Schools
If you are fundraising for a school you can use sales of candy, magazines, plants and other very products which work well. I know because I used to teach in a school where we did all these things.
From my point of view as both a teacher and a parent, once the campaign was finished the children rarely had any sense of accomplishment.
I wanted to create something special that they would feel proud of and that, at the end of the day, perhaps even the end of the school year, they would look at and remember what they had done. On the other hand if they helped make a school cookbook by bringing in family recipes and making drawings and artwork, they would be sharing their culture and talent in making a community project.
Let me tell you about some of the things that schools have done -
A nusery school made a very cute cookbook with a recipe and drawing and story from each child - "This is my mommy and my daddy and my little brother, John. He cries all the time but mommy says we have to keep him anyway." THEY SOLD OUT ALL THEIR COOKBOOKS IN 72 HOURS.
Another school made a cookbook with color pictures of all the children in chefs hats and sold it at the school auction.
A high school class made a multi-cultural cookbook for their business course, wrote the business and marketing plan and presented it in front of the whole school. They got a grade of A+.