supporting staff (e.g., providing school supplies, updating classroom technology, etc.)
• Offering student support services
• Engaging with the community and building a network of local business connections

Once you’ve pinpointed your most important initiatives, form campaign goals that support them. Consider sharing this context with your supporters when promoting the campaign to motivate them to give. For example, explain that the proceeds from the fundraiser will go toward purchasing new smart whiteboards for each classroom to enhance learning.

Use the SMART method.

The SMART method is a goal-setting framework in which each letter stands for a quality your goals must have to be effective. To create a SMART goal, it must be:

• Specific: Make sure your goal is tangible and concrete. For example, if your goal is revenue-based, specify a certain dollar amount you need to reach. Referencing your donor data and fundraising analytics from past campaigns can help you establish a baseline for the specific number you should set.
• Measurable: Create trackable goals with clear milestones to measure your progress and determine whether you achieved it. Fundraising goals are usually measured in dollars, but you may have other targets, too. If one of your goals is to grow your parent-teacher association, you would measure progress by the number of new members you receive during the campaign.
• Attainable: Your goals should be challenging but not impossible. Aim to collect more revenue than you did during the last campaign, but be mindful of the resources you have available. For example, if you usually raise around $5,000, you should set your next goal at $7,500 rather than $15,000.
• Relevant: This quality relates back to your school’s overarching priorities. Any target you set for your fundraisers should relate to or push forward your school’s broader goals.
• Time-bound: Finally, set a deadline for achieving your goal. Typically, this will match the fundraiser’s end date. 

Let’s take a look at an example of how a school would create a SMART goal for a t-shirt fundraiser. In order to make a profit and pay for school supplies, the school needs to raise at least $5,000. To push for a more ambitious goal, they decide to aim for $6,500. They’ll need to raise the money within one month, which is the duration of the fundraiser.

Outline specific objectives.

While the terms “goals” and “objectives” are often used interchangeably, they have different meanings when it comes to fundraising. Whether you’re a fundraising beginner or have already hosted multiple campaigns, it’s important to know how they differ:

• Goals are broader, more long-term targets like the SMART goal in the example above—raising $6,500.
• Objectives are short-term actions that you need to take in order to make progress toward your goals. To raise the $6,500 outlined in the goal above, your objectives might include creating promotional materials, sharing about the fundraiser with friends and family, preparing a certain number of social media posts, and more.

To those who are on the ground—your teachers, parents, and volunteers—objectives are what matter most. They are what guide the actions these supporters take to make your goal a reality. Create a list of specific objectives for everyone assisting with the fundraiser. For example, you might ask teachers to track students’ fundraising progress on a weekly basis and help them navigate any issues. Or, if you choose a kid-friendly fundraising idea from 99Pledges’ guide like a dance-a-thon, you’ll need to provide students and parents with easy-to-understand objectives and instructions.

Get supporters on the same page.

Once you’ve set your goal, it’s time to make sure supporters know what it is, how their support will help you achieve it, and why it matters. The best way to do this is to infuse your overarching goal for the campaign into your marketing efforts.

Start by incorporating your goal into calls to action (CTAs). A CTA simply asks supporters to take action on behalf of your school by donating, volunteering, or even subscribing to your emails. To incorporate your goal into the CTA copy, you might reference the impact that individual support will have. If the purpose of the fundraiser is to purchase new history textbooks, your CTA could say, “Your $10 will give 1 student access to a brand new, updated history book.”

You can also provide updates about your fundraising progress throughout the campaign to inspire a sense of urgency. For example, maybe you’re halfway to your goal but only have one week of the campaign remaining. In this case, you might share an email with the school community saying, “We still need $3,250 to reach our goal—donate today to ensure each student gets a new textbook!”

Setting specific, measurable goals defines what success will look like for your school’s fundraisers. This helps you build a cohesive roadmap, effectively use resources, direct your PTA or booster club, and achieve (or exceed!) your goal. Over time, your school’s fundraising campaigns will be more cost-effective and impactful, benefiting your students and their education.