00:00  DB: Welcome to Sparks. This is Dee Brennan. I am the Executive Director of RAILS, the Reaching Across Illinois Library System, and we developed this podcast to talk about library trends and to spark conversation and debate about important issues. Today, my guest is Ryan Livergood. He is Executive Director of the Warren-Newport Public Library up near Gurnee, Illinois. We are going to talk about fundraising. Ryan has been doing some interesting work at Warren-Newport and, before he was in Illinois, he was in Massachusetts, where I was at one point also, although not at the same time as Ryan. So, I think he is going to also share some stories from Massachusetts. Welcome, Ryan.  RL: Thank you; great to be here.  DB: Why don't we start off with you just talking a bit about why you think fundraising is important, when it is the right thing to do, and what kind of projects you have worked on?  RL: Sure. I think, for a lot of us in public libraries, we are going to experience-- or we are experiencing-- this paradigm shift when it comes to our funding. If you look at what is going on here in the state of Illinois, we are facing challenges; we have a governor that, as part of his agenda, wants to freeze local property taxes and, for us, that is about 93% of our revenue. We also receive money from the state in a per capita grant and that is under threat, as well, with the budget crisis the state of Illinois is facing. That is not unique to Illinois; this is happening across the country. I think, for a lot of us, we need to really consider how do we face this challenge that we have. In my library, we have rising expenditures, but we do not have revenue that is going up with the expenditures, so we need to do something and I think fundraising is one way to bridge that gap. When you think of libraries and all the things we do... all libraries, no matter if it is a library in Dunstan, Illinois that is very small, that has limited hours, or it is a big, suburban library that is open hours and is well funded, we all do amazing things, we all impact peoples' lives for the better, but you are able to do that much more as a library, you are able to live up to your libraries potential, when you have more money. You can just do more with money.  Fundraising helps you do more. You can reach a library's potential if you are able to raise more dollars. DB: You have had some successes at Warren-Newport. Can you talk about that a little bit and some of the tools that you use?  RL: Sure. One of the things that has been going on at Warren-Newport for a while, before I arrived, was something we call our annual appeal letter or an annual fundraising letter and I think, for libraries that are not doing a lot of fundraising or fundraising at all, it is a good start. The idea behind an annual appeal is that once a year, preferably before the holiday season gets going, you write a letter and you send it to people that you think might want to donate to the library. Who are some good targets? Well, people, number one, that have capacity or people that have an interest in the library. Even if someone does not have great capacity or they are not the wealthiest person in town, all those small donations add up. An annual appeal means you get together, you identify some people you want to send this letter to, you tell a compelling story or maybe you are talking about a compelling project that is going on in your library, and you send out those letters. Warren-Newport has been doing this for quite some time and results vary. I think at Warren-Newport it brings in about 10 to 12,000 dollars a year, the annual appeal. I think that is a good place to start. Also, what we have started doing at Warren-Newport is events. Events are a challenge because it is a lot of work. One of the things about fundraising... it is a lot of work. It is not easy; it is not as if it just takes a couple of hours to send out an appeal letter and you have got all this money coming in; it is a lot of work. But we have done events as well. For the second year in a row we have done Bingo in the Books, which is kind of how it sounds; at the library, we have a Bingo event, we invite people to dress up, there are different themes for the table, it is a good time. We raised 7,000 this year. We did something kind of unique for the first time this year, Biker's for Books, and the idea behind this event, Biker's for Books, is we were able to partner with a local business in town, a bar and grill, and on a Sunday afternoon we had some bikers show up, they went on a ride, they had a good time, they came back, there was a band after, and we raised money for the library that way. DB: Bikers and books. Now, that is unique; I had not heard of that before. That is really great.  RL: I think the lesson with that event is if you are thinking about doing an event-- and we can talk about the pros and cons of events in a little bit-- but if you are thinking about doing an event, look at your community. What event might work in your community? Maybe an after-hours wine and cheese event at the library would work and you invite an author to come and talk to this audience, an exclusive event for people to buy tickets to the event. I was in Arlington, Massachusetts before, at the Robbins Library. One of the things that they do in Arlington is this event called Books in Bloom and it is a nice collaboration, it is a nice partnership with the Arlington Garden Club. The idea behind Books in Bloom is that these gardeners, they take books and they create a centerpiece floral arrangement that matches the book. There is wine and cheese and we have local authors come in and people that buy tickets can come and meet the local authors. That kind of event works in a community like Arlington, Massachusetts, whereas, in my community, I do not know that that would work in the Warren-Newport Public Library district. Maybe it would, but Bikers for Books, it was also an opportunity, too. One of our board members, her husband big into these kinds of events and you have a passion for it and, yeah, it just kind of works. I think you look at your community and what event might work for my community. DB: Absolutely. Do you have development or fundraising people on staff or is this your regular library staff just doing extra work? RL: That is a good question. We did have a development coordinator and she was part-time. Lauren Chilvers is her name and she has moved on to a bigger and better opportunity. She actually does do some consulting for a library; her website is fundraisinglibrarian.com. One of the things that we can talk about it getting some outside help. If you are not sure where to start, someone like Lauren or an organization like Library Strategies-- they are this consulting firm and they do library fundraising consulting-- DB: --they are out of St. Paul. RL: St. Paul; yes; attached to the Friends of St. Paul. You can talk to one of those folks. We did have Lauren, but we lost her, so we are doing it now internally. My Volunteer Coordinator is also my Fundraising Coordinator, right now. We kind of do it in-house. That is part of what we do. That is one of the things, one of the downsides of trying to manage an event or organize an event; it takes staff time. We are working on getting outside volunteers to come in and, as we grow these events, it will be less staff time and we are getting to a good place on that, but it takes time. It takes a big initial investment at first. DB: Do you have a Friends group that also does fundraising? RL: At Warren-Newport, we have a Friends group and they do do fundraising but not events. DB: Okay. RL: They have done some events in the past, but they run BookEnds, our very successful bookstore in the library. They also do-- I think they have scaled down to four book sales, four Saturday book sales. So, yes, they do that and one of the things I can talk about in a little bit is what we have done in terms of setting up a network to broaden our fundraising efforts. We have established this Development Council or we are in the process of doing that, but when we were figuring out, 'Okay, what is the next step we need to take to grow our fundraising efforts,' the Friends were closely involved in that and it was very clear, after a while, that this is what the friends want to do. They want to do the book sale, they want to recruit members; they do not want to do big events. DB: Right and I have to say I had a similar experience, too. Groups have to able to-- you want them, obviously, to be in sync with the library, but they also need to have their own mission that they can commit to and support and be willing and passionate about the work. I was wondering how you dealt with that. Do people get confused; is it the Friends, is it the library? Have you had any problems like that in terms of the reason that you are doing fundraising? RL: I hope not. I do not think so much, at Warren-Newport-- I was previously the Director of Libraries in Arlington, Massachusetts and one of the things that I was part of starting there was the Arlington Libraries Foundation and there were a couple of different reasons we started that foundation. I think one of the mistakes we make there was our messaging because there was a lot of confusion initially; why do you have this foundation? You have this great Friends group, they do a lot to support the library; we do not understand why you have started this foundation. So, yes, I think that is a trap you can easily fall into. You need to be very clear with your messaging and involve your Friends because if you have a Friends group and you want to grow your fundraising, that is great but how do the Friends work into that? Are they going to be independent of this group or are they going to be directly involved? You need to be careful because you do not want to alienate your Friends group. DB: Right; your friends. RL: Yes. It is really easy to do, unfortunately. You may think you are keeping them in the loop and you are not and there is some confusion and... it is very easy to go down that road, unfortunately. DB: What advice do you have for libraries that have never done fundraising of any kind? How do you get started? How did you get started in Warren-Newport? RL: With Warren-Newport, once again, we had done some fundraising, done annual appeal before. I think for libraries that have not done anything, yet, I think it makes sense just to-- figure out who is going to lead the effort, talk to staff. Are you going to delegate this responsibility to a member of your staff or is there someone in the community that you can get going on this with? At Warren-Newport, we are starting this Development Council and the idea behind this group is to act as kind of an advisory group to help us with figuring out, 'Okay; how are we going to manage these events we are trying to do? How are we going to set up some of these programs we want to set up, like a Planned Giving Program?' Basically, what we are doing there is we are recruiting people in our community that have a fundraising background or have a passion for the library or maybe just have the capacity to give and we are meeting with them once a quarter and they are going to help us figure these things out. So, I think you need to find some people that are interested, that have the knowledge and get them to work with you. DB: Right. Have you thought about any libraries that may be the kind of libraries or in the kind of situations where you should not try fundraising? Or certain projects that are not really fit for fundraising? RL: Sure. DB: What advice do you have about that? RL: Those actually exist. I think, especially in Illinois, we are in this climate where I think everyone kind of feels a pressure to think about fundraising that have not thought of it before because, 'Oh, my goodness, our property taxes are going to be frozen,' or 'We are going to lose our per-capita grant, so what do we do?' There are some libraries and they are very lucky and I think a lot of people that are listening that are at libraries that are not well funded are going to be frustrated at me saying this, but there are a couple of libraries out there that really do not have budget issues. They do not really need to mess with fundraising, they have other ways that they can raise money for their library... when they go out and do their levy, they can bring in more money that way. I do not think that all libraries need to do this because it is hard; it is a lot of work. You really want to do this as another option. If you have gone to your voters and they will not give you more money for a project and, even then, there are some challenges there. First of all, there are libraries that do not have budget issues, really, that do not need to be doing this. Then, for a library that is doing a major project, a major capital project, a new building, a major renovation of a building, fundraising can be a piece of that effort, but you are not going to go out and raise all the money you need to do your building project. I do not think that is realistic. There is an example of a library in Massachusetts, the Shutesbury Massachusetts Library, it is a very small library, and they proposed a levy that failed. They were trying to raise 1.4 million dollars to get this 2.1-million-dollar state matching grant and they decided they were going to do a video, do some crowdfunding-- it was either Indiegogo or GoFundMe, one of those things-- and they produced this really cute video and they did raise a quarter of a million dollars, which was fantastic, but-- DB: It is. RL: Yes, but it was not the 1.4 million dollars they needed. DB: Right. RL: So, this is just a piece of the puzzle. It is not the end all be all answer. DB: Right, and sometimes you have to, in a case like that, if the community is not willing to commit to that kind of a major project, I think you have to take a step back and think about what it is that you are trying to do. It is their library; they have to be willing to commit to that on an ongoing basis, as well. RL: Right. DB: If you get the money for the building but, then, you do not get the money to operate it going forward... so you got to think about all those things and whether fundraising is really going to solve your problem. RL: Right, and it probably takes away from your efforts, too, to go out there and advocate for that levy increase, right? If you are trying to do too much at once, you really need to probably focus on that effort and then worry about the fundraising later. DB: Right. What about any other types of events? Are there more-- you are doing Bingo and you did it sounds like a great event in Massachusetts. Do you have any goals for yourself, for Warren-Newport, in terms of bigger, more ambitious events or are you still working on that? RL: I think we are working on that. I think we at capacity now. You need to make sure that you do not overextend yourself. If you are fortunate enough to have a development person on staff or a fundraising person, you do not want them to turn into this events coordinator, necessarily. I think we are happy where we are. DB: Right. Are your trustees involved in the fundraising? RL: Yes; the trustees do play a role and they are very supportive of this effort. You have to have your trustees on board. I think, with fundraising and libraries, you have to have everyone supportive, or it is probably not going to work. My board sees the need to raise this extra money to help us live up to our potential. They are involved, they have seats on the development council that is forming. They come to events; they either attend events, they volunteer at these fundraising events. Several of my trustees, maybe three or four of them, volunteered at the Bikers for Books, for example. So, yes, they are involved and they are supportive. DB: That is great. I think it is important that they are visible to-- when the community these events-- to be able to thank them because thanking is a big piece of fundraising, right? You have to really, really thank people over and over again. RL: That is right. We have not talked about that yet, but relationships are so important. Really, I think, at the end of the day, fundraising is about the relationship you build with people. And it builds over time. You talk about the idea of a Planned Giving program. What is Planned Giving, if you are not familiar with it? Essentially, it means you want to have a program in place for when someone is doing their estate planning, there towards the end of their years, they will think about giving to the library, a major gift to the library. That takes time and it takes building that relationship. There are a lot of different ways you can cultivate those relationships. One of the things we do as we try to have these donor events... I have had after-hours events to meet the Executive Director when I started. We did something in our quiet meeting room where we invited our key donors to come in and meet me and I talked about my background and history and my vision for the library. DB: How did you identify those key donors? RL: We have a database, Little Green Light, that was established and we basically update that database with when someone donates some money to the library, with any interactions we have with these individuals. That is donor management; a database is really important to keep track of these relationships with donors. I know that this sounds very, I do not know, maybe it just sounds kind of like we are trying to take advantage of people-- I think for librarians and I felt this way for a long time, too, that this is kind of dirty, I am [inaudible] relationships with people-- DB: -- so crass. RL: Yes; so crass, but this is fun and people love to see the results of their funds that they donated to the library. Once story I want to tell, we had a couple step forward when we were trying to redo our staff lounge. It is not a very sexy project, right? Staff lounge; who is going to donate to that? This couple realized how hard the staff worked and how much it would mean to them, so they stepped forward and they said, 'We will match library funds up to 40,000 dollars to redo your staff lounge.' DB: Wow. RL: Yes; it was amazing, right? That happened because we had built that relationship with these individuals over time. We cultivated that relationship. But the way I say that, cultivated the relationship, it just sounds like so scientific, but no, it is just that you talk to people that care about the library. What do you think can make the library better? What can we do to make staff happy? And they step forward and we involve them in the project and we have the tesla of staff lounges, I must tell you, at Warren-Newport. It is beautiful; it is gorgeous. They made it happen. We had an event for them when we opened, the grand opening for the staff lounge, and you could just see how much it meant to them. It was not that, 'Oh, the Warren-Newport Public Library is trying to milk our dollars.' No, they saw the impact it had and it made them feel good. Think about it that way. If you are going out and building relationships and you need to ask people for money-- and you do-- when you write that annual appeal, you are asking people for money-- do not feel bad about it. It is not dirty; it is a fun thing and people love to give to the library. It is hard to find someone that does not at least like a public library or like libraries in general. You may find people that do not believe we should be funded the way we are or I do not believe I should pay these taxes for the library. Those people exist, but it is hard to find someone that just does not like the library. Remember that. There are a lot of people that have the capacity and really have the passion for the public library like we do. So, find them and make them happy. DB: Right; find the right match for what it is that they are interested that will, as you said, it will fulfill a need that they have and also a need that you have. It is a total win-win. RL: Right. DB: I do think that librarians can be... it is not a natural thing for librarians to do, I think, and I do not believe it was something that I learned in library school, either, which was how to go out and ask for money. But it is something that is a reality, as you were saying, of the world that we live in right now. RL: Right. It is not natural for anyone, really. I do not care if you are the top sales person at your company, it is still hard to get over that hurdle. DB: Right. Let's talk about the pros and cons of doing events, then, Ryan. RL: I think, in terms of the pros, events are fun and exciting. They really energize the staff, the public. They make people feel good about the library. For example, Bingo in the Books, in addition to raising that 7,000 dollars this year, people just love that event. They love coming to the library, they love coming after-hours and being able to enjoy a glass of wine or craft beer at the library. Everyone was saying, 'Okay, are we going to do this again? We had so much fun!' They are fun and they lead to more donations. That is part of that relationship building; people come to these events and they feel more invested in your library, so that is a pro, a good way to get your message out and just a good way to raise money sometimes. I do think with any event you are going to raise super big dollars unless you are doing some kind of gala and I think that is a hard thing to organize. Maybe that is a good niche in your community, though. On the con side, a lot of time, to pull this off, it can take some time to catch on so you may have to commit to doing it a few times before it really catches on and makes some money. You need a lot of people to do it, you might need to invest some money in the event. Do you have a budget for the event? If not, it might be hard to pull an event off. It depends on the event. I think those are some pros and cons. DB: What do you think about naming opportunities? This is something that can be very meaningful for donors, as well, to have a plaque on something, for example, but I have also talked with people or read articles about how sometimes you can give something, give a naming opportunity, make it too inexpensive so you do not get your money’s worth or it can be restrictive. Do you have any experience with that? RL: Yes; we do offer naming opportunities at Warren-Newport and we did the same, as well, at my previous library. I am not an expert on the topic, but I think you need to kind of figure out the market before you put it out there. What are naming opportunities at other community organizations or other buildings within your community? Maybe at a local community college, they have naming opportunities. I am not sure that is a good benchmark, but I think that is part of it. Also important, a good policy in place. Policies are very, very important. I think most of your listeners know that. It is important to have a good policy in place because let's say that you name your community room after John Smith, but John Smith gets in trouble with the law and he turns into the worst person in town and you do not want your library to be related to John Smith, so there should be some clause in your policy saying that if said person gets in trouble with the law or something like that, you can remove the name. DB: Right; the Board of Library Trustees retains the option, blah, blah, blah... or something like that. Yes; absolutely. Policies around anything but particularly around fiscal issues and capital building issues can be very important. RL: Right; and we have a number of policies-- I do not have them all in front of me-- regarding our fundraising efforts. For example, this Warren-Newport Public Library District Development Council has a specific policy that talks about the formation of it and its duties, and roles, responsibilities. Like anything else, when you jump into fundraising, you want to make sure that your policies cover your fundraising efforts. DB: I assume that any of our listeners who wanted to get more advice from you could email you or look on your website for some of these policies. RL: Absolutely; please email me. If you go to wnpl.info, all of our board policies are online, so they are all available to the public. I would love to talk to you, but you do not even need to call me. You can just go to the website and download them. DB: That is great. Are you open to doing birthday parties or weddings if anybody approached you at Warren-Newport? RL: Typically not at Warren-Newport, no. At the Robbins Library in Arlington, Massachusetts, they do rent out their gorgeous library reading room. The Robbins Library was built in 1876, this Italian Renaissance-style building. It is gorgeous. The reading room is just phenomenal and people do want to get married in the reading room and they do want to have events in the reading room. So, in Arlington, Massachusetts, they rent out that space and they raise tens of thousands of dollars each year doing it. There are a lot of gorgeous libraries in Illinois and throughout the country, so it is a good way to make money, but there are some things to remember. First of all, I think you have to have some people dedicated to handling the service. It does not involve a lot of staff time if done properly, but you need trusted people to coordinate. One of the advantages in Arlington, Massachusetts was that we used the people that also did other facilities rentals throughout the town. The town of Arlington is blessed with many gorgeous facilities that have been there for a long, long time that people want to rent out. But if you are a library district and it is just you... eh, do you want to add that to your plate, is it worth it? Maybe it is. If you have a gorgeous building and people keep asking you, 'Hey, I would love to get married here or have a birthday party here, ' then I would consider it. It can be steady revenue. I think it is interesting, but you have to make sure you are set up to do it. DB: Right, and that your hours do not get interfered with either. RL: Yes. This was after-hours and even then it would cause problems because there was a wedding on a Friday night, let's say, and we are trying to close, but the wedding planner is coming in and they are trying to set up the reading room and people are still there. This happens, so how do you deal with it? Are you prepared to deal with that? Is it worth it? DB: Right. What about if a donor was interested in financially supporting a particular service that the library offers, which I guess would be monetizing a current service? Do you have any experience with that? It seems like that could be controversial. RL: Yes; we actually had a Warren-Newport donor stepped up and funded our Hispanic Heritage Programming so that, yes, I do not think it has been controversial. It is one of those things that we wanted to do; we wanted to grow our programming. The Friends of Warren-Newport Public Library primarily support our programming, but this is something that we wanted to add. Not unlike any other communities, we have a growing Latino population, so to offer that community more programs... I think it is only a good thing. Of course, the downside with any of these things is managing that relationship with donors. Maybe they have certain expectations, so it is good to document these things, have an agreement. What is our understanding of what we are going to do? DB: Another example of needing to have a good policy in place, right? RL: Right. DB: Well, thanks so much for joining us, Ryan, and talking about fundraising and all of your experiences. As I said, I know people will be interested in your advice and can contact you at the library if they want some more advice. RL: Yes, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. You can contact me through the website, wnpl.info. My email address is rlivergood@wnpl.info. DB: Great; thank you. RL: Thank you. DB: Thank you very much for listening to Sparks today. Sparks is produced by the Reaching Across Illinois Library System. If you would like to learn more about the show or share your feedback on the topics discussed, please visit railslibraries.info/sparks. 30:20 Sparks Episode 6 Dee Brennan Ryan Livergood 1