OT: Creating a Fundraiser Cookbook?

[lynninpa]

Has anyone been involved with creating a fund raiser cookbook for their school, church or other organization? I am in the beginning stages of putting one together (using Morris Press Cookbooks) and any and all "feedback" would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Not so Dumbo]

We did one for our elementary school YEARS ago

We sent home forms for all of the parents to write down and send in one of their favorite recipes

 

[lynninpa]

We did one for our elementary school YEARS ago

We sent home forms for all of the parents to write down and send in one of their favorite recipes

Was your cookbook fundraiser successful??

 

[lynninpa]

We did one for our elementary school YEARS ago

We sent home forms for all of the parents to write down and send in one of their favorite recipes

And another BIG question....did you end up with 75 recipes fopr chocolate chip cookies?

 

[Not so Dumbo]

Yes it was successful. I don't remember how many were sold but it was the only fundraiser for that year.

No, we didn't have too many multiple recipes. At most there were maybe 3 of the samething, but different versions.

The catagories were Appetizers, Soups and Salad, Vegatables, Entrees, Breads and baked goods, Candy

If you think there is a good chance of getting a lot of multiple recipes, have them submit 2 or 3 of their favorites and let them know what the catagories will be.

 

[ENSOCK]

I have done 2 for different schools. I would always do the typing. It is alot of work but the last one we did raised enough to provide a new lighted sign and new playground equipment for our school!
We did not have alot of the same recipes. One problem that we had was not getting enough recipes. We had to beg people to send in the recipes, but our whole school has a max. of 650 kids. (3yr. olds to 12th grade)
Good luck and I hope that you have fun!!

 

[Kanda]

Our PTO did the cook book fundraiser, and for us, it wasn't a good idea. Our school has 300 kids, (k3-12 grade). The PTO ordered 1500 cookbooks to sell. Most families bought one cook book, some bought an extra one for a gift, etc., but that's still only about 450 cookbooks sold. If you have a lot of families, it might work, but for a small school, be careful. There's not much of a demand for more than one of the same cookbook. The discount entertainment cards are another story though. Those things have no overhead, and sell for $10.00 each, everyone in town wants one and they are good for the whole year. If no other school is doing that, you might want to consider it instead.

 

[_queenie_]

My DH's mother's cousin (who was very close to her as her mother died in child birth and her being a lot older she sort of acted as her mother) died a few months ago. She was a home-ec teacher and had a lot of great dessert recipes, so one of DH's cousins organized a cookbook in her honor. She's made a bunch of copies (as of right now they're in binders), and would like to get it published to sell in town. The profits are going to be donated to the home-ec/FCS program at the school she worked at (they since built a middle school, she was at the jr. high). I can't tell you about the fine details since I'm not doing it myself, but I can try to update you if I can get some more info.

 

[lynninpa]

I have done 2 for different schools. I would always do the typing. It is alot of work but the last one we did raised enough to provide a new lighted sign and new playground equipment for our school!
We did not have alot of the same recipes. One problem that we had was not getting enough recipes. We had to beg people to send in the recipes, but our whole school has a max. of 650 kids. (3yr. olds to 12th grade)
Good luck and I hope that you have fun!!

You raised enough for a new lighted sign and playground equipment?! That's great, ENSOCK!

 

[lynninpa]

Our PTO did the cook book fundraiser, and for us, it wasn't a good idea. Our school has 300 kids, (k3-12 grade). The PTO ordered 1500 cookbooks to sell. Most families bought one cook book, some bought an extra one for a gift, etc., but that's still only about 450 cookbooks sold. If you have a lot of families, it might work, but for a small school, be careful. There's not much of a demand for more than one of the same cookbook. The discount entertainment cards are another story though. Those things have no overhead, and sell for $10.00 each, everyone in town wants one and they are good for the whole year. If no other school is doing that, you might want to consider it instead.

Thanks for the ideas & tips, Kanda!

 

[lynninpa]

My DH's mother's cousin (who was very close to her as her mother died in child birth and her being a lot older she sort of acted as her mother) died a few months ago. She was a home-ec teacher and had a lot of great dessert recipes, so one of DH's cousins organized a cookbook in her honor. She's made a bunch of copies (as of right now they're in binders), and would like to get it published to sell in town. The profits are going to be donated to the home-ec/FCS program at the school she worked at (they since built a middle school, she was at the jr. high). I can't tell you about the fine details since I'm not doing it myself, but I can try to update you if I can get some more info.

What a wonderful idea!

 

[ENSOCK]

We really did wonderful. We were so happy, and the cookbooks were great. I do suggest that you pay the extra to get the books that are the 3ring binders and not the others because they look much nicer and hold together much better. We sold the books for $15.00 each and had to do a second printing. To introduce the cookbooks, we did a taste fair. Different people who submitted recipes we asked them to make that recipe then invited the parents from school to come to the taste fair for $5.00. Everyone had a blast as we had a dj (one of the dads).

 

[lynninpa]

We really did wonderful. We were so happy, and the cookbooks were great. I do suggest that you pay the extra to get the books that are the 3ring binders and not the others because they look much nicer and hold together much better. We sold the books for $15.00 each and had to do a second printing. To introduce the cookbooks, we did a taste fair. Different people who submitted recipes we asked them to make that recipe then invited the parents from school to come to the taste fair for $5.00. Everyone had a blast as we had a dj (one of the dads).

A Taste Fair! What a wonderful idea for introducing the cookbook! How many students did you have and how many books did you first order, ENSOCK?

 

[ENSOCK]

our school is small; we only have 650 students from our 3 yr. old program to the 12th grade. I don't remember exactly how many books were ordered, I just did the typing. Also, along with the taste fair we had a silent and a regular auction of things that the kids made and things that different businesses in town donated to the school. One teacher had her class each paint a tile, she then took the tiles and had them fired and sealed. Her husband built a table and used the tiles for the table top. It was beautiful and the parents tried to outbid each other all night. Total for the table at the end of the night was $3500.00.

 

[Benducci]

Our PTO did the cook book fundraiser, and for us, it wasn't a good idea. Our school has 300 kids, (k3-12 grade). The PTO ordered 1500 cookbooks to sell. Most families bought one cook book, some bought an extra one for a gift, etc., but that's still only about 450 cookbooks sold. If you have a lot of families, it might work, but for a small school, be careful. There's not much of a demand for more than one of the same cookbook. The discount entertainment cards are another story though. Those things have no overhead, and sell for $10.00 each, everyone in town wants one and they are good for the whole year. If no other school is doing that, you might want to consider it instead.

Why, if your school, only had 300 students, would the PTO order 1500 books? that seems like a little overkill. I think the idea of the cookbook would work but someone needs to realistically think of how many are going to be sold & order accordingly. Our school has about 300 students & I would only order about 500 books.

 

[Twingle]

I think a cookbook fundraiser can be a good idea, if, like with any fundraiser, you have enough interest.

Our school has approx. 900 students, we ordered wayyy too many cookbooks:3,000. We've not even sold 700. There are about 675 recipes in the book.

For our school, the interest was really just not there.

 

[JenEeyore]

This past year our division in our company did a cookbook fundraiser for United Way. We used FundCraft and found them to be fairly easy to navigate, and were VERY impressed with the results we got with the quality of the books. There were tons of personizing options and we designed our own cover using our logo etc - we got some codes to use to get a few free options, and started a PR campaign to raise interest in submitting recipes. We had about 550 people in our pyramids and we ended up with like 430 recipes. We sold our books for $10 ea (cost was like $6 ea). We ended up over ordering a bit because we were told at the last minute that we would maybe get a lift from another pyramid that would have accessability to buy from our stock, but that didn't really pan out. We ordered 500 books, and after everything is said and done we had like 123 left that we are donating to HR to use as new hire gifts just to be done with the project. We covered our expenses, and made a decently sizable donation to our UW cause.

If you want any more specifics, feel free to PM me. We did find that company to be reputable, and had tons of options to pick from. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised with our results, and many were purchased to give to family/friends as gifts. We didn't limit the number of receipes that could be submitted by each team member, and didn't have a horrible amount of duplication. We encouraged creativity and soliciting ideas/recipes from moms, grandma's aunts etc to get their "family favorites" types of recipes. Nobody wanted to submit a "dud" because it would have their name attached to it.

Jen

 

[Kanda]

Why, if your school, only had 300 students, would the PTO order 1500 books? that seems like a little overkill. I think the idea of the cookbook would work but someone needs to realistically think of how many are going to be sold & order accordingly. Our school has about 300 students & I would only order about 500 books.

I agree... we had a very over zealous PTO president at the time. 500 sounds like a good number

 

[lynninpa]

We now have our Cookbook Committee-7 people in all. Thankfully, we all love working with one another and will no doubt have a great time with this project! Anywhooo, on to the next step-giving each person specific "jobs." Any suggestions?

 

[PeabodyJen]

I was on the committee at my son's school last year when we did a cookbook fundraiser (we also used Morris). It was awesome! The best part about it was that we were able to have the parents submit their recipes online...they had a specific login for our school. Once they had sumbitted their recipes, those of us on the committee went through and edited for spelling, capitalization, grammar, etc. This process wasn't very time consuming and it was so much easier than having to input all of the recipes ourselves. (Each person on the committee was responsible for editing one or two categories once all the recipes had been submitted. We discussed uniformity issues beforehand...like what kinds of words we would capitalize, unit abbreviations, etc.)

We made money on it, though I can't remember exactly how much. The books were $10 each. We had a few recipes that were similar to each other, but overall there was a great variety of recipes. We personalized our cover using a watercolor picture of our logo done by our art teacher, and it turned out beautiful. I've enjoyed using the cookbook, and since we're no longer at that school, it's fun to see the names of friends (other parents) as I thumb through looking for various recipes.

Also, the school ordered extras to have on hand to give out as gifts to people/parents who did something special for the school, i.e. volunteers. They made great gifts! They looked super-cute with a ribbon tied around them with a spatula on top. (I also bought a few and gave them as Christmas gifts to grandparents and sisters-in-law.)

I hope you'll be pleased with the way yours turns out...and that your school makes lots of $$$!