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RE: Marketing/Fundraising Articles
3:03 PM EDT 6/20/04
as a reply to Max Anderson.
Interesting article here: Thanks Chrystie!!
It focuses on academics but some of it can translate to Publics...
The Illogic of Academic Library Fundraising
DRAFT, INTENDED FOR COMMENT
By Adam Corson-Finnerty
Director of Development and External Affairs
University of Pennsylvania Library
April 12, 2004
There is an illogic in academic library fundraising that threatens to undermine the information base of the college or university that is being served.
Think about it. A University or college Library System serves every undergraduate student, every graduate student, every faculty member, every researcher, and every staff member. If one ask -- who is the Library's constituency -- the answer is: The entire academic community.
However, when the focus turns to fundraising, the Library's constituency shrinks to a tiny handful of major gift prospects and a small list of annual donors. The overwhelming majority of the institution's major gift
prospects will have already been assigned to other schools and major gift programs, and the vast body of alumni will be carefully shepherded by the Annual Fund Program. Special permission must be sought in order to approach these individuals, and the same is true with regard to
faculty and staff. Most often, this permission is denied. Or the request is never mad -- since it would be "out of the question." This is the basis for the wry observation that the library's constituency is everybody and nobody.
Academic Library fundraising is a relatively recent phenomenon. Twenty years ago, it was virtually unheard of. Now it is the norm. Campus administrators have decided that if the Library wants more money for acquisitions, or for buildings, or to launch innovative program -- then
the Library can get out there and hustle along with everyone else. Hence the rise in dedicated library fundraising staff: Directors or Assistant Deans for Library Fundraising, Annual Giving officers, membership
coordinators, and occasionally special events staff. And when new Library Deans are hired, they are expected to have "fundraising ability."
There is nothing wrong with asking Library Deans to undertake fundraising, just as other deans do. What is wrong is that little serious thought has been given as to who or to whom the dean can turn for support.
Logic would suggest that the chief information-provider for the campus should be able to turn to anyone and everyone who cares about the mission of the college. After all, library services are at the core of the enterprise, not at the periphery. Logic would suggest that
fundraising for library needs would be similar to fundraising for scholarship -- a task that every campus gift officer would undertake, from the President on down. Like scholarship, the campus should rejoice when any donor comes forward with a gift, and few if any prospects
should be ruled "off limits." Furthermore, reunion classes should be encouraged and allowed to adopt library projects for their class drive -- just as most can now choose a scholarship goal.
If such a logical system prevails at any college or university in the United States, I am not aware of it. Even if we can unearth one or two exceptions, they will indeed be the exceptions that make the rule. (Although at Penn, I am happy to report that we are moving toward the
"ideal" position, outlined below.)
Instead, library fundraisers have been allowed a hodgepodge of openings. Where a library school exists, the dean is often pointed toward those alumn -- a small and singularly impoverished group. Sometimes the library is allowed to approach faculty or staf -- a singularly resistant group. Parents are sometimes cleared for approach, and parents can be generous. Often, the library is encouraged to approach non-alumni who may live in the immediate region and occasionally use its services.
This is all well and good, but misses the main chance. Emotion drives giving, and wealth is the key to major gifts. The library needs direct access to red-blooded, wealthy, grateful, nostalgic alumn -- people who attended your institution at a formative stage in their adolescence and who care about the good old "U." Or at least who care about impressing the other adolescents who were their friends and have since gone on to make pots of money.
A Second Anomaly
There is a second bit of illogic that pertains to the academic library's financial needs. It is this:
At a time when information resources are exploding in depth, reach and accessibility...
...at a time when a complex web of digital data is being constructed...
...at a time when content costs and content demands are growing...
...at a time when stupendous new streams of data are being opened, and entire fields of research are being transformed...
...at a time when most patrons are struggling to keep up with a plethora of new digital research tools and most undergraduates are unable to see "beyond Google"...
...at a time when most colleges and universities are convinced that they must keep up with teaching and research technology...
...at such a time, which can only be described as "revolutionary," the key information broker and leader-the Library-is on a starvation diet.
This starvation diet comes in three forms: (1) being asked to cut expenditures year after year, or (2) being asked to live with the same dollars as last year, or (3) being given a slight raise each year-say 2% or 3%. Most readers will only think that #1 qualifies as starvation. But then most readers may not be aware that information costs are increasing at 6% or more a year. This means that the Library's acquisition budget must grow by 6% just to keep buying at the same level. This makes no allowance for expanding the collections. It does not recognize that
libraries often are forced (by faculty or by publishers) to buy the same content in both digital and paper format. And this makes no new money available for the R&D investment in software, personnel, and procedures that academic libraries must collectively make on behalf of the academy.
The Ideal
It is unlikely that campus administrators will give the library 8% increases year after year. But it is certainly possible to undertake aggressive fundraising for library programs and for library endowment.
We have to start by recognizing that the library has come late to the party. Other guests have already arrived and claimed their chairs, their plates, their drinks. They have carved up the main dishes. In fact, they have already sectioned the pie and scooped out the ice cream. Which
leaves exactly what for the library?
It is not for philosophical reasons, but rather for historical reasons, that the current library fundraising model has evolved. As a Johnny-come-lately, the library is often relegated to a peripheral status, forced to scramble for prospects one at a time. It is neither logical nor efficacious to place the academy's primary information
provider in the same category as the campus art gallery, or the performing arts center, or the basketball program -- all of which may be worthwhile, even critical to a subset of the enterprise-but none of which are fundamental to the enterprise. Yet that is where the library is usually placed.
It is my contention that the Library's goals should be seen as key University goals, and that the Library's function as Information Provider/Trainer/Broker/Pioneer be seen as an overarching theme in fundraising, much as "scholarship" is seen as a theme.
Fundraising for and investment in the campus information infrastructure should be a key priority for every college and university president. To use a little current jargon, this whole matter is overdue for a "Big Think" at the very highest level.
And when that big think is done, the library should come close to this ideal:
--The Administration has a clear vision of its information needs and options, and of the role that the library system plays in that vision.
--The Library's priorities are the Administration's priorities (and vice versa)
--The library's fundraising priorities are clearly identified in the institution's fundraising plan.
--The President, Provost, and VP for Development have the library's million-dollar gift opportunities in mind as they review high-level prospects.
--Major gift officers have library gift opportunities in their kit bag when they visit prospects.
--The library can make direct gift appeals to alumni in order to build a base of support.
--If reunion classes adopt campus projects for their gift drives, library projects are on the list.
--Library needs are incorporated into explorations and subsequent proposals to foundations and corporations.
As mentioned, at Penn we are taking steps to move toward this ideal. But most library deans would be surprised, even shocked, to find themselves in this happy fundraising situation. Yet-as Sherlock Holmes might say-doesn't it seem perfectly logical?
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