In This Story:
Defining Campaigns
3 Keys to Success
Organization of the Campaigns Section
Defining Campaigns
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| Library Campaigns Come in Many Shapes and Sizes |
All library campaigns share the goal of increasing investment in a library. Given that common starting point, though, library campaigns are not easy to define or categorize.
In one community, an increase in families with very young children may bring about organizing on the part of parents desiring stronger services for early literacy and child development. They may partner with early childhood specialists and other services providers to raise funds to help the library expand programs and resources for new parents.
In another community, the long-time industrial economy may be phasing out, leaving a population of adults requiring new technology-based skills and opportunities to prepare for new careers. In that situation, library supporters may focus their energies on a campaign to expand municipal or county support for additional technology, information literacy workshops, job fairs, and career counseling.
Libraries themselves are dynamic institutions, constantly changing in response to the information and learning needs of their communities. With the pace of change today, and the variety of factors driving change—demographic, social, technological and economic—it is no wonder that library advocacy and library campaigns are moving targets.
Three Keys to Success
Whatever form a campaign may take, from a campaign for increased hours to a campaign for a new building, there are three essential qualities for success:
- Determined and skilled local leadership;
- Coordination between the various advocacy structures, such as the
Board of Directors,
Library Foundation members, library staff and library Friends; and
- Engagement of stakeholders in developing and communicating the campaign vision
and goals.
Few campaigns are successful without these three qualities in place.
Campaigns Section
 This section of Act for Libraries profiles campaigns across the nation, currently focusing on the Gulf Coast states. Our previous (and first) Spotlight section focused on the New England States.
Under National, you will find information about nationwide campaigns (such as the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust) as well as state and local campaigns that do not fit under a current regional focus.
Three types of campaigns are represented:
- Successful local campaigns for capital initiatives or other purposes
- Statewide campaigns
- Campaigns currently underway.
It is our belief that each of these stories has lessons to offer other advocates as they construct campaigns for their own libraries, addressing their own communities’ emerging needs.
Each campaign story has also been structured to reflect the advocacy strategies that advocates used to reach their goals. Be sure to see our Top Ten Advocacy Strategies, too. While these are not the only strategies in the advocates’ toolbox, these “top ten” strategies describe the activities most commonly and effectively employed today. Some campaigns may emphasize sophisticated media campaigns, while others may use breakfast briefings and other community meetings to educate elected officials about the community benefits of building their library’s capacities to meet new health or business information needs. Most campaigns employ a variety of the available strategies and tools.
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