It’s finally summer. For parents and your kids, it’s a time for relaxation and rewards after all your hard work. However there’s a few small questions we encourage you to think about now so you can truly set aside your to-do list until fall. If you’re feeling unmotivated, remember your child’s sports team or boy scout troop fall, winter and spring activities are made possible by fundraisers. These are the questions to ask now to ensure you’re ready for a successful fall fundraiser.

1. What should your fundraising goal be?

Fundraisers with a goal in mind tend to have the most success. This goal helps team members know what they’re working towards and just how much effort needs to be invested to get there.

Make a list of your group’s needs. This could be as vague as “$_ to help pay for activities throughout the year” or as specific as “$_ to afford the cost of _ uniforms.”

With these numbers in mind, you’ll also be able to more accurately measure your fundraiser’s success so you can approach next years fundraiser with more experience.

2. How many fundraisers can your team or troop manage?

Maybe you don’t mind going through the fundraising process more than once a year. Knowing this, you can split up your fundraising goal between 2 or more fundraisers.

However, if you know your team will only have the energy to give to one fundraiser, you’ll want to channel all your energy there. If you know you need to raise all your funds this fall, you can plan accordingly.

Either way, commit to this number now so that you’re not planning last-minute fundraisers to help reach your goals next spring.

3. How many people will be involved in your fundraiser?

Ask around to see how many kids and parents are interested in your fundraiser. This will help you understand the scope. If you can get them to fill out a form to emphasize their commitment, that’s even better–it’ll help and avoid having to adjust these expectations too much when you actually start.

4. Who will contribute to your fundraiser?

If you can guess at who will buy your product or come to your event, you’ll better understand how much energy needs to go into promoting your fundraiser. If you can, take last years list of contributors and estimate how many of these people will partake again. If you think that’ll be enough to reach your goal, you don’t need to do a ton of promoting beyond this list. If you know you need more, think up some new promotional strategies to reach new audiences.

5. What will your fundraiser be?

Now that you know how much you need to fundraise and who will be a part of it, you can better understand what type of fundraiser might suit you. There are several good options for this, but of course we recommend a wreath fundraiser. Many of our groups raise more than their goal, starting out their fall on a very good foot and maybe even removing the need for a fundraiser in the spring. You can read about why people from all over the country recommend and return to Evergreen year after year with these customers’ stories.