WebJunction

With a Demonstrating Impact strategy in place and having quantified your impact, there remains the all-important task of communicating your library's impact to your city council, county commission, or library district board. There are two ways to make the case for your library's value:

• Directly, by formally presenting your arguments to your funding organization.
• Indirectly, by building public support for your library in the community—so that the community can in turn pass your message on to your funders.

Make your case directly

Construct an argument: The Southern Ontario Library Service's workbook on The Library's Contribution to Your Community has a valuable set of instructions for building point-by-point arguments about the various types of library value. You can order the workbook here. Included is information about anticipating counter-arguments—a key component of success.

Worth its weight in gold is this excellent collection of case studies showing how individual libraries have used the Southern Ontario Library Service methodology to build arguments specific to their own situations.

A standard tool for developing funding arguments in the for-profit (and non-profit) world is the business plan. While you may or may not want to create a full-fledged business plan, it's a good model for thinking through the information you need to present to your funders. Here are good examples of library business plans from the Oakville (ON) and Kenosha (WI) Public Libraries. A template from the Minnesota Nonprofits Assistance Fund (available on this page) is geared to non-profits launching earned-income ventures—but it will lead you through many of the questions you need to be asking yourself as you marshal your argument. More general business plan information is available from the US government's Small Business Administration. And here is an interesting case of business planning from the world of public safety.

Bob Watson of Lake Villa (IL) District Library sent this letter to his mayor and board members, translating the value of his library into dollars and cents.

For help with a standard number-crunching tool, take one of the Microsoft Excel courses listed in WebJunction's course catalog.

Present your case: The Iowa State Library's Telling the Library Story Tool Kit includes a page on becoming a better speaker and presenter. And while we don't want to confuse presenting tools with presenting skill, you will also find courses on Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 and 2002 in WebJunction's course catalog.

We’ve posted annotated notes from Kathy St. John’s recent California Library Association presentation on Talking to Power.

Here are some examples of effective presentations on the value of libraries. Though these address a range of audiences and circumstances, they all demonstrate the value of having a clear, focused story supported with relevant facts.

• Much of the Phoenix Public Library's Arizona Library Association presentation from 2001 could be adapted to use in your own presentations. This material is based on the Public Library Benefits Valuation Study.
• An excellent example of aligning a library's mission with overarching community needs is displayed in a presentation on how “Smart Libraries Build Smart Communities” from the State Library of Queensland, Australia (the large [2 megabyte] PowerPoint file is available on this Queensland Public Library Association conference page).
• “Inventing the Future of Public Library Services in Texas,” a presentation commissioned by the Texas State Library, is a great example of how to weave numeric data with simple principles into a presentation that creates a compelling story. The PowerPoint file is available from this Texas Public Libraries page.

Enlisting library trustees is a key part of any strategy for demonstrating impact.   This excerpt from Mary Y. Moore’s Trustee's Handbook focuses on the board’s role in advocacy.  And Sally Gardner Reed’s Making the Case for Your Library has an excellent discussion of how to get others on board with the library’s message.

Make your case indirectly

Your direct message to your funders can be powerfully supplemented by complementary messages delivered to the wider community. Think “marketing,” with the specific goal of communicating your value to patrons so they can become advocates and supporters to your funding organization on your behalf. Take a look at WebJunction resources on the general topic of marketing, as well as WJ's Media Relations course (available from the course catalog).

Here are a few public library Web sites that include messages to the public about their value:

• Burnaby (BC) Public Library's annual report

• The Friends of the Oakland (CA) Public Library online Advocacy Center

WebJunction member Molly Rodgers, of Honesdale, PA, has put together an effective graphic to demonstrate the national and global reach of a local small-town library.

As this road map shows, the journey to demonstrating impact is no simple highway. But it's also clear that libraries everywhere are facing up to the challenge with all their passion and creativity. There may be many a winding turn, but with a little help from your friends (including the WebJunction community) you'll be sure to ease on down the road!