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Hello! Like many of you, our team at Library Strategies has been using this time of uncertainty to examine our organization, our services, and our team. We’re excited to share with you some of the plans and changes we’ve made that we hope will serve you, and organizations across the country, even better in your…

It seems bizarre now, but if I think back to March, there was a prevailing feeling that COVID was just going to crash upon us like a hurricane. There was a similar feeling that this new world required the same kind of immediate response from organizations. We needed to get out there and “meet the…

Sun Prairie is a suburb of Madison, WI. Population 34,000. We worked with Sun Prairie in 2018/19 on a development plan for their foundation, including advice on a potential capital campaign. Like many libraries they have found it necessary to shift priorities in a landscape of dual pandemics – COVID and systemic racism. Here is…

Somehow, it is the end of August. Somehow, I am still working in my spare room. I don’t even want to say “under normal circumstances” anymore, so I won’t. Fall is a busy season for The Friends and Library Strategies. At this point, I think it is understood that when I say: “we’re busy gearing…

One of the things I knew very little about when I started work with The Friends and Library Strategies almost a year ago, was fundraising. The words were foreign to me. What the heck is “donor-advised fund giving?” Are we a foundation? Do foundations give to us? Institutional what-now? I had attended a few fundraisers—generally…

Library Strategies worked with the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) last year. We reached out to Executive Director, Nate Coulter for an update on what CALS is doing in the current moment.  Public libraries are finding their special roles in helping the country respond to the seismic shocks of the pandemic, economic dislocation, and unrest…

In May, Library Strategies surveyed a pool of past and potential clients for their views on what would be important to libraries going forward after the pandemic. The following represents the results in brief. The full results are available upon request. Most respondents (about 50%) were library staff. As a point of clarity: though we…

Early last week, I had written a lovely post about the way libraries have been creating community that exists in both physical and non-physical space. Then “my” Twin Cities, and the nation, convulsed with grief, anger, and frustration over the murder of George Floyd and the continued devaluing of black life in the United States.…

Over the last 14 years, Library Strategies has worked with nearly 200 libraries across the country, ranging from small, rural libraries to large, multi-branch, metropolitan systems.  We’ve learned a number of lessons in this work, and the first is, that the despite the differences, libraries share in their missions, purposes, approaches and core services.  That…

I feel like Goldilocks every time I check in with my governance committee – Is it too much? Too little? Just right? These questions are in reference to my communication with The Friends’ Board who, like all of us, are learning to balance the simultaneous responsibilities of work, family, education, and public health in new…