Spotlight

Building Today ... For Tomorrow

A Librarian’s Lesson In Fundraising

by Greg L. Reese, Executive Director, East Cleveland Public Library

The East Cleveland Public Library is more than a repository for books for local residents to access. It has evolved into a much broader community center offering education and cultural enrichment for those in our service area and for others throughout Greater Cleveland. The library and the community needed more space. But how do you raise money for a capital campaign in a neighborhood that has, in just two generations, transformed from middle class stability to one of the most impoverished in the state? In this article, I outline how we raised $3.7 million in four years, without bond levies, from a spectrum of donors to meet the changing needs of appreciative but disadvantaged community.

East Cleveland, located adjacent to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, has at least 43.9 percent of its families living at or below the federal poverty level. According to the Ohio Department of Education and the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland (GEOGC), the East Cleveland School District is second only to the Cleveland Municipal School District in providing free and reduced lunches to it 73.9 percent of its students. Statistics documenting the poverty in East Cleveland are overwhelming (see below).

Among the few beacons of light is the East Cleveland Public Library (ECPL). The residents need and value the library, although they may not have the means to financially support both operating and construction expenses for an expansion. ECPL is funded by the Local Library Government Support Fund (LLGSF) and local property taxes. Approximately 80 percent of the library’s annual budget of $3 million is received from the State of Ohio. While most library systems can access additional local funding for capital support through tax levies, the poverty of East Cleveland precludes placing a capital levy on the ballot. The library successfully passed an operating levy in May 2002.

Expanding East Cleveland Public Library without asking the community for a capital improvements bond levy was a unique undertaking. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the expansion, our plans were to augment our 15,000 sq. ft. Carnegie Library to 32,777 sq. ft., adding a performing arts center, a larger children’s area, a Black Heritage archive, and a technology center! I personally deemed a course of seeking outside assistance necessary, recognizing and being sensitive to the intense poverty confronting my community.

Initially, I engaged in conversation with the City of East Cleveland leadership and was assured of municipal support, if not municipal dollars. We held several meetings with elected and appointed county leaders to explore the availability of public funds. These conversations continued; however, the availability of public funds continues only to be a remote possibility.

Ninety-five percent of the dollars raised to construct our new facility came from support outside of the community of East Cleveland.

The Capital Campaign

Building Today ... For Tomorrow was the theme for the capital campaign. This slogan was used in all library marketing, including promotional tools for publicizing the library to potential individual and corporate donors.

The following process proved successful and the library raised $3.7 million over a four-year period of aggressive fundraising. The generous support of the contributors and additional support from numerous individuals listed below enable us to generated $3.7 million of the $3.9 million needed to complete construction. $200,000 had been earmarked before the campaign began.

I recommend the following tactics for succeeding at what some might think of as an impossible task.

You must decide what program or services you plan to provide. See below for our choices.
Contact potential funding sources. Submit a letter of inquiry or request an interview before submitting a proposal. The Cleveland Foundation is the oldest and largest foundation in the area. After several meetings, they awarded the library a grant for $1 million. The list began to grow after this significant contribution from Cleveland’s oldest and most respected foundation.

Engage the services of a reputable architectural firm. Conduct the interview, develop the building program, and prepare preliminary drawings and renderings needed to present to potential funding sources. Total cost of our project was $3.9 million to construct an 18,000 sq. ft. addition to our main library.
Engage the services of a project manager to oversee the daily progress of the project.

Helpful Hints

All of the funds raised to construct the new Debra Ann November Learning Center have been contributed by generous private benefactors, including individuals, foundations, and corporations. Typically, libraries are able to generate public funds from bond issues. The economic situation in East Cleveland, however, has not made that a viable alternative. As a result, our efforts have been unique among library systems nationwide. Other libraries call and ask how we have done it. I tell them that successful fundraising involves a calculated process of networking, proposal writing, and positive interpersonal exchanges.

A senior program officer from the Cleveland Foundation shared this piece of valuable information during the capital campaign:

To conduct a successful capital campaign of this magnitude, three extremely important factors must be in place: (1) You must be networked. Those in decision-making positions must respect you as an individual and be aware of your accomplishments within the community. (2) Your proposal must be perfect, so hire a consultant because you’ll need their expertise. (3) The final, yet the most important factor is that the funding source must respect and feel good about the individual submitting the request. In very simple terms, "they gotta like you.”

Expansion Program

Our expansion program is primarily housed in the new section of the building, named the Debra Ann November Learning Center. It has four components:

Children’s Services

An additional 4,000 sq.ft. in the new children’s services department provides a total of 6,000 sq.ft. dedicated to enhancing library services to the children of East Cleveland.

Computer Technology

The new technology center will house thirty computer stations that will be used for computer instruction and in-service training, as well as being available to the general public whenever the library is open.

The Black Heritage Collection

The Black Heritage Collection will house print and non-print materials written or produced by African-Americans. The additional space will enable us to expand our current collection. We anticipate having the largest collection of materials written by and about the African-American experience within the state of Ohio.

The Performing Arts Center

A new performing arts center provides 250 seats for lectures and the performing arts. The fixed seating and theater-caliber sound and lighting system are a suitable venue for performances by traveling companies of the Cleveland Opera and Cleveland Orchestra as well as first-class facilities for our very popular jazz programming, lecture series, and educational programs and workshops.

Donor List

$ 1,050,000 Cleveland Foundation
$ 300,000 Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust
$ 250,000 Mort November
$ 250,000 McGregor Foundation
$ 296,000 George Gund Foundation
$ 150,000 Abington Foundation
$ 170,000 Eva L. and Joseph M. Bruening Foundation
$ 100,000 Key Bank
$ 75,000 The Reinberger Foundation
$ 95,500 Cleveland Foundation (Flewellen Book Collection)
$ 60,000 Thomas White Foundation
$ 50,000 Raymond Wean Foundation
$ 50,000 Second Foundation
$ 50,000 The Lerner Foundation
$ 50,000 The 1525 Foundation
$ 39,000 The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
$ 35,000 The Kulas Foundation
$ 25,000 Nord Foundation
$ 20,000 Nason Foundation
$ 16,650 Hershey Foundation
$ 15,000 The Davis Fund
$ 13,000 The Ford Motor Company Fund
$ 10,000 The Higley Fund
$ 10,000 The Sherwick Fund
$ 10,000 John P. Murphy
$ 2,500 Ohio Savings Bank
$ 1,350 Ohio Humanities Council (Flewellen Book Collection)

Greg’s Advice to Library Educators

Competition for funding is fierce. Library practitioners need to express the importance of the development of fundraising training to educators at our schools of library and information science. It is imperative that the curricula at our library schools keep pace with the economic trends facing our communities and our country.

“East Cleveland Libraries, A Place for Lifelong Learning”

The East Cleveland Public Library has played a vital role in enhancing the lives of many of our constituents. An improved facility provides the opportunity to improve library services to the residents of East Cleveland and surrounding communities.

The Economic Conditions in East Cleveland, Ohio

The most recent Social Indicators of the Well-Being of Children and Families report from United Way Services of Greater Cleveland and the Federation for Community Planning summarized the following additional factors:

East Cleveland is one of only two suburbs in Cuyahoga County with more than one thousand children younger than eighteen living in families receiving cash assistance.
Single women and girls head 62.9 percent of families with children in East Cleveland.
Births to girls ages ten to nineteen were 55.1 per 1,000 and 70 per 1,000 overall to women of childbearing age. Both statistics are the highest birth rates in the county, outside of the City of Cleveland.
The percentage of children ages ten to nineteen living in East Cleveland was 30.6 percent, the highest in the county outside of the City of Cleveland.
Only 62.9 percent of persons twenty-five years and older have earned a high school diploma.

Greg L. Reese is Executive Director of the East Cleveland Public Library.

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