Ivory FAVORITES Cookbook for Make-A-Wish

By Chriss Sharer ~ CEO of Make-A-Wish Foundation

This FAVORITES cookbook was created by Grace and Jane, the two daughters of one of our major donors, Katie Ivory, as a gift for her 60th birthday. She is a very good cook and has lots of friends. Her daughters rummaged through drawers and salvaged their favorite family recipes from scraps of paper and napkins - both their mother’s own recipes and family favorites created by friends, neighbors, and relatives. They retested and retyped them all, and a childhood friend designed the layout and the cover for the book. They printed 1000 copies.

Within weeks, their mother had countless requests for the book. They started giving their own copies away. To print more would be expensive, but they did not want to sell the books to their family and friends. So Katie, who was on our board at Make-A-Wish, had an idea. She offered to print another 1500 if Make-A-Wish would sell them as a charitable fundraiser.

We were reluctant, believing we had no natural market for a cookbook and would get stuck with about 1250 of them. But we certainly didn’t want to offend Katie. We groaned inwardly and agreed to sell them. Katie offered her home for an Open House and invited lots of people. She asked us to send a few staff members to handle the money. We sent ONE staff member because we couldn’t imagine there would be THAT much money to process. Within a few hours, that staff member called for backup in a panic. Every book was sold that afternoon, and a thousand more were committed. We were going to have to reprint a third time just to fill existing orders!

We have reprinted many times now, paying for the printing ourselves, and we have netted over $225,000 from their sale. We never advertise, but we sell books literally every day at our front desk, and get orders from all over the country, especially around holidays like Mother’s Day and Christmas. It is the ultimate word of mouth promotion.

For information on how to purchase this cookbook, please click here or visit Make-A-Wish Foundation at 771 East Winchester (6600 South) in Murray.


Comment on this post and be entered to win your own copy of the Ivory FAVORITES Cookbook! Be sure to enter your email or Blogger account. Winner will be chosen December 15th. Compliments of Ivory Homes.

12/15/09 - Cookbook Giveaway Winner: Lucky Number 5! Congratulations, Jessica Malan!