Launching your cookbook fundraiser and Ideas to boost recipe numbers

Creating a cookbook could very easily become one of the most successful and memorable fundraising projects you’ll ever be involved with. Unlike many other fundraising projects, people treasure their cookbooks for decades and often lovingly pass them down from one generation to the next !

This fact sheet is designed to help you maximise the success of your cookbook project by sharing some ideas on how you can:

Launch your cookbook fundraising project; and

Boost the number of recipes submitted to your cookbook.

We provide a separate fact sheet giving you ideas on how you can also boost your cookbook sales. Launching your Cookbook Fundraiser:

If you’re part of a team, it’s important that you all have a clear plan of when you plan to START your cookbook project, when you hope to CLOSE your recipe submission phase, and when you hope to FINISH.

We include a suggested Timeframes Document in our Dropbox folder to help you work out these key dates.

We also suggest you:

Write up a Marketing Plan that clearly details:

o WHAT actions you plan to take to PROMOTE your cookbook fundraiser, COLLECT the recipes and SELL your cookbook

o WHEN you plan to complete each task

o WHO will be responsible for completing each task.

o We include a suggested template at the end of this Fact Sheet to help you with this.

It helps if you can have all advertising material ready (such as Recipe Request Forms, Advertising Posters, etc) and key staff notified, prior to your START date.

Promoting your cookbook project and boosting recipe numbers

Every group will have their own ideas on how to best promote their own cookbook, and that’s great. However if you’re looking for some ideas, below are lots of ideas for how you can boost your recipe numbers.

Many of these ideas came from our past clients who’ve had great success using these techniques.

Remember, if families and members lodge a recipe (or three), then they’re much more likely to buy copies of the cookbook!

Set a target

Setting a target for the number of recipes you want to include in your cookbook is a great focus point.

Make sure all your families know your target.

“Our initial target was 50, but once we reached this, we set our eye on 100. I think by setting a target and keeping everyone informed about it helped us to achieve our target”.

Posters

• Display the posters we supply calling for recipes in high traffic areas.

• Why not print off extra posters included in our Dropbox folder and display them outside each class or function room as well.

Newsletters & Websites

• If your school or community group produces a weekly electronic or printed newsletter, insert our cookbook advertisement that’s included in our Dropbox folder.

• Include this advertisement each week that your event is running.

• You can also include this same advertisement on your website.

Recipe Request Form

• Personalise the Recipe Request Form included in our Dropbox folder and distribute it to families & members.

Seek recipes from staff

• Also get staff and committee members to lodge their favourite recipes.

o Kids love to see the recipes submitted by their teachers and admin staff. Don’t forget the Principal.

Verbal Prompting (EXTREMEMLY EFFECTIVE)

• Ask your teachers, instructors, or team leaders to remind the students or members to lodge their favourite recipes (and to return their cookbook order forms) by your due date.

o These reminders should be made EVERY week while your event is running.

o This can be done during school assemblies, house and weekly meetings, etc.

o You’ll be amazed at how effective these reminders will be at increasing sales, especially when you stress that they ONLY have a few days left to get their recipes lodged and hence get their name included in the published cookbook.

Social media

• Use facebook and twitter to promote your cookbook and call for recipes. Ask your committee members to do the same.

• Every now and then add a post letting people know how many recipes you are still after to reach your target, what recipes you have to date, and what recipes you are still after (ie we’re after more soup and salad recipes).

Set a recipe submission as a homework activity (GUARANTEED TO BOOST NUMBERS)

• Ask your Principal to get students to lodge a recipe as a homework activity. Attach the Recipe Submission Form with the homework task sheet as it contains the lodgement instructions.

• For large schools: Try doing this for just certain year levels, or for the Food Technology students.

Offer an inducement

• Advertise the fact that all people lodging a recipe go into a draw to win XYZ prize(s). Be creative, but consider the following:

o Win one of X free cookbooks

o Ask families or local businesses to donate an item for the raffle draw, such as a free 30 minute massage at the local Day Spa Centre, or dinner for two up to the value of $100 at XYZ Restaurant.

o Perhaps in return, the donating businesses can include an advertisement at no cost.

o One school was keen to offer a prize of one term of free tuition fees, but we suggested that this was probably just a little too generous!

• Give a free cookbook to the teacher who gets their class to submit the most recipes.

Emails direct to families / members

• If appropriate, you can email parents and members with a personal plea to submit their recipes by X date so you can create your wonderful cookbook in time for XYZ.

Create a poster or hold an artwork competition

• Hold a favourite recipe competition day for the students – names go into a draw to win a special prize such as movie tickets.

• Hold an artwork competition, with the winning artwork being included In the published cookbook.

• Make colourful eye catching posters asking for recipes and display them in high traffic areas and outside the classrooms and school functions.

Join with another similar group

• Sometimes if your organisation, charity, playgroup, kindergarten or primary school is small, you may decide to invite a similar group to create a joint cookbook. Some ideas could include:

o A joint Preschool / Primary School Cookbook

o Two neighboring playgroups

o A combined Netball / Football sporting club.

Monitor your recipe numbers to ensure you stay on schedule

We give you access to a secure area of our website where you can monitor in real time (24/7) all recipes that have been submitted to your cookbook.

We suggest you check this area at least once per week.

That way, you can decide if you need to boost and/or tweak your marketing efforts. This is a great way to help you stay on schedule, and hence avoid you having to push back your cookbook delivery date.

What can we do if we are approaching our planned recipe submission cut-off date but the recipe numbers are still too low?

It is not uncommon for schools and community groups to face some difficulty getting families and friends to lodge recipes for their cookbook. Let’s face it, we’re all busy! If this is happening to you, don’t despair! Even minor ‘tweaking’ of your advertising / marketing strategy often can reverse this situation within a few days. Some suggestions are to run a fresh marketing push 2 weeks before your planned cut-off date, including:

Revisit your marketing plan, and identify new approaches you can try.

Send out a reminder Recipe Request Form

Include a reminder in your school or organization newsletter that families only have until XYZ date to get their recipes submitted.

Make a fresh push on social media such as twitter and facebook (see orange story below)

We had one school that really struggled getting families (& staff) to submit their recipes. To quote the school’s cookbook coordinator “Lol! We started hounding everyone on facebook. If you target them personally they find it hard to say no.” In under one week, they went from just 35 recipes to 111 (& counting).

Ensure announcements are made at your school assembly or club meeting

Ask committee member or volunteers to greet parents /members at school start and finish times and ask if they have submitted their favourite recipe, and if not, ask for their promise to do so.

Send a personalised email to members & families asking them to help achieve your recipe number target of X recipes (include your recipe submission form as an attachment).

Sometimes it may just be easier to get people to hand in their recipes and then get a few volunteers to type them into our website template.

o Despite creating more work, some groups really do find this is the only way to get lots of recipes for their cookbook!

Case study of an actual school advertising strategy (that worked brilliantly!)

1. Start promotion by sending cookbook letter & order form home to families

2. Give all teachers posters to display on their classroom door

3. Include weekly advertisement in school newsletter

4. Senior staff to give weekly reminders about the cookbook and recipe lodgement process at both Monday’s school assembly and Friday’s house meetings.

5. Send home reminder note to families

6. Make a final announcement at school assembly (telling kids they have until Monday morning to lodge their recipe and to get their recipe included in the school cookbook)

7. This final step boosted recipe numbers by a massive 31% in just one night !

Use this template to design your marketing strategy

(Remember you should review and, if needed, update this strategy if you find the number of recipes being submitted is too low).

Task When Person Responsible

i.e. Personalise Recipe Request Form to be sent home and distribute.