Need formula for 5 yr high/low

Greetings,

Problem:

Need to calculate membership totals in columns "C thru G" to find out the growth or decline of membership in the last 5 yrs.
1848 1717 1702 1472 1369

I want the outcome to show up as a positive or negative number in column "I"
(My column "H" is an AVG formula cell.)

Can someone send me something I can paste in myself?

I need this today!

Blessings,
SLR

Does the forumula c1-g1 do what you want? Basically it just calculates the total change in membership. A negative result indicates a decrease, a positive result indicates an increase.

Thanks for your quick respone Mr. Shorty.

The totals in cells c1 thru g1 are just membership totals (numbers) for each yr.

What I need to do is create an "H1" cell that tells me if we increased or decreased in membership from the first yr to the last yr. and, maybe in the same cell, by how much.

Is this something simple that you can help me with?

Can you design something so that I can zap it in?
SLR

Can you not simply take the difference of the 1st and last years' numbers as I suggested?

PS I note that I got the order of the subtraction wrong for what I was intending. Should G1-C1 (lastyear-firstyear).

Basically, the example below will show you what I have:

c1 d1 e1 f1 g1

1,848 1,717 1,702 1,472 1,369


I want to create a result in "I1" to tell me if the membership for 5 yrs. is a increase or decline. I guess you would compute each yr. to the 1st until you end up with an overall increase or decrease --I don't really know.

I just want a formula in "I1" to say memberships increased or decreased over the past 5 yrs, and by how much.

Blessings,
SLR

You've given two "goals" for your formula. I'm not sure what it is about the formula =g1-c1 that isn't good enough. Your goals and how this formula acheives those goals:

1) Is membership for last year an increase or decrease from 1st years membership? Indicated by the sign of the result. A negative result indicates a decrease in membership and a positive result indicates an increase in membership.

2) How much of an increase or decrease? The value returned indicates how many more or fewer members.

Are there more requirements that I'm missing?

Sorry, I am not making this easier for you. I am very visual vs. analytical.

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Increase/Decrease
1,848 1,717 1,702 1,472 1,369 Cell "H1" = ?


The figures you see above are the actual membership totals for each yr. in c1 thru g1 cells.

Perhaps by looking at the figures from left to right might indicate to you what formula is needed. (As you can see, the yr. 2000 was our best yr.)

In summary, I want to show an increase or decrease and by how much is the increase or decrease for all five yrs.'s total--that would go in "H1."

Thanks Again,
SLR

I need this today if possible for a last minute project.

I can see that 2000 was the best year, and that membership has been declining each year since. I can see that the smallest decrease came between 2001 and 2002 (-15), and that the largest decrease came between 2002 and 2003 (-230). Overall, membership has declined by a total of -479 since 2000. But I'm just not sure which years you want to compare (obviously not the first and the last).

Fill in the blanks: I want the formula in H1 to take the membership number from year _____(blank1) and compare it to year _____(blank2).

If it's pertinent, how did you determine which years to compare?