ALIVE e.V. is a German based non-profit organisation that fights for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. ALIVE supports inmates on death row especially in the U.S. with personal contact and access to education and information. ALIVE´s own evaluation of recent pro-abolition campaigns showed, that people have gotten indifferent about Death Penalty. They just would not donate anymore, because other topics seem more urgent and relevant.When ALIVE asked us to help them, the situation was as follows:In 2012 the overwhelming majority of all known executions took place in only 5 countries: China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and – the United States of America.*

Our strategy is based on 2 insights: people feel indifferent about the death penalty.And second: a very relevant topic in Germany and the United States is cooking. While rarely achieving top ratings, cooking shows have always attracted people. More than 50% of Americans watch cooking shows on a regular basis.

Consequently, cookbooks sell by the millions and fill shelf after shelf in bookstores. That´s why we devised a cookbook with last meals, that can still be prevented: 'Dead Men Cooking' presents the future last meal wishes of real inmates on US death rows. So people can engage with the severe topic of death penalty through something they love.

The first edition of Dead Men Cooking was sold out in 2 weeks, and that despite of the high price. We noticed an increase of 350% of visitors on the website of ALIVE. National media coverage was extensive and additional donations grew by 120%. We received feedback from dozens of inmates that haven´t been in the book, yet. They sent ALIVE their last meal wishes, family pictures, personal comments on their choice of meal to include them in the next edition.

Since the book has a strong design approach fans voluntarily shared it on social communities like Facebook and Twitter. There were articles about Dead Men Cooking in several leading German design magazines. All this resulted in nearly 90m contacts in the German media.