 |
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
How the Branches Were Saved
Their strategy was to spread their passion: among friends and friends of friends, up and down streets, and throughout neighborhoods. They made phone calls, knocked on doors, sent e-mail blasts, and held dozens of coffees and cocktail parties. They recognized that the key to their success was to break with the past and champion change. Sounds like the playbook to elect a president. But this one succeeded in reopening a pair of beloved branch libraries.
The voters had spoken, but theirs was not to be the last word. This is the story of how a small band of volunteers persuaded 400 people to donate more than $325,000—giving the branches a five-year reprieve in which to raise money for a permanent endowment. It is a story that other municipalities—such as neighboring Newton—are looking at as tight finances force them to close their branch libraries. The intrepid band includes a corporate attorney, a business consultant, a speech pathologist, and a dog-walker. They waged their campaign in parks and playgrounds, living rooms and stores, and—most effectively—with open houses at the branches themselves. They even enlisted the town’s children, who filled piggy banks with more than $7,000 by selling lemonade, holding yard sales, and sweet-talking their grandparents. “I was terribly saddened at the thought that our community would even consider closing libraries,” says Amanda Henshon, who many credit for firing up the branch campaign. Henshon, a corporate lawyer who is taking time off to raise her three young children, made the branches part of her successful campaign for library trustee in 2006. The message of the override vote, she says, “was not to close the branches. The vote was about public funding at a time when public funding was incredibly tight.” Getting
past “no” On a rainy afternoon, Lanza sat in the reading room of the Hills branch a few blocks from her home and talked about the crucial months of a campaign that at times looked like a lost cause. The room, with its barrel-shaped ceiling and huge fireplace, now looks much as it did when the library opened in 1928. It is even furnished with the original tables and chairs.
Lanza, who became a branch fan through her two young children, took on the helm of the campaign at the urging of Henshon, who also enlisted the other co-chair, Lynne Brady Wagner. “We realized quickly that we didn’t know what we were doing,” Lanza said, recalling an organizational meeting in September 2007. By then, the campaign had raised about $75,000 toward its $325,000 goal, thanks largely to a "Brunch for the Branches" a half year before. That goal may not seem like much for a town like Wellesley. After all, in 2005, parents raised $380,000 in a failed bid to persuade the School Committee to restore an elementary school Spanish program. The branch libraries, however, had no financial angels to come to their rescue. “Professional fund-raisers thought we should find someone who could give us $50,000,” Lanza says. “Our money didn’t come from a couple of large contributors, but many smaller donors.” Lanza holds an MBA from the Wharton School and, before taking time off to raise her children, worked as a marketing consultant for big companies like Pepsi. But, she said, “it’s one thing to put together a beautiful marketing campaign, another to sit down with someone and ask for money.” Lanza and Wagner credit Carolyn Wood, who became the library’s director of development in October 2007, with jumpstarting the campaign. Wood brought both passion for books and expertise in fund-raising to the job. Her mother was a librarian. Before spending 10 years as a stay-at-home mom, Wood worked for a capital giving group at Harvard University. She picked up more fund-raising experience—and Wellesley contacts—serving on the capital campaign for the main library and on the board of the Friends of Wellesley Library.
“Fundraising is a science—meaning numbers, data, and analysis—but there is also a real art to it,” said Wood. “And the art to it is making your case.” That meant persuading donors that the goal was not just to reopen the branches, but to re-invent them. In the past, the branches had been, in effect, miniature versions of the main library. That formula didn’t make sense anymore, especially with the opening in 2003 of the new main library. “We can’t talk about the branches as if they’re a separate entity,” Wood said. Instead, the campaign cast the library as “one institution with three locations.” The branches’ new role would be to provide a comfortable reading space; lend best-sellers, CDs, and children’s material; and host book groups, informal study hours, and classes. The branch committee made it a point to solicit ideas along with donations. The
game plan
Early on, the 20 or so members of the branch committee pooled their knowledge of the community to come up with a list of 100 potential donors. “We discovered on our committee that there were very few people comfortable with approaching strangers,” said Lanza. When no one agreed to approach one particularly promising couple, Wagner piped up, “Darn it, I’m going to call. Let’s see what happens.” Knowing that the couple had been major contributors to town causes over the years, Wagner told them “how tremendously grateful people were.” She talked about the library’s role as a community gathering center, “a place that serves every single member of the town every day.” And then she noted that with the branches closed, some residents, particularly older ones, can’t get to the library. “That really connected for them,” Wagner said. A few weeks later, the couple donated $10,000. Lanza found that the most effective approach was to start a conversation. “If you want someone to share your passion, you have to listen to them as well.” With other moms, she would talk about how the branches offered a snug, safe space, “where kids can look at books and you can look at books.” With older people, she would talk about their memories of the libraries and of the town. Lanza and Wagner, who each served as point person for a subgroup of committee members, met weekly with Wood. They mapped strategy and discussed who’d been contacted, needed to be contacted, or shouldn’t be contacted. “We wanted to be very respectful and professional,” Wagner said. The
Poet’s
muse
In
a previous life, Meier
worked in the computer
field. Video-conferencing
had been one of her
specialties. Having
spent so much time
meeting people virtually,
she appreciates how
her current job allows
her to meet them in
the flesh. “There
are a lot of people
with dogs out walking,” she
said. And she filled
them all in about
the library campaign. Another Meier brainstorm was inviting “’tweens”—boys and girls aged nine through twelve—to the Hills Branch early last year to talk about what they wanted from the library. They filled poster page after poster page with ideas. They loved the convenience of a library to which they could bike and request particular titles, have special study hours, and have computer access. And their enthusiasm prompted not a few parents to write a check for “a free place for all ages to read and convene.” In all, the Poets’ Corner Neighborhood raised more than $50,000, earning naming rights for the beacon atop the Hills branch. “Every time I go by,” Meier said, “I say to the kids, there’s the light, it's on; the library is open.”
The
veteran warrior With her experience in previous branch efforts, Cannell provided the committee with institutional memory. She stressed the importance of being up front with the community about fund-raising goals and spending plans. “Personally, if I’m going to be asked to give money to something, I want to know all of the details,” she said. Late-night
panic A key moment came about three quarters of the way through the campaign when the branch committee approached the Friends of the Wellesley Free Library for a donation of $10,000. Mary Ann Cluggish, the library trustees’ liaison to the Friends, thought the committee should have asked for more. With that in mind, Cluggish gave the Friends a tour of the Hills branch. She showed the group the fireplace, which could be named in its honor, and suggested a donation of $25,000. As it turned out, that was just the figure the Friends had in mind. “I knew that was a fitting and appropriate gift for them to give,” said Cluggish.
The Friends’ gift paid for things like wireless Internet, book racks, and refurbishing furniture. It also “got everyone energized again,” Lanza said. “We’d be getting all these little gifts, and we’d be thinking, ‘Are we going to actually make it to the end?’ And then we get this gift. And boom! we are going to make it.” Good
timing Had the economy turned sour sooner it would have left the branches shuttered at a time when they are needed most. “The library actually gets busier in times like now,” Robinson said. “The amount of people who want to use the library goes up in hard economic times.” Janice Coduri, the Wellesley library director, became a grandmother a couple of months after the branches reopened. As Coduri talks about the many activates the branches host, she imagines one day taking her granddaughter to a "Book Babies" event. Other activities include "Laptop Lab," "Bring-Your-Own Crafting Circle," "Afternoon Book Chat and Tea," and the "Middle School Book Club." Coduri says, “We’re trying things out to see what works.”
Most of the action is at the Hills branch, where aisle bookcases were removed to open up the space. “When we listened to what people wanted, we de-cluttered it,” Coduri said. The smaller Fells branch, which is leased part-time to the Wellesley Community Children’s Center, is only open the latter part of the week. Over at the Fells one Saturday in late fall, Michael Humphreys stopped by to pick up a book he had ordered from the main library. The Fells is the oldest, continuously-used public building in town, having opened as a one-room schoolhouse more than 150 years ago. Today it’s filled with pint-size tables, but its shelves reflect the wide spectrum of its users, from: How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night, to Robin Cook’s Foreign Body, as well as a selection of large-print books. Humphreys,
who serves on several
town boards, says
the success of the
branch campaign reflects
Wellesley's strength
as a community. “When
people want something,
they get behind
it.” |
Two
years ago, the prospect
of saving Wellesley’s
Fells and Hills branch
libraries appeared
as remote as Barack
Obama’s
chances of winning
the White House. For
the second consecutive
year, a tax override
had failed to keep
them open.
