Fundraising Advice
(How to Organize a Fundraising Group Cookbook Quickly and Easily)
First of all
If you are new to fundraising – email me so that we can arrange a time to chat and I can help you sort out a plan. I have lots of extra ideas that I have used over the years. Having been a teacher for over 10 years and then a fundraiser for 16 "fundraising is in my blood" so to speak and nothing makes me happier than to get an email asking me to call up to help with fundraising advice. My daughter once blurted out, "Mom, you have so many ideas I feel like my problems don't belong to me anymore." Those of you who have had teenage daughters will understand.
OKAY, HERE WE GO…..
General Thoughts on Organizing a Group
I have outlined some of the ways that you could put a school or group cookbook together which would allow everyone to participate. Some of the information below may seem a bit confusing (inviting contributors, etc) until you have tried out the site by signing up for a free trial.
Controlling the input is best done by setting up a few rules or guidelines which you establish at the beginning as you announce the project.
How put your cookbook together depends on how much control you feel you need as you work on it. Some groups have asked one person or a small group to do the inputting, others have asked the whole community. Here are a couple of ways you might organize the project:
Announcing The Project
Tell people what you are going to do, what the time frame is and how they can help you. If it is a school, make sure the children feel involved and that the cookbook project is something they are helping to make. They will be proud of it and eager to have their family and friends buy some. It's a general fundraising truth that the more people are involved in a project the more cookbooks you will sell.
Entering The Recipes
#1 You can form a small team of six people. Two would be in charge of collecting the recipes, stories and photos and three would be in charge of entering the material. The last person can proof the book once it is ready.
#2 OR you invite families to help you make the cookbook by filling in the different categories in the cookbook on a first come first served basis. Don't forget to ask "please don't add a second recipe for the same thing (to avoid multiple entries of chocolate cake)".
#3 OR You ask every family for three to five recipes telling them that you will use two of the recipes but would like to have a choice so that you can make sure you have recipes from each category of food. Choose the recipes you would like each family to submit and then sign the families up as contributors to the site so they can help by submitting their recipes.
You Have Asked For Recipes But Not Enough Have Come In
This happens when people feel overwhelmed and don't feel able to choose which recipe to give you. I have found that if you ask people for specific categories – starting with an easy category – they feel that you are asking them for something easier and they respond more quickly. Once you start to get recipes you can send out a note telling the community what you have and then asking for a particular recipe or category that is missing. I think you will see that this works because they feel that the project is well under way and they don't want to miss out.
How Many Pages Should We Have?
An ideal size is about 150 – 180 pages. Remember that the book has one recipe per page so that it looks professional and not crowded. The number of recipes and art work or photos will depend on the size of your community. If it starts to get too large you can always make another one the next year, just remember to put a date on the cookbook as you may find that they are such fun that you will want to do one every year.
Watching The Cookbook Take Shape
So that everyone has the fun of watching the book being built, you can establish a general username and password that parents and children can use to see the day to day progress. You do this by adding yourself as another contributor (change the automatically generated username and password to something easy to remember) and then give out this username and password to the school community so that they can log on.
People would be asked not to add material to the book when logging on with this username and password as it will be removed at the end just before printing. You can remove any unwanted material easily by removing a contributor's name from the contributor's list. When you do this all the input from that contributor disappears from the book.
Photos, Children's Drawings Etc.
When working with a large group of people these are best collected, scanned and submitted by the editing team so that the quality is the same for all the images.
The amount of control that you would need over the process would depend on your particular community – how large it is and how well they respond to a group project.
Final Proofing
I strongly suggest you print your cookbook file to check for typos and spacing errors, which are often difficult to see on a computer screen. Just before you are ready to proof the cookbook you send out an email to everyone involved telling them that the cut off date is such and such. When the day arrives you change all the contributor's passwords so that no one but the editor in chief can make any changes. Print out your cookbook by clicking on PREVIEW BOOK and then clicking on the little print icon at the top left hand corner of the file.
What Price Should We Charge?
Most fundraisers add about 100% to the cost price of the cookbook except if it is a very thick one in which case they add about 60%. This is a good reason not to publish a big book of 350 pages, but keep it to between 150- 180 pages.
Taking Orders
A very good way to judge how many books you will be able to sell is to first order a small quantity – say, 5 or 10 so that the team can show them and take orders. When you are ready you place your order. If you need still more books at a later date you can reorder any time.
Selling To A Larger Community
#1 The Press
If you live in a small to mid size community you will find that the local press will be eager to write about you very special cookbook. I found a website which has handy public relations tool to help you, one easy to follow articles – http://www.aboutpublicrelations.net/toolkit.htm
#2 Joe Sabah has a really good site with information about getting on local talk radio and even a course that you can buy quite inexpensively which is very useful. http://www.sabahradioshows.com/ I recommend Joe highly – he's one of "the good guys."
#3 Who do you know?
When you put a group of people in a room and ask them to list places where the cookbook could be sold, you will be surprised at how many outlets you will find. The local bank, drugstore, grocery store and many others. Even the bookstore may agree to carry them if you give them a % of the mark-up.
#4 I have a soft spot for libraries and I would like to suggest that you give your local library a copy of your cookbook for their cookbook collection. They might even sell some if you donated part of the proceeds to the library.
#5 This isn't really selling – but it would be nice to give a copy of your cookbook to the local historic society because, after all, you are making history.
Well, there you have it. If you have some suggestions that you would like me to share with others, just send me a quick email and I will be happy to add them here.
Advice from our members:
What to do when hardly any recipes come in—
So, what I did…......
I had been asking since last may for recipes…........finally decided to print out a receipe "card" in a large page format. I sent one home with each child. By the next day (!) I had about 50 and by the end of the week + It blew me away. Really taught me a lesson; If you give too many choices….............nada; you give 1 choice "BAM"! It really worked. This week I am sending home an "illustration" sheet for artwork. Hope it works!
Kate Blasingame
White Elementary PTO