Cookbook Fundraising  For Your Church - Why They Work

If your church needs a solid fundraising idea you might consider a cookbook! Unless your fundraiser is for a church youth group, cookbook sales are a natural. Selling cookbooks is a great way to make money for a number of reasons. First costs for putting the book are practically nil because you collect the recipes for free. Secondly, the women are notorious for having mouth-watering recipes. Years of participating in potluck suppers etc. result in a huge variety of top-notch recipes - both traditional, hearty family recipes and award winning recipes.

Church Cookbook Fundraising - How To Organize One

Ideally, the campaign to gather recipes for a church cookbook should only take 2 weeks. Don’t drag it out any longer than this or you’ll risk people losing interest in participating. If it doesn't last long enough, participation numbers suffer and you wind up with a pretty short book. Larger books are perceived to have greater value and thus can be sold for higher profits.

Church Cookbook Fundraising - Step 1
Let the congregation know about the fundraiser. Make sure to publicize the fact that you are gathering recipes so that everyone knows . The most logical and time savig way is to have the congregation bring them to church on Sunday whether they be handwritten or typed.

If they are already in electronic format, they can be emailed to the person collecting them. (If they are already electronic it can be much easier for the person who would otherwise have to type them up.) Let everyone know that the church cookbook project is a fundraiser, to garnish more support for the project. Personally notify women who may have missed the message in the Sunday bulletin if they were out of town that week or sick.

Cookbook Fundraising - Formatting Is A Big Deal

Ideally, the majority of the recipes come in via electronic format – email is terrific for that. Recipes can be taken from whatever format or program they were originally written in and converted to be the same as the cookbook format. If they are submitted on a recipe card, type them up. Be sure the font is the same, the same parts are bold or italicized, and the measurements are consistently written. Definitely include the submitter's name!

Organize the cookbook to make it easier to find recipes later. All main dishes belong together, as do all salads, all desserts, etc. If you have enough recipes, you might want to organize them further – meats, poultry, fish, cookies, pies, cakes, etc. Think about it in terms of what makes sense – your initial instinct will probably be correct. Some people
prefer to do it alphabetically, others by the time it takes to prepare the dish. Really anything will work.
 
Cookbook Fundraising - Printing Volumes

A cookbook fundraiser needs to be fairly well-publicized. You should print enough copies for everyone who signs up to get one, plus an additional 20% for some unexpected sales. Word of mouth usually causes this. Some churches also keep some on hand for years to come, selling them periodically throughout the year. Also keep in mind that you can ad to this cookbook by running the same program the following year. Simply use the first edition and then just add another 20 or 30 recipes the next year making it bigger and better than ever.