The green pastures of library fundraising on the Internet

Citation

Maxymuk, J. (2001), "The green pastures of library fundraising on the Internet", The Bottom Line, Vol. 14 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2001.17014bag.001

The green pastures of library fundraising on the Internet

The green pastures of library fundraising on the Internet

Keywords: Fundraising, Libraries, Internet

Introduction

Sometimes I fantasize about how much easier library financial management would be if we could operate as professional sports franchises do. In the green pastures of professional football, the greatest portion of a team's budget is provided by ever-increasing billion dollar network broadcast contracts. Money is brought in by extensive sales of National Football League licensed apparel, memorabilia, and paraphernalia. In addition, as a team's operating expenses increase, ticket prices can be raised. When a team arranges to upgrade or replace its facilities, it is the public that provides the bulk of the funding despite the fact that these teams are private enterprises. Furthermore, when the team agrees to pay a "share" of the building costs, a good portion of its share often is provided through the sale of "personal seat licenses", where those who hold season tickets are afforded the opportunity to pay a one-time fee of $1,000 or $2,000 dollars per seat, to retain the right to annually buy their season tickets.

The library application

In libraries, of course, things are a little different. We often have to wheedle and cajole our organization's financial administration just to keep the same budget allocation as the previous year. We are in the business of lending, not selling. We have no admission prices to raise when operating expenses increase. Finally, when we have a large-scale building project, there would not be much chance that a personal library card license would be greeted warmly. What libraries must do is fundraising.

Fundraising is an essential activity for all levels and types of libraries. There is a clear consensus among libraries that no matter how generous your budget allocation is, if more money were available, then the library could provide more resources and more services. However, money is not given freely. Raising money is a difficult thing to do and even harder to accomplish part-time. As such, many libraries have their own fundraising or development office. Through that office or officer, a library can coordinate its efforts, such as Friends of the Library activities, financial campaigns, sales, donations, grant-searches, or other expeditions to uncover new funds. To aid in these activities, there are a host of interesting Web sites.

Starting points

The best place to start is with the home page of the Development Director of the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, Adam Corson-Finnerty (http://pobox.upenn.edu/~corsonf/). He provides links to materials that provide very good launching points. One notable site is an article prepared by Corson-Finnerty on library fundraising on the Web (http://pobox.upenn.edu/~adamcf/alabook.html). The original version was published in The Big Book of Library Grant Money, 1996-97 (Corson-Finnerty, 1996). This updated version focuses on a library's initial goals for its Web fundraising efforts and provides links to sites of interest.

A much more detailed site also by Corson-Finnerty is the Online Fundraising Resources Center (http://www.fund-online.com/). The primary items of interest here are the excerpts from the book Fundraising and Friend-Raising on the Web Corson-Finnerty and Blanchard (1998). Included on the site is a sampling of chapters from the CD companion to the book. Four chapters are reprinted in their entirety, and the others are represented by their introductions. Chapters cover topics like major gifts, money on the Net, starting and developing your site, and the wired development initiative. The appendices on cool sites and online Web resources are continually updated. Teaching materials, such as handouts from a variety of classes and presentations, are also to be found on this site.

Raising friends

One of the resources on which Corson-Finnerty puts emphasis is the ubiquitous Friends of the Library group. Libraries of all sizes and types can cultivate a Friends group that can provide a solid budgetary supplement. Establishing a Web page devoted to this group can: increase the profile of the group; and broaden communication within the group. Librarian.org has compiled a page of Academic Friends of the Library Groups in North America (http://librarian.org/development/friends.html). This page is a useful source for ideas and quick comparisons of different approaches to a Friends' page.

The University of Maine's Fogler Library has set up a page for its Friends that is particularly noteworthy (http://vega.ursus.maine.edu/gfellerg/Friends/FriendsTop2.html). There is basic information provided about both the parent library and the Friends group. There is an online membership application form to encourage joining. Copies of current and archival issues of the official newsletter, The Olive Tree, are accessible online. A calendar of group events and projects is present. Finally, there is a benefactors' page that enables the library to highlight featured donors and to link to their personal and business Web sites as well. It is a very complete site. The only negative is that it is not featured prominently or at all on the parent library's Web site, and that seems to be a glaring oversight.

The Multnomah County Library Friends Group (http://www.friends-library.org/index.html) is featured on the library's main page under Library Support. It includes most of the positive attributes of the Fogler Friends site, but also operates both an actual and virtual store whose sales go to providing financial support for the library system. Discussing the financial support from Friends should remind these groups to make sure that all non-profit procedures are followed properly. One site worth checking in this regard is a brief tutorial prepared by California attorney David J. Guy on "How to get and keep your nonprofit status" (http://www.friendcalib.org/newsstand/f3guy1.htm).

Developing donors

It can be helpful to compare different approaches in going after the large donors. Librarian.org again has compiled a Web site in this area, Library Development Web Sites in North America (http://librarian.org/development/develop.html). For example, the University of Waterloo has a page on Gifts and Donations (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/Gifts.html) that outlines the ways of giving to the library. Gifts can be made to strengthen collections, purchase new equipment, increase the endowment fund, or to contribute to special projects. The Red Deer Public Library in Alberta, Canada, started an innovative partnership with a local bookstore. The Buy Read Donate (http://www.rdpl.red-deer.ab.ca/Chapters.html) program involves users purchasing a book from the bookstore and donating it to the library within three months for a charitable income tax receipt.

The Vancouver Public Library has created a program for corporate donors that is outlined in its Corporate Partnership Policy (http://www.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/general/sponsor.html). Vancouver is looking for corporate partners to donate money to a specific program, service or operation of the library and in return receive the good publicity of marketing rights for their financial involvement. Being even more specific, the Oregon State University Valley Library's page on giving to OSU libraries (http://osulibrary.orst.edu/geninfo/giving.htm) lists exactly how much of a donation they are seeking for the naming rights to the library quad ($5 million), the special collections suite ($2.5 million), the employee lounge ($100,000), enclosed study carrels ($25,000), and even for individual study chairs ($250). To reward donors, more and more institutions are beginning to list them online as in the Cal Poly Pomona University Library's Benefactors page (http://www.csupomona.edu/~library/html/benefactors.html), which lists a donor honor roll ranging from $100,000 down to under $100. Of course, all gifts are appreciated.

The long campaign

A related approach for raising money is a capital campaign. This is used most often with a particular building or other improvement project. In undertaking an expansion and renovation, the Pinellas Park Public Library in Florida is raising money by selling personalized commemorative bricks, tiles and plaques (http://pppl.tblc.lib.fl.us/fundrais.html). The bricks will be used in the library walkway, the ceramic tiles in the library lobby, and the plaques hung in the area sponsored. The University of Virginia's Moore Health Sciences Library also has an expansion and renovation project underway (http://www.hsc.virginia.edu/hs-library/admin/campaign.html). On their Web page, they have broken down their overall campaign goals to reflect what they hope to accomplish: one million to collections, two million to study space and new technology and two million for professional staff development.

Some campaigns are ongoing. The Windsor Public Library in Ontario, Canada, has an annual Light the Future NOW! campaign (http://www.citywindsor.on.ca/wpl/donate/donations.asp) that is used to buy library materials and supplement the regular budget. The Oak Lawn Public Library has a Community Library Foundation (http://www.lib.oak-lawn.il.us/lib-fnd.htm) that generally directs the funds it raises into the library's endowment fund for long term needs.

Commercial approaches

The above all follow traditional fundraising models, but there are methods that emphasize the Web's dot-com direction and potential for libraries which want to pursue this path. One increasingly common method is an affiliate program. Support A Library (http://www.lights.com/webcats/support/libs.html) lists over 100 libraries running affiliate programs. These libraries become affiliates for commercial entities, i.e. advertising on their Web sites in return for a cut of sales generated by this marketing. For example, City College of New York's Library (http://www.ccny.cuny. edu/library/) has an Amazon.com icon and link on its page. The Bellmore (NY) Memorial Library has a link to online shopping that links to Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and CD Now (http://www.nassaulibrary.org/bellmore/shops.html). The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay places its affiliate link to Barnes and Noble on their Friends' page (http://www.uwgb.edu/Library/friends/bookstore.html). Perhaps the grandest move in this direction is by the Winnipeg Public Library's Millennium Library project (http://www.millenniumlibrary.com/support/index.html), whose Library Foundation's E-shopping Mall allows users to make purchases from 140 different merchants (including Amazon, LL Bean, Dell, and 1-800-Flowers) from which the library gets paid a commission.

Commission Junction is one organization that manages these sorts of commission arrangements (http://www.cj.com/home.asp). They represent over 1,000 merchants although not all are stores. For instance, the Hartford Public Library (http://www.hartfordpl.lib.ct.us/) not only places a link to Amazon on its page, but it also features as a side bar an up-to-date newsfeed from Moreover (http://www.moreover.com/). Moreover is a newsfeed service that pays commissions when someone is referred from your site to put the newsfeed on his site. Beyond all this and most likely beyond the pale for libraries is AdSearches (http://www.adsearches.com/), an affiliate program that places advertising on your site and pays by the hit.

What's left unexamined is the whole field of grants, which will be saved for a later column. As this column makes clear, much is being done by libraries on the Web to raise funds. This is a trend that will continue.

Comments on this column are welcome and can be sent to maxymuk@crab.rutgers.edu or visit my Web page (http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~maxymuk/home/home.html). Links to Web sites referred to in this column can be found there.

John MaxymukReference Librarian at the Paul Robeson Library, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA