If you bought this book and went straight to this chapter, I feel your pain! Luckily, most Friends groups are absolutely essential to the library; not only do they raise money for the library, they can also be ambassadors for the library, promoting its value throughout the community. They can provide tremendous help in a capital campaign (in fact, many Friends groups were established as a result of people coming together to help fundraise for a major building or technology project). The best Friends groups will contribute to the morale of you and your staff by being fond supporters of all you do.
But sometimes, Friends groups become quite unfriendly, and when this happens, it can be a terrible strain on your relations with them, it can deprive your library of much needed money, it can cause morale to drop, and it can cause a loss of sleep and worry over what to do. Almost always, the rift comes from personalities that make working out a functional relationship with them (or him or her) more an art than a science.
Because Friends groups are typically 501(c)(3) organizations, they are a totally separate entity from the library, and technically, you have no jurisdiction over them (although they can be restricted from using your name in the fundraising efforts if they are not helping the library—more on this later). This can make working with an unfriendly group even more difficult but not impossible! This chapter will address the most common types of problems libraries and librarians face with dysfunctional Friends, which include the following:
Many librarians believe that they are entitled to access Friends’ documents and that Friends meetings must be open to the public. Sadly, bylaws are not public documents unless your state has nonprofit governing laws stating otherwise, and your state’s open-meeting laws might not apply to nonprofits (they usually refer only to government agencies, which, of course, Friends groups aren’t). This means that, when you ask for their records and their minutes or even ask to attend their meetings, they might have the right to refuse. One piece of information that is available to you (and might yield the information you need) is their 990 forms, which they have to file with the IRS every year to protect their nonprofit status. You can find your group’s filings at https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits or at www.guidestar.org.
How did it come to this? There could be a variety of reasons: Perhaps the previous director alienated the Friends, and they have decided that in the future, they will keep the work to themselves to avoid any more unpleasantness. It could be that some of the Friends have decided that this is their group and that the library has too much influence on their decision-making—which is nonsense because they exist to serve the library’s needs. Or—maybe they just don’t like you!
So, what can you do? It’s time to become their best Friend! Join them and make a membership donation. If they have open membership meetings, attend. Hold a potluck to thank them for all they’ve done for the library. Write an op-ed thanking them for the gifts they’ve made in the past. Try to personally befriend a member of their board who would be willing to be your spokesperson for more transparency. Ask them what more you can do to help their efforts.
If you have faced a brick wall in trying to get information from them, you should stop trying immediately and swallow your pride. It will take time (and hopefully a change in their leadership) for you to worm your way into their hearts, but if you can do so, you’ll have gone a long way in improving relationships for the long term.
OK, first of all, it’s not really their money. They don’t own it; they are stewards of it. But, try telling them that! Obviously, all gifts to the library should have final approval from the director or in the case of larger gifts, often the approval of the trustees. For a sample gift acceptance policy, see appendix C.
It’s important for the Friends to realize that the library director is the one who knows what the library needs most. The Friends might want that marble bench outside the library (with their name inscribed on it), but the library director knows that what’s really needed at this point are new laptops in the teen center. It’s clearly a sad misuse of funds if the Friends get their way and an important need of the library goes wanting. For a chart of roles for Friends, directors, and trustees, see appendix D.
So how do you resolve this issue? You can start by including them in your short-term planning. Once a year, when your budget is being set for the following year, ask for time on the Friends’ agenda to share with them what the year ahead is looking like. (If you are anticipating budget cuts—this is also a great time to rally them for advocacy.) Discuss with your group the community trends that will impact library services. Do you have a population of people who are Vietnamese moving in? What will that mean for collection development and community programs? Are new families moving in, raising the number of children you’ll be serving, and how will this impact youth services?
Explore the goals you have for the coming year with your Friends, and discuss how they can ensure that their contributions align with these goals. Let them have a chance to give input as well. This type of respectful once-a-year dialogue will help put you on the same page, and when you go to them for money for a new Vietnamese collection, they’ll likely have the check waiting for you!
Bad things happen in a vacuum. It’s important to include the Friends as you survey the year ahead and continue to keep them in the loop throughout the year. Be sure to have a gift acceptance policy in place so that when you say no to the marble bench, you have an objective policy to back you up. And finally, present the Friends with a wish list, so that rather than using their own imaginations about what the library needs most, they’ll have a menu of items that you know are most needed.
The first of two of the most common calls we get at United for Libraries is from Friends who say, “We never see the library director until she needs something. She treats us like an open checkbook and rarely even thanks us for what we do.” The second call comes from library directors who lament, “The Friends are sitting on thousands of dollars that they say they are saving for a rainy day. It’s pouring outside! How can I get them to release their funds?”
This scenario is a twist on Friends deciding how their money will be spent. It comes from a misunderstanding of what the library needs and why. As is always the case, communication is critical here. The problem once again is that Friends are breaching good faith with donors who believe that their money will be spent to help the library, rather than sitting in a bank account somewhere.
The best Friends groups (if they are not acting as a foundation whose role is to amass great amounts of money for future library projects) spend nearly everything they make each year on the library (see appendix E). This annual spending provides the catalyst for fundraising in the following year. When the Friends have a close-to-zero balance in their checkbook, it creates an urgency for more fundraising.
So, how do you ask your Friends to give even more? This is a sensitive area because if they are giving some money each year, you could come across as ungrateful or, worse yet, greedy. I know, I know—this is not for you but for the library! If you don’t even know how much the Friends have, that creates an even trickier problem—how much do you ask for to convince them to dig into their nest egg? Again, you can find their financial information from guidestar.org.
Once you know how much money they’re holding onto, the next step is to develop a plan for your library of important services, facilities support, new collections, technology start-ups, and/or anything else you believe your library needs right now! If you don’t want your Friends to pick piecemeal from your plan, you should tie it into one project; for example, if you don’t already have a “makerspace” in your library, you could ask your Friends to provide the technology you need for such as space as a start-up. Most Friends (rightly) don’t want to spend their money on items for which the funding authority should be paying as part of the library’s basic services.
Another way to encourage the Friends to let go of that rainy-day fund is to ask for the money as a catalyst for future fundraising or library construction. Asking for the funds to engage a fundraising consultant or a building consultant is an excellent way to leverage their money into a big project and for them to be leaders at the beginning.
Excellent relations and communications are critical here as in all your relationships with your Friends. You might include with the types of requests already mentioned a discussion of how your Friends see themselves as supporting the library. You can let them know that best practices among the country’s Friends groups are to spend most of their money each year so that when they go out to raise money in subsequent years, they have much more to boast about in terms of what they’ve recently sponsored. It will make the case for repeat donations, as well as for recruiting new donors/members. Show them the Fact Sheet (appendix E) from the national Friends organization. Sometimes (sad but true), it takes an outside organization to make the same points you’ve been making for others to finally listen.
It’s true—some library Friends groups actually go out publicly to oppose the library policies and decisions. For example, there was once a California Friends group that started an active campaign to oppose the library’s building plans. Incredible, right? The library board of trustees had received a perfect parcel of land (for free!) upon which to build a new central library. It was right in the geographic middle of the city’s population growth (and projected growth according to the city’s planning and zoning department).
The new location, however, meant a one- to two-mile drive from where the central library was currently located, which was basically in the old village of this bustling and growing city. The Friends leadership at the time also lived in the old village; they liked the convenience of getting to their library relatively quickly, and they worried about the building’s future. So, in their own self-interest, they began making buttons, attending council meetings, passing petitions, and writing letters to the editor, making it clear that the Friends of the Library opposed the new building site.
We do live in a democracy, and one of our most cherished rights is freedom of speech. So, it’s certainly OK to form a “Citizens Against the Library” group and oppose the plans under that moniker. It is not OK to use the Friends designation for this activity. Not only is it highly unethical, but it’s most likely in violation of their bylaws as well, most of which include supporting the library in their mission statement and, therefore, could threaten their 501(c)(3) status.
Another similar but even more dastardly scenario happened a few years back. A Maryland city was in financial straits and, in an effort to consolidate resources, planned to close some underused neighborhood branches. I don’t have to tell you, this did not go well with the neighborhoods targeted! So what happened? The Friends (the good guys) held their annual membership meeting to elect new officers. What did the angry citizens do? They began joining the Friends in legion numbers; then, they attended the membership meeting and wrote in their own candidates for the board. They staged a coup!
It worked, and once the new “Friends” board was installed, they immediately began to oppose the closings with their “Friends of the Library” designation. It was a brilliant plan, and as with the aforementioned case, it was an easier sell to the public—“Gee, even the Friends of the Library are opposed.”
It is unlikely that a group this unfriendly would be amendable to your requests that they not use the Friends designation. You can point out that this puts the Friends’ 501(c)(3) designation in jeopardy, but they are not likely to care because they have another agenda entirely. If you can’t get these folks to back down willingly, you’ll probably want to end your association with them entirely (see “Getting a Divorce from Your Friends” later in this chapter).
It is most typically the case that the Friends bylaws reflect a singular purpose of supporting the library. Some, though, have included the phrase “the library and literacy” in their mission statement. If literacy is included, that opens the door for them to support other compatible but not directly related organizations in addition to or even instead of the library.
Partnerships for literacy are so very important, and that means it requires all hands on deck. The appalling rate of illiteracy and semi-literacy in America can certainly be viewed as the number one threat to our country. In an increasingly global and technical world, we simply will be unable to compete if we can’t ensure that our children are successful in school. We know that targeting early childhood literacy is especially important.
As the library director, your job is to be involved or at least quite knowledgeable about the Friends’ work with other literacy agencies, and you should highly encourage your Friends to work with library staff in creating meaningful partnerships for literacy and to fund those. If they call themselves “Friends of the Library,” there should be library input, agreement, and involvement with literacy partnerships. If the balance tips to an organization that diminishes in any significant way their direct support for your library, you should discuss this with them. Perhaps they can reform as “Friends of Literacy,” leaving the Friends of the Library title available so that you can start a new group.
Other than literacy (and then only if you agree and it’s a part of their mission), the Friends should not spend their money on other groups and organizations. Again, it’s a breach of faith with their donors/members who believe they are supporting the library when they support the Friends, and it’s likely outside of their mission. What to do? If you are unable to convince them to support only what they have nonprofit status to support (i.e., what’s in their bylaws), see “Getting a Divorce from Your Friends” later in this chapter.
This is a fairly typical problem, and it can certainly contribute to the scenarios already mentioned. The group was founded years ago, and over time, the same five to ten (sometimes even less) people run it. They might do the usual things—like having a membership drive (for contributions only), holding a used book sale, maybe sponsoring a program or two, and supporting the summer reading and learning program.
This would be OK, except the group is aging out, and though you hear them complain that “they just can’t seem to recruit new and younger members,” they certainly aren’t trying very hard to do so. They are very content with the group they have. They are very content with the work they do (and have done for ages). They circulate among the board positions—“Betty” serving as president this year and board member-at-large the next—and finally returning to the president’s position once again. They don’t hold membership meetings, and they don’t try new things.
If you, too, are content with the group as is, maybe this isn’t a problem for you—for now. The truth is, however, that we all age out eventually, and if the Friends aren’t bringing in new members, the group could go away entirely in several years, leaving you to have to do the harder work of starting a new Friends group all over again (see chapter 1).
In addition, a cliquish Friends group is not engaging community in their group—a positive activity in its own right. They may even be sending out negative vibes (even unintentionally) that others are unwelcome in their group, and this could certainly impact their fundraising ability. Finally, most groups that don’t grow and evolve over time fail to take on new initiatives and think differently about how they’re structured and how they can raise even more money for the library. If the active group is small and ingrown, their ability to be strong advocates when you need them is hindered—they may not even be willing to advocate at all if it’s not something “they’ve always done.”
How can you convince them to open the doors to active new members? As with many of the remedies, you should be their strongest supporter. You should ingratiate yourself with them, and let them know how much you appreciate their work. You can let them know that they have created a strong legacy for the library that you are worried won’t succeed them. You would hate to see all their wonderful efforts on behalf of the library diminished by not having succession planning in the mix of all they do. Let them know you are most willing to help with the recruiting effort.
Some groups become so small and clannish that they aren’t raising the kind of money you know is out there. The problem is, because they are carrying the Friends of the Library title, you’re hard pressed to start a new fundraising and support organization. What would you call this new group? How could this be done without confusing your community?
Once again, the answer may be that you have to let this Friends group go. If they are standing in the way of creating a robust grassroots fundraising environment for the library, they really aren’t your “Friends.” If you can’t get them to change and grow, it might be time for the last unhappy step.
The time has come. You’ve tried everything—maybe even counseling (e.g., a facilitator or consultant), but the marriage between you and your Friends group is irretrievably broken. You might feel there is nothing else you can do except wait for them to end their volunteer activities as they move into a nursing home.
The truth is, there is something you can do, and, in fact, if your Friends group is dysfunctional and actually standing in the way of what could be a different, strong, robust, and engaging group, you actually have a responsibility to do everything you can to open the pathway for a new group to form. This isn’t an easy or pleasant step to take, and you might get some negative feedback. You’ll know when you’re ready to take this step, and you won’t be doing it alone.
First of all, if you have a governing board, you must discuss this issue with them (if you haven’t already). Let them know what you’ve done to try to remedy the situation. It’s likely they’ll have some ideas as well and may be reluctant at first to take any drastic steps. Give them some time to get used to the idea of asking the Friends to disband. It’s important that you do what you can to get your trustees on your page.
Governing boards have the authority and fiduciary responsibility to protect the library’s assets. This includes the name of the library. Though your trustees do not have authority over the Friends (assuming they are a separate 501(c)(3) organization), they do have authority over who uses the library’s name.
Once the decision has been made by the board to disassociate with the Friends, the board should send a “cease and desist” letter to the Friends’ board for using the library’s name. In addition, the board should write a letter to the editor thanking the Friends for past service and explaining in a clear, non-emotional way why the board is taking this action. If the library plans to work to develop a new Friends group, an invitation to new recruits asking new volunteers to contact the library director can be included in the letter to the editor. As mentioned before, there is likely to be some pushback, but if your reasons are solid, you need simply stand by them.
If you do not have a board or if your board is advisory only, you still have a path that you can take. In this case, you should meet with your direct supervisor—the city or county manager or the mayor. It’ll be an easier course with a paid administrator, because he or she will be less worried about any political fallout such a move might have.
A mayor or other elected official to whom you report will most certainly be concerned about political fallout. If this is the case with you, you will want to have solid evidence that extends over a year at least documenting conversations you’ve had, money they’ve collected for the library but have not released, and money they’ve spent elsewhere. Be sure to let the mayor know that you are planning to start a new group if this is the case, and you might even sweeten the effort with him or her by stating a monetary goal you believe a new Friends group could bring within the next three years—being sure the goal well exceeds what the Friends have given over the past three years.
If you are unsuccessful getting your board or your boss to take action on disallowing the Friends to use the library’s name in your fundraising, you could consider instead starting a foundation or working with the foundation to engage more on the grassroots level. You might also consider starting a new group with a different name, but that would undoubtedly cause even more confusion among community donors. In the end, if you aren’t able to secure authorization to send out the “cease and desist” letter, consider working with them as best you can, or even not working with them at all and put this relationship at the very bottom of your worry list.
Libraries across the country have been benefiting for years by wonderful Friends groups that want nothing more than to help make their library the very best it can be. They happily engage in fundraising activities, they promote and advocate for the library when needed, and they work hand in hand with the library administration in order to provide exactly what the library needs.
It seems true that the most high-functioning Friends groups have strong, visible support from the library. I believe that because Friends are so important, the library director should attend their meetings and functions. It will honor the Friends and show them that they are an important component for development, advocacy, community engagement, and library promotion.
No matter how hard you work, there may be times when—because leadership of the Friends turns over, or a former director neglected them, or for a myriad of personality problems—Friends become unfriendly. This can and does cause many headaches for the library director and can, in fact, cause poor publicity for the library when and if these dysfunctional relationships become public. In addition, these groups make it almost impossible to create a new high-functioning board when they hold onto their name as “Friends of the Library.”
It’s always best to take the time and trouble to mend poor relationships, but in the end, you might have to work to disband them. Understand that when this becomes the only option, it also becomes the best option. It is your responsibility to ensure that unfriendly groups don’t remain Friends with you.