Funding Brainstorm
Last Modified: 21 March 2012
First Steps
Fundraising
Grants
Gifts/Donations
Sources of Funding
Say Thank You
First Steps:
- Consider all types of relationship building within your community, even with beauty salons, realtors and morgues!
- Create a fundraising action plan
- Establish a Friends group.
- Figure out what % of town's budget goes to library. Carnegie suggested 1% of his for libraries.
- Find champions of libraries in legislature and communicate with them.
- Find money for a grant writer.
- Form partnerships with other organizations (Schools, Parent/teacher groups, hospitals, social service agencies, parks service) as it's often the expectation of funding agencies that you will be doing this.
- Get a "place at the table" in your community so all come to realize the benefits of partnering with the library: better community learning, health, commerce, quality of life, etc.
- Help town form a long range planning committee and then eventually include the library for future funding.
- Hire a development person for grant writing, annual appeals.
- Host legislative forum on libraries.
- Lead efforts to develop a local task force, advisory board eg. Community Capacity Building Team
- One-on-one meetings with elected officials
- Meet with economic director for our community to learn of new businesses in our town for funding
- Rotary- visit and join to be part of community
- Seek out state library coordination for shared/traded services across the state
- Study up on searching for grants
Fundraising:
- 4th of July Festival hot dog and face painting sales
- Adopt-a-book program
- Annual Halloween Costume Rental
- Annual wreath sale, and May plant sale
- "Arrest" staff & bail money used for technology
- Artist made lobster adornment we sell. Also decorated local made bird houses.
- Ask restaurants to partner in a fundraising event like "take your library to dinner"
- Author dinner/luncheon
- A theme: the library will drive the town to drink!: a cart outside library for bottle donations. 1 person to do the pick-up
- Be a spider, Build a Web campaign for computers
- Beans and Cornbread dinners
- Bench auction raffle
- Bike-a-thon
- Bingo for software
- Book and author luncheon
- Booksales
- Book "theme" baskets - annually sold at local Fair, made with donated books
- Campbell's soup labels
- Catfish festival
- Christmas present campaign (library sends card notifying recipient of gift)
- Coffee Bar
- Collaborative Fundraising with library, Lighthouse, Hockamock Players, Odd Fellows Hall, Evening of fun, food & Entertainment.
- Community concert
- Consider alternative fundraising such as E-Bay sales of old books
- Design and sell afghans with community buildings feature
- Dinner theatre
- Face painting at local events
- Fall chili/chowder cook-off-solicit local restaurants, etc. to provide food, charge a fee for samples of all
- Fashion Show
- Friends Annual Talent Show, $ 1,000 - $1,500. Have kids in it, all parents and relatives come
- Game night with an entry fee
- Garage sales
- Golf tournament
- Granny's Tea Party
- Guilt jar
- Gun club shoots old computers for a fee
- Harvest festival
- Have a used computer sale or raffle when upgrading
- Have library staff/patrons place fundraising ideas in drop box as a contest and reward winner
- Have local craftsmen donate items for auction
- Hold a "Books and Chocolate" fundraiser - plenty of books and chocolate - donations accepted
- Hold a tea for mothers and daughters to raise money for books
- Hold dance party with 50's, 60's theme
- Holiday ornaments/crafts
- Ice cream social
- Indoor golf
- "Keep the change" for the library
- Library Antique Road Show
- Library T-shirts
- LibraryAID concert, big names donate time, etc...
- Literacy Awareness bracelets (like Lance Armstrong cancer bracelets- $1.00
- Local Celebrity auction
- Local history scavenger hunt (buy items for History Room)
- "Mad hatter's" tea
- Mother's Day Plant Sale
- Muffin/cookie sale by bags - say $2.00 a bag, has brought in $1500.00 for other groups- Partnering with bakers
- Murder mystery dinner - literary
- Partner with local artists to provide works for raffle prizes
- Pay-to-not sing
- Pet contest
- Pie/cake auction
- Place Christmas tree ornaments with books needed for patrons to take and supply
- Plant sale
- Post a "Buy a Book" campaign on your website like the East Meadow Public Library
- Publish or republish city or town book: cookbook by yearly recipe sharing
- Purchase local product for reduced price and sell to public for profit
- Raffles
- Read-a-thon
- Rebates from recycling
- "Ribs for reading"
- Quilting club meets at library and then donates quilt for raffle
- Santa Claus/Easter Bunny photos
- Sell canvas bags with library logo
- Sell duplicated or donated books not suited to your library
- Sell footprints of children placed in cement outside library
- Sell old pieces of building from renovation project
- Sell rooms or collections in the library for a year - name of donor placed on the room or on collection
- Sell storybook cakes
- Sell tote bags, T-shirts, local history books, cookbooks
- Sell used magazines to patrons
- Send home "holiday" jars for library users to collect change and return jars to library as gift
- Silent auction
- "Special" calendar- Superhero librarians, kids reading, local celebs, etc…
- Spice festival
- Stand on corner with sign "will read for funds"
- Tasters Choice luncheon to benefit the library
- Texas Hold'em competition
- Walk for software-create teams-collect money
- Walkway with names-sell individual stones
- Wine tasting party
- Wish tree - pull tab off and buy for library
- Write a cookbook for a fundraiser and call it something like: The Hungry Librarian (thanks esmeralda)
Grants:
- Consider various levels of grant makers/funders: Local businesses, government (Mayor & council, political representatives-local, state, federal), foundations (local, family, national), individual donors, retired employees and community members.
- Gates, Dell, Toshiba - Educational Computer Grants
- JTG Foundation, walk-in wireless (grants)
- Seek out Minigrants from local business, eg. Walmart, Sam's Club
- Start a foundation- 501c3 for receiving grants
- Work with area Arts & Humanities Council for grant opportunities
- Library Grants Blog
Gifts/Donations:
- A library endowment, trusts, wills/ bequeath to libraries
- Add funding button on website
- Advertising-plaques or plates-on donated computer equipment.
- Have organizations donate items that match their purpose, i.e. Lions give large print books and audio books
- Ask cable company to donate wireless
- Ask local bank what services/funds they may provide to community groups, often interested in technology funding in particular
- Ask the Internet Service Provider if they'll provide your service for free
- Challenge people in the community to donate $10, then encourage to challenge others
- Contact the Oprah Angel network
- Free-will donation box in the library
- Get businesses to purchase individual volumes of encyclopedia. Get enough money donations - purchase a whole set of encyclopedias
- Libri Foundation- http://www.librifoundation.org
- Offer free advertisement for donors
- Patron donate wireless router
- Pennies for computers from school kids
- Place donation cans in businesses
- Post wish list on Library Web pages, share across the desk or with local businesses
- Put up a picture of what your library wants and see if a donor bites
- Resources - donation jar for summer (tourist) Internet users
- Seek special honorees/benefactors
- Send letters to several foundations
- Solicit gift certificates or prizes from local businesses for special events/programming
- Solicit money from specific groups to purchase specific hardware
- Techsoup.org - great source for super discounted software
- Tourist wifi users
- White Pine Public Library has a "parking meter" in front of their circulation desk that collects change from the patrons.
Sources of Funding:
- Alumni of any school you have graduated from
- Banks Community Investment Officer
- Funding through Friends of the library book store
- Gaming tribes helping non-gaming tribes
- Generate competition between ISP's for $ to library
- Have public, businesses adopt a book, magazine, computer, database, etc...
- Have a booster club for the library
- Local store incentive/rebate programs
- Multi-type libraries on the same automated system
- Once a year have a "Last Word Cafe" to accompany a giant book sale
- Operation Round-up from the local Rural Electric Corporation
- Overdue book money
- Participate in E-rate
- Partner with local co-ops
- Printing/copy fees - .20/.40 cents
- Social enterprise developing income streams using assets and resources currently available
- Solicit sponsors for special collections
- Statewide tech. purchasing discounts
- Stewardship funds
- Traditional Registries can be set up for libraries as "wish lists" at many online vendors sites, like Amazon.com.
- Use high School Shop Class to make basic furniture
- Work with Choctaw Nation (other tribe)-they provide computers, you provide classes (finding roll numbers, for example)
Say Thank You:
- Contact local businesses to provide gifts/services for Customer Appreciation Month
- Make a quilt and people can have their name in a square if they donate to the library
- Send memo updates to your funders- town, city
- When building new construction, recognize contributors on bricks, furniture, and equipment
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