Profits

1. Figure out how much profit per item you will earn on your fundraising items. 50 cents per candy bar? $6 per cookie tub? With Yankee Candle, you earn $10 per item on average.

2. Based on how much money your group needs to earn, divide your goal by the amount earned per item (e.g., your goal of $1000 divided by $10 per item = 100 items).

3. Now that you know how many items that you need to sell to reach your goal, divide the number of items needed by the size of your group (100 items divided 20 members = only 5 items sold per person to reach your goal).

4. If you have 20 members in your group, the odds are that not all of them will sell. Be on the safe side and estimate that only 50% will sell. So now your sellers have shrunk to 10 and each seller must sell 10 items. (100 items divided by 10 members = 10 items per person).

5. One more calculation. Always assume that some will sell more and some less. They rarely will ALL sell 10 items. You don't want your best sellers to stop selling at 10 items because they think that is what everyone will do. Some will sell less and you need your best sellers to sell more than 10 in order to reach your average. Therefore, raise your average higher to something that does not sound too hard to do like 15 or 20. If you have all of them aiming to do 15 items, then you have a better chance of your group averaging 10 items and reaching your goal.

Say it this way:
"We need to raise $1000 for new uniforms. If everyone sells just 15 items each we can reach our goal! We will need some of you to sell more than that, but everyone should aim for 15 items."