Florida: West Palm Beach Public Library Foundation Receives $5 Million Grant

From The Palm Beach Post:

The West Palm Beach library foundation is receiving a $5 million grant from The Mandel Foundation, a Cleveland-based foundation whose primary priority funding areas include leadership, management of nonprofits, higher education, Jewish education and continuity, and urban neighborhood renewal.
The library will be renamed the Mandel Public Library of West Palm Beach pending city commission approval, which could come at tonight’s commission meeting.
Morton Mandel, a 90-year-old Palm Beach resident, said he was approached by former Mayor Lois Frankel as soon as she left office last year. Mandel said he and his wife, Barbara, 86, had been looking to give a big donation in West Palm Beach.
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The foundation announced last year that it was selling naming rights to the library for $4 million. The Mandels decided to donate an extra $1 million.
The $5 million donation will be spread out over four years. Most of the money will go toward the foundation, which allow it to grow and seek more donations and grants.
The library will receive $125,000 per year for the next four years, and then will receive the interest incurred total amount to fund programming. Sandy Myers, chairman of the foundation’s board, said this will allow the library to enhance its programming and obtain more books and other areas of need that have been cut because of city budget woes.

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See Also: Mandel Foundation Awards $5 Million Grant (via West Palm Beach Library Association

The gift to the WPBLF will be awarded in the form of a grant, pending approval by the City of West Palm Beach, and has three major components. First, it will be used to fund the endowment of the WPBLF, whose mission is to help expand programs, enhance services and strengthen the collections of the West Palm Beach Public Library. Second, the grant funds will help develop the WPBLF organization and lastly, the grant will fund innovative library programs geared toward making the library more user-friendly, and attracting a wider variety of constituents.

Filed under: Awards, Funding, Libraries, Management and Leadership, Public Libraries