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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…

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…

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.…

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…

Come (virtually) close, my friends, I must be very honest with you. I’m not good at change. There are a great many psychological reasons for this, none of which it would be appropriate to get into now. (I was going to write “in public,” but I’m working on a memoir. Make of that what you…

Kim’s professional bio is featured this month, but the more interesting story is that she fell into fascination with communications as a child when she realized that grocery stores guided your shopping by placing the milk in the back, making you wander past all manner of other things you might want to get to what…