Don’t take library budget cuts sitting down.
In Part 1 of this two-part series, we’ll take a look at some library fundraising ideas that have proven successful.
In Part 2, we’ll review some resources for helping you get started with your own fundraising initiative.
Fundraising has become more critical than ever, with library usage up and budgets down. So what can you do to raise money, beyond applying for grants? What have other libraries done to close the funding gap?
The five-county Winnefox (WI) Library System has a multitude of fundraising ideas. A recent one involved a silent auction featuring artistically painted chairs. The original plain wooden chairs were donated by community members and then made available in the library to patrons who wanted to take them home and paint them, with the goal of auctioning them off a few months later.
Other fundraising ideas the library systems has implemented include:
To help ensure the success of fundraising events, the library system works hard year-round to educate the public about the library’s value. For instance, an ROI calculator on their website allows patrons to input their own recent usage to figure out what those services would have cost if the library didn't exist, or if the services and resources weren’t offered free.
Other libraries have raised money with these initiatives:
Part 2 of this post will examine sites and resources to help you generate fundraising ideas that will work at your library.
In the meantime, we’d be interested to hear about the fundraising successes you’ve already achieved.
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