The Library Friends, Foundations, and Trusts Handbook

Former youth librarian Tuccillo (Totally Tweens & Teens) draws upon her extensive library service and experience working with “library friends” groups to offer an essential resource for library advocates, staff members, and administrators to support and enhance their library friends and foundation groups. Tuccillo begins with the history of library philanthropy, discussing the purpose of support groups and providing guidelines (including exceptional coverage of bylaws) for establishing a group from the ground up. Subsequent chapters cover job descriptions, challenging situations (declining membership, conflict), marketing, recruitment, donor management, grants, and distribution of funds. Tuccillo stresses the importance of building inclusive groups that welcome members from all backgrounds, ages, and cultures; such groups promote relevancy and participation, increasing their sustainability and impact. While Tuccillo touches on faithful standbys such as book sales and annual donation solicitations, she also details many other creative alternatives, from selling handcrafted notecards to throwing murder mystery nights, galas, and teas. The book is supplemented by a robust set of appendixes that provide sample documents, brochures, membership applications, position descriptions, and more.