The New Haven Free Public Library is engaged in a campaign to position itself as a key community asset, an informational town square and a civic facilitator with many partnerships. Leadership from the Board of Trustees and patrons and energetic assistance from staff and community partners enabled the library to raise $7 million last year for a new, state-of-the art facility, the Wilson Branch Library.
New Haven’s Campaign Video
One of the library’s chief supporters recognized early in the campaign that the dynamic quality of the emerging library would best be captured visually.
This patron underwrote development of “Campaign for the Library of the 21st Century,” a video produced by Skip Blumberg and New York City-based In Motion Productions. The ten-minute video premiered at the library’s 2006 Mardi Gras fundraiser held at the New Haven Lawn Club. “Campaign for the Library of the 21st Century” was honored recently with a Gold Plaque for Fundraising Video at the 42nd Chicago International Film Festival’s Intercome, the International Communications Video and Interactive Media Competition.
“Campaign for the Library of the 21st Century” is a two-part video. The first section captures the innovative programs of the library’s staff as they position the library at the center of the community in the information age. The second section, “Building Heroes,” features a successful partnership program with the Eli Whitney Museum.
The New Haven Free Public Library has found many ways to use the video for fund-raising and enhancing community awareness. The DVD has been screened in peer-to-peer pitches by patrons of the library and in other fundraising and is being distributed to civic agencies and decision-makers in greater New Haven. According to the library’s director, James Welbourne, the video “was the single factor that led to the enormously successful private fundraising campaign that netted us over $1 million,” an important part of the library's overall campaign for funds.
New York Library Association
Uses Online Center to Support Advocacy
The New York Library Association (NYLA) has made advocacy and government relations one of its highest priorities.
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This simple button on the
New York Library Association Advocacy Website encourages local residents to get in
touch with legislators.
Copy it to your library's website, courtesy of NYLA! |
Believing that “there is a great need to increase the visibility of the library community in the public policy process,” NYLA maintains an online advocacy resource center. Its features include a template that enables advocates in New York to send letters to their elected officials, and in 2006 they persuaded the legislature to vote $14 million in one-time construction funding.
The advocacy resource center offers tools, statistics, graphs and charts. It urges librarians to add a CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS button to their library homepage, thereby encouraging local residents to get in touch with their local legislators. As the resource center notes, “Together, we can make the voice of library supporters from throughout the state heard loud and clear.”
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