Any time you talk to a successful person, you will hear that one of their keys to success was goal-setting. Successful people clearly define what they are trying to achieve, they write it down, and they put actions in place that will get them to the desired results.  I’ve noticed that this same philosophy works for the schools that are successfully raking in the “dough” (aka moola….aka money) by participating in the Box Tops for Education® Program.

Any school that is earning money via Box Tops is successful in my book.  However, there are some schools that are a little more successful than others as they are making upwards of $10,000 per year for their school with the Box Tops for Education® Program. If you didn’t know it, a school can earn up to $20,000 per year by participating!!!

I have read many success stories and have actually talked to top earning schools, and a common theme is:

1. Setting goals that are challenging but not too aggressive.  You definitely want to stretch yourself.  So if your school earned $3000 by collecting 30,000 box tops one year, then the next year you may want to increase your goal to $5,000 or 50,000 box tops.
2. Identify what your earned dollars will go towards: field trips, band equipment, renovating the playground, etc.
3. Publicize your earnings goals and how they will be used.  The entire school will get excited to know how your earnings will be spent.  During open house a few weeks ago, I setup a table and I told parents and students about our new Box Tops earnings goal of 30,000 box tops or $3000.  And I also told them that the money will go towards updating the playground.  That bit of news excited everyone.  Another thing we did was to display our earnings goal on the wall outside of the cafeteria for everyone to see.

The Box Tops Moms of Green GreenForest McCalep Christian Academic Center in Decatur, GA. emphasize the importance of setting goals. On year, they set a goal of 100,000 box tops, a knowingly very aggressive goal. They shared that:

…the thinking was we may not meet this goal but we’ll definitely have fun trying.

At the end of the school year they had collected 56,000 box tops and went from raising $831.00 to $5,600.00 in just a one-year span. And for the 2012-2013 School year, they raised almost $10,000 and this relatively small private school is now #1 in the State of Georgia for Box Tops Earnings!

BMWK – since the program started in 1996, America’s school have earned over $525 Million from the Box Tops for Education Program.  Is your school participating?  If yes, what are the earnings goals for this year?  You can check if your school is participating by going to www.boxtops4education.com.

Disclosure: Lamar and I are paid spokesbloggers for the Box Tops For Education program. We will be providing information and stories throughout the school year in hopes of encouraging our community to take advantage of the millions of dollars that are being given to schools across the country each year. All opinions expressed are our very own.