The Recipe For A Great Fundraiser • A Step-By-Step Overview

Gather & Organize Your Recipes

The heart of a great cookbook is great recipes! One of the keys to a successful cookbook project is to include recipes from as many different contributors as possible, because each person who contributes a recipe is very likely to buy a cookbook for herself as well as cookbooks for family members or friends.

Create Enthusiasm
Make a list of potential recipe contributors. Look outside as well as inside your organization for recipe contributors. Request recipes from your civic leaders, local celebrities, notable people in other organizations, relatives and acquaintances.

Outline the different ways you can reach each of your potential recipe contributors. For example:

• Put up posters and attach recipe forms for people to use.
• Hand out or e-mail flyers with recipe forms that can be filled out and returned.
• Make announcements at meetings; make phone calls to individuals.
• If your book is a community-wide effort, use the local radio and television stations.

Generate excitement among your recipe contributors. They are creating "their" cookbook and helping "their" organization. If they feel like important members of your cookbook team, they'll be more likely to give you more recipes, better recipes, and give them to you sooner!

Stay Organized
As each recipe comes to you, check it for spelling and legibility--triple check the spelling of the contributor's name. Then read the recipe to make sure it makes sense. Sometimes people accidentally omit an obvious ingredient or important step. If you aren't sure about an ingredient, an amount or an instruction, ask the contributor. Far better to catch errors at this stage than after your cookbook is printed.

Next, assign the recipe to the appropriate section of your cookbook. You may choose any order for the sections of your cookbook, but our standard section order is:

1. Appetizers, Beverages
2. Soups, Salads
3. Vegetables
4. Main Dishes
5. Breads, Rolls
6. Desserts
7. Miscellaneous

Download our Recipe Management Tips. You will find many tips on making your recipe collection easy and efficient. Plus, it has the detailed instructions on organizing and labeling your recipes before you ship them to us with all your other materials.