The committee behind fundraising for a new library building in town won’t be knocking on your door for donations any time soon but that doesn’t mean the group isn’t around to make the project a reality.
Wally Bergen, the Chair on the Smithers Library board, who also sits on the new library committee, said the group has adopted a low profile fundraising program for the time being, as far as the general public is concerned.
The committee hosted a speaker from Compton Fundraising Consultants, a respected firm based in Vancouver, he said.
Through the speaker the group learned a valuable lesson on how to approach their fundraising goals.
“One of the things he said is you have to be very focused and very strategic. He said organizations fail when they’re not strategic in fundraising,” he said.
That strategy means going after the big guns before shooting for the smaller ticket items like bake sales.
Considering anticipated matching funding from the province and federal government, he said they’re after $2 million.
“What you’re going to need to find is two or three or four major corporate sponsors who will do some major endowment type thing for the library,” said Bergen.
He said the key is not to alienate people in the process and if you go to the public too early and nothing happens right away, you might lose their support later on.
He said they have identified approximately 65 potential sponsors and they have been mailing out investor packages throughout January.
“We have said that December 31, 2011, the library board and the fundraising committee will sit down and review where we are,” he said. “We feel we need to get committment to $2 million from the community at large.
“If we’re at $1.75 [million], we’ll throw the doors open, start the bake sales and chasing everybody in sight.”
Meanwhile, the library board is working on how to raise the profile of the library in general in the community and are developing strategies to bring people in, particularly those aged 13 to 35, the timeframe he said people typically stop using their library.
“Libraries are places for the community,” he said. “What we’re trying to do as a library is always stay in tune with the world around us. We’re always trying to make sure that we’re offering new services, different services, and things that are in tune with what the expectations of library users are,” said Bergen.
The strategy is a multi-pronged approach which includes series of lectures and even a new library logo.
“Nothing against churches, but there’s the old church steeple in front of it and the library in the background, but when you look at the logo, it’s more like you’re going to a church.”
The library has also begun hosting a series of informational lectures. They’ve had speakers talking about cheese, raising rabbits, and they’re after a local group to come in to display elaborate miniature models of battle scene recreations.
“We’re trying to really change our services we provide to the community in the hopes people become ... stronger, better, appreciative users of the library.”
Eventually they’ll also start offering eBook readers to patrons to check out.
“Libraries should be everybody’s library [regardless of age].”