Library funding update

As noted in an earlier post, Kellogg-Hubbard was largely successful on town meeting day. We asked the six towns in our service area for $318,000, and $304,000 was approved. Hilari Farrington and I will propose to the board changes to the budget to make up for the $14,000 shortfall. At this point we do not expect that we will have to reduce hours to make up the lost revenue.

A critical source of support for the library is charitable contributions. In 2007, we have budgeted $147,000 in gifts from individuals and businesses. To-date we have raised $37,675 compared to $23,570 for the same period in 2006.

We are ahead of last year for a couple of reasons. First, a business that gave us $5,000 last year gave us the same amount this year, but earlier in the year. Second, we received two major gifts: $6,000 from a relatively new donor, and $10,000 from a donor who gave us $5,000 last year. Third, and sadly, a number of long-time patrons have died and we have received gifts in their memory.

I am inspired by the generosity of these donors. I have been involved in fundraising for some time, and Kellogg-Hubbard has an unusually high number of dependable donors – people who give year after year – and also a number of major donors who give willingly and at increasing levels.

Don’t forget, you can make a donation to Kellogg-Hubbard online.

Community outreach

The library’s community advisory committee met yesterday. This is a board committee with representatives from all the towns in our service area; they guide our annual requests to taxpayers.

We have begun planning for 2008 and one of our goals is to increase communication with town residents on library funding issues through community newspapers and newsletters:

Times Argus
Montpelier Bridge
Washington World
Middlesex Newspaper
The Grapevine, Worcester
East Montpelier Signpost
Maple Cornet Net (e-newsletter)
School newsletters

Periodically, I will use this weblog to provide updates on Kellogg-Hubbard's finances, which will then provide us with narrative to submit to these publications. I welcome you input on the content and tone of these posts. (We know there are a few readers of our blog out there. We subscribe to Sitemeter which counts the numbers of “hits” to our blog. For the week April 2-8, we had 79 visits. Of course many of these visits are posters and our family members who log on to admire our wit and wisdom. But I suspect there may be a few readers outside of the library, and we welcome your comments.)