Library Advocacy: EveryLibrary Launches Fundraising Campaign For New “Rapid Response Fund”
A blog post by EveryLibrary founder, John Chrastka informs us that the organization has launched a fundraising campaign for EveryLibrary’s just launched “Rapid Response Fund”.
Chrastka says the fund is a “new idea in library advocacy”.
He writes:
[The fund is] a “bank” we will use to buy ads telling people how to support their local library during a budget crisis. Your donations will build that bank. We’ll pool your donations and then use that money to buy targeted ads supporting local libraries in their local media markets and social networks.
There is a structural and a philosophical problem in the library advocacy ecosystem that EveryLibrary is trying to address with the Rapid Response Fund: Libraries don’t spend money on advocacy during a budget crisis. We may not have any. We may not know how. Sure, we read the tool kits. We get trained by the trainers. We post something on our page and consider it a call-to-action. But we wonder why no one responds to our cries for help….
Read the Complete Blog Post
EveryLibrary has also published a web page with details about how the Rapid Response Fund works and how libraries in need of assistance can tap it to purchase “broad-based or targeted advertising that produces measurable results” on social media, search engines, and local media.
Included on the page is a list of six criteria EveryLibrary will use when deciding whether or not to fund ad purchase:
They are:
- Is the issue unexpected or unanticipated?
- Does the issue at hand immediately affect funding or operating authority for the library?
- Can the current crisis be averted through constituent engagement?
- Does the legitimate local advocate group have a ”call-to-action” ready?
- Are there at least 100 hours available to push out the call-to-actions?
- We will not help you twice. You will learn how to build an actionable network of your own.
Learn More
Direct to EveryLibrary Rapid Response Fund Donation Page
Direct to EveryLibrary Info Page
Direct to EveryLibrary Blog Post, “Please Spend Some Money on Advocacy”
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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