Church Cookbook Fundraiser: How to Run One That Raises Money

A church cookbook fundraiser works because people buy a book with their own recipe and their friends' recipes in it. It goes wrong in two places: collecting recipes takes months, and the committee orders a few hundred copies up front and spends a year selling the last boxes. This plan avoids both.

1. Decide what the money is for, and say it on every page

"Help send our youth to camp" or "new hymnals for the chapel" sells more books than "cookbook, $25." Put the cause on the sign-up sheet, in the announcement, and inside the front cover. People who might skip a cookbook will buy one for the cause.

2. Collect recipes from one link

Don't ask people to email recipes to a volunteer who types them up. Share one link in the bulletin, the ward newsletter or the group text, and let each household add their own from their phone. With Kindred Cook, people can take a photo of a recipe card and the AI fills in the recipe, so the oldest members can contribute without typing.

Ask each household for two recipes, give a six-week deadline, and announce the count each Sunday. Leaders of each group (Relief Society, Elders Quorum, youth, choir, ministries) can each collect their own chapter.

3. Take pre-orders before you print

This is the step that decides whether the fundraiser makes money. Take orders and payment while recipes are still coming in, and print only what's been paid for, plus a few extras for visitors and new move-ins. Print-on-demand means there's no minimum order, so you never need to guess.

4. Price it from the cost per copy

Work out what one copy costs you, then add what you want to raise per book. For example, Kindred Cook's Community Edition is a coil-bound 7×10 book that lies flat on the counter, at $39 a copy plus shipping, with no minimum. Sell it at $50 and each copy raises about $11 before shipping; 40 households raise about $440.

Two things make the number bigger: ask for a suggested donation on top of the book price, and offer a nicer hardcover as a gift copy for the bishop, pastor or the family being honoured. To keep costs down, some congregations buy the designed PDF once ($39 for the whole book), share it with every member, and print copies only for the people who want one.

5. Make the book worth keeping

• A short story with each recipe: who brought it to which dinner.
• Scanned handwriting from the oldest members, printed as it was written.
• A chapter of funeral and new-baby meals, scaled for a crowd.
• An index of contributors, so every family can find their page.

A fundraiser book people keep for twenty years does more for the next fundraiser than a cheap one that's recycled by spring.

6. Order one proof, then the rest

Print a single copy first and pass it around the committee. Someone will catch the misspelled name. Then place the full order from your pre-order list.

Start your church cookbook free on Kindred Cook and put the link in this week's bulletin. Collecting takes longer than printing, so start now.