Last semester, I wrote a white paper about fundraising for academic libraries for LIBR 504: Management of Information Organizations taught by Guy Robertson. If you are interested you can read the document here: White Paper on Fundraising for Academic Libraries by Alyssa Feir (PDF). As we have been moving through this course I have seen multiple uses of social media that would naturally blend with a comprehensive fundraising campaign. Fundraising 2.0 is not a new concept, there is lots of literature out there about how and why non-profits should be using social media. As Wedgeworth (2000) notes:
For all potential donors, the process of creating and maintaining a relationship is at the heart of any successful fund-raising campaign (p. 536).
This idea—the importance of cultivating relationships—is often the crux of the argument for non-profits to be using social media. Social media is all about interaction. Fundraisers have the ability to connect with potential volunteers and donors through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Flickr … the list goes on!
Libraries are in a unique position within the university setting. Students don’t really graduate from the Koerner Library. They graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English from the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts. Students aren’t the only ones to use the library either. The library has a wide base from which to draw potential donors and using social media can help the identification process.
I created a PowerPoint slide to introduce the idea of using social media in the library as a fundraising tool. In many ways these approaches are similar to general promotion of library services, but if framed the right way they can generate gifts.
Note: The links to the social media strategy documents do not work on the slides, but they are included below.
Further reading:
- McNelley Media Sample Social Media Strategic Plan (PDF)
- Purdue University Social Media Strategy Template (PDF)
- Using social media to improve advocacy, fundraising by Andrea Hanstein
- How Social Media and Fundraising Fit Together by Kivi Leroux Miller
Wedgeworth, R. (2000). Donor Relations As Public Relations: Toward a Philosophy of Fundraising. Library Trends, 48(3): 530-539.
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