Have You Considered A Church Cookbook Fundraiser?

If your church needs a fundraiser, consider a cookbook! Unless your fundraiser is for a church youth group, cookbook sales are a natural.

Selling cookbooks can be a great way to make money for a church, because church women are notorious for having terrific recipes.

All those potluck suppers and meals for the sick result in women who really know their tasty meals – both of traditional, hearty family recipes and award winning recipes from those women who are creative in their cooking.

How To Organize The Church Cookbook Fundraiser

Ideally, the campaign to gather recipes for a church cookbook will last a few weeks. If it goes on too long, people lose interest in participating. If it doesn't last long enough, women who want to participate might not have a chance to get their terrific recipes submitted.

Let the congregation know that there will be a church cookbook sold as a fundraiser.  Be sure to publicize the gathering of recipes so that everyone knows who to send recipes to. If they are handwritten or typed, they can be submitted on Sundays at church meetings.

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.

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.
 
A church cookbook as a fundraiser needs to be well-publicized. Ideally, you print enough copies for everyone who initially wants one to get one, plus a lot of extras for the unexpected sales. Some churches also keep some on hand for years to come, selling them periodically throughout the year.