Tools
Partnerships on campus
Abstract
Partnering with other colleges and divisions is crucial to developing a robust pipeline of philanthropic giving for the academic library. Because library affinity is low compared to the connection alumni have to their area of study or athletics, aligning with others connects to donors across campus and interests. These partnerships also serve the other colleges and athletics because the mission, services, and resources in the library enhance any funding proposal or donor ask.
Keywords
Information literacy; Robust proposals; Academic library mission; Disseminating the mission of the library; Library fundraising partnership
Partnership is the library's middle name. There is essentially nothing it does regarding resources or services that isn't about partnering with some other entity on campus. In an article about disseminating information literacy across campus, Iannuzzi (1998) cites partnerships as the key (p. 97). At its core, the mission of the academic library is to create partnerships across campus with students and faculty.
But “partnership” means something different to librarians than it does to fundraisers. Library scholarship concerning partnership is about partnership for service. Even when librarians write about opportunities for funding through partnerships, it is as a pleasant outcome that can emerge as a result of their real mission, which is getting needed resources and services to users. This is why libraries and librarians are so wonderful, but it is important for fundraisers not to get caught in the weeds of a project that isn't going to be a successful case for giving. In a widely read article dating back to 1998, Alexander (1998) writes about opportunities for fundraising in small academic libraries through partnerships. Unfortunately, her first suggestion is that libraries, as experts in research, partner with central development on prospect research (p. 4). Granted, the article was published nearly 20 years ago, but it still illustrates the difference between how librarians view development and what fundraisers are tasked to do. She seems to think that assisting central development in prospect research will somehow bring about an increase in funding to the libraries—in other words that the partnership will be rewarded. Development professionals find that notion rather naïve and highly unlikely to result in funding for the library. However, she also has some sage wisdom. She warns, “It is well for development personnel to realize the antithesis of collaboration that is isolation” (p. 6). Soliciting gifts in partnership with colleagues is not only essential to your success as a libraries fundraiser; it supports the libraries' essential goal to communicate their value and relevance.
The idea for this book arose when we realized that development professionals in higher education didn't seem to recognize the value of the academic library because they don't understand the breadth of service to the campus, much less beyond. Sadly for many, this blind spot exists also with university staff and faculty.
We are in the final stages of building a new library facility on our campus. It has provided a great opportunity to talk about libraries and help people realize how integral they are to the university community. But there has been confusion about the necessity for a new library. A graduate student in physics once asked why we needed a new library. (The new facility combines six existing libraries including the physics library.) It didn't take much probing to get to the fundamental misunderstanding. He didn't think the library provided any resources he needed because he got all his research online. What this PhD student didn't know is that the online resources he uses are paid for and provided by the libraries. Another experience like this ended a bit better. While walking to a meeting at the jobsite, we saw a crowd of students changing classes, all looking up at the imposing structure speckled with workmen communicating loudly with each other in order to coordinate a difficult maneuver with a crane. One student asked his friend why in the world the university would spend all that money on a new library. Lo and behold, his friend responded with something along the lines of “Dude, do you search for stuff on your phone? That's the library.” Stumped for a moment, the friend then asked, “If that is the case, why have a building at all?” The friend responded, “Because most of the building is going to be those cool classrooms with rolling tables and Wi-Fi.” (Active learning classrooms are much more than that, but never mind.) The point here is that if undergraduates and research graduate students don't know why we need a library, partnering across campus is more than just about fundraising, it's about communicating the value of what libraries do and why they very much still need to be here.
9.1 Partnering with academic colleges and units
Before you can put a joint proposal in front of a donor with one of your colleagues in the development division or foundation, you must educate your fellow fundraisers on the value of the libraries. Begin by politicking across campus and cultivating your colleagues for the libraries in the same way you would prospective donors. In this case, you position the library as a way to create a more robust opportunity for a donor. For example, a gift to an academic college can also include a stipend for resources or technology which enable the library to support that college or department. This sounds like a reasonable and straightforward task to accomplish, except for what we all know to be the major hurdle: academic deans and development officers have financial goals and don't want their gift amount diluted by sharing it with other units. In our work with foundations at our university, there is no penalty for sharing a gift. In fact, it's encouraged to share the workload. Both fundraisers get credit for the entire amount. This positive policy stimulates partnering. Successful fundraising from foundations and corporations often involves partners in other units across campus, or even colleagues with special skill sets.
Since most higher education development is moving to a decentralized model where development officers are placed in colleges and have more interaction with their academic dean than with development leadership, a real barrier to partnerships may arise. Still, it is worth pursuing and cultivating deans to think about the value of these opportunities. Not only can a gift be expanded by increasing the impact through a proposal that includes more than one unit, but having two officers working with a prospect increases the likelihood of success. They may not go for it all the time, but a library fundraiser needs to work on creating these opportunities by cultivating on campus as much as off.
A much easier way to partner is illustrated by how the two of us started working together. The libraries are a great match for foundation and corporate giving. When we first connected, we immediately began sharing our fundraising goals and projects. We soon discovered that each of our areas of expertise would strengthen the other's areas. And even beyond that, our skill sets were complementary, and together we've been able to build some strong relationships with faculty and some very exciting proposals. We continue to work closely with our leadership and other colleagues to help get the message out that collaboration and partnerships between the libraries and other schools and departments are good for everyone. The academic library can be used as an umbrella concept that strengthens pieces of any proposal to create the needed impact for success. We go into more specifics in the chapters about foundations and corporations, but briefly stated, within central development you will get nothing but positive feedback when you ask to partner. A libraries fundraiser should try to stay on top of all prospects pursued by central development, always looking for ways to include the libraries in proposals.
9.2 Partnering with athletics
If you can create a partnership with a successful athletic program, amazing things can happen for the library. Combining the libraries with sports is the ultimate way to quell the complaints about the focus on sports in higher education, and it gives athletics a way to show that their success brings success to the whole campus. Dewey (2006) sees libraries as a way to “…legitimize the heavy investments in sports programs” (p. 9). But this kind of partnership is one that requires buy-in and participation from leadership on each side of the table as well from the university itself. It is the kind of partnership that needs to be supported with high-level marketing and PR, and to be really successful, it requires a dynamic and successful athletics program. As good an idea as it is for sports and libraries to dance, it won't work if there isn't strong support and participation from sports fans.
When setting a strategy with library leadership and staff about a partnership with athletics, a method that has been successful with many academic libraries is to begin with a focused academic partnership with student athletes. Programs like the Athletics Resource Center at Wisconsin State University connect the libraries to student athletes by integrating library services into their academic support services (O'English and McCord, 2006, p. 146). In this example, once the development officer working in the library became aware of this, she cultivated the partnership further by putting advertising in athletic publications about the existing support for student athletes from the libraries and eventually developed a fundraising element for libraries at strategic athletic events (p. 148). What the writer doesn't point out is that the exposure through this kind of partnership has much bigger potential for fundraising. Not only does the opportunity to align the library with sports offer huge potential to engage potential donors, but it also provides a platform to get information out about the value of libraries to many more people. In another instance at CAL State Fresno, the basketball coach and his wife took on the libraries as a particular passion for giving which was often communicated during games and through events they hosted to support library services (Rockman, 2002, p. 194).
If a libraries fundraiser initiates such a partnership, it can turn out to be a true feather in the hat. On campuses where a strong partnership exists between the libraries and athletics, it means not only a great influx in funding but also the proliferation of the message and value of libraries to a market that is passionate about the university and notoriously supportive in terms of giving.