Making the Case: Influencing Your Funding Future

Given the recent efforts by the federal administration to cut all federal library funding, Making the Case: Influencing Your Funding Future was an especially timely session at this year's American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago. If you haven’t heard of the ALA Fight for Libraries campaign by now, visit the website to learn more. The panel included experts on making the case for funding support in today’s political climate. Panelists included Shailagh Murray, former advisor to President Barack Obama and former deputy chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden; Larry Girsolano, Former Director of Paid Media development for both Barack Obama presidential campaigns; Jessie “Chuy” Chavez, Google software engineer; Sharon Paez, partner at D.C.-based Hilltop Public Solutions; and Jenny Backus, D.C.-based consultant for corporate, nonprofit, and political organizations, including the D.C. Public Library Foundation.

ALA President Julie Todaro introduced the session. To fund our libraries, we find ourselves having to convince various entities such as legislatives bodies, governing boards, advisory boards, umbrella institutions, owners, managers, and other administrators. How do we convince these entities to fund us? Look at which group and/or person you are trying to convince. What is their perception of the library, and what choices do they have to make?

ALA Past President Courtney Young moderated the rest of the session and asked several questions of the panel.

Briefly tell us the most compelling story you ever had to tell.

• Shailagh Murray spoke about being a reporter in Prague in 1992 after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. She needed to find ways to share just how big this was with the rest of the world. She chose to share personal stories of the people there.  
• Larry Girsolano worked on a campaign in California for the public employee union. When they looked at the groups of people in the community, those for and against unions, they found there was a whole group that didn’t know a lot about unions. They targeted that group by having the union employees go out and talk to their friends and their families. 
• Jenny Backus told a story about working on the 1998 Harry Reid senatorial campaign in Nevada, where it was a tight race. She did her research and found that Reid had brought in billions of dollars to the state over the years. An article was published focusing on all the money he brought to Nevada. They found that the article resonated with a lot of people, and he won the election by a narrow 428 votes.

What are some storytelling elements or tactics that could be effective for libraries to use when telling their story?

• Sharon Paez recommended inviting public officials to the library and then focus on showing them the successes of their district.

What are some dos/don’ts to make a public official or other funding entity listen?

• Shailagh Murray spoke about a library fundraiser in her own Capitol Hill neighborhood. It started out grassroots, but now it has become such a big event, all the public officials attend.
• Larry Girsolano recommended doing your research so that you can know your audience, and in turn convince them how great the library is. Take the public officials public profile and tailor it to what you do at your particular library.

How important are data and metrics when making case to public officials?

• Shailagh Murray mentioned that local sourcing is key for data that you’re going to share with your funders. For example, you may want to use a local University study vs. a national study.
• Jenny Backus said to keep the display of the data simple. Infographics are particularly good, and use sources that they will believe.

One takeaway from this session is that we ALL have to be advocates for libraries, now more than ever. ALA continues to add more resources to the Fight for Libraries webpage and on the ALA Office for Library Advocacy webpage.