Where is Library Build Today (Yesterday)? Part 2

Quite literally – In Harrisburg! Yesterday, I attended a Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organization (PANO) training session on nonprofit accounting and budgeting. It was an excellent opportunity to compare some of our accounting processes to other nonprofits and to talk about some of the best practices for the budgeting process.

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But back to where have come from and where we are going.

In late winter, we began to recruit a board of directors and solicit meetings with various local leaders to gather support for Library Build. We had a very positive response from posting the board positions on a popular nonprofit informational website. As we talked to potential board members we realized that we had attracted some extremely qualified board members that have a wide array of skills – something we felt was important to balance our relative newness to managing a nonprofit. Meanwhile, a few of our contacts at Penn were able to help us gather support and finish the first version of our business plan. Several of these meetings allowed us to recruit members for our Board of Advisors which serves as a support and advice network.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, this week, we are finalizing our 501c3 application, otherwise known as Form 1023. With a problem-free application, the IRS generally approves application in about 3 months. Once we receive our approval, fundraising becomes much easier as both individual donors and grantmakers are much more willing to fund nonprofits that have completed the approval process.

This fall, as last year, we will enter various funding and business plan competitions as the season for competitions generally coincides with the academic year. We are also currently seeking a first school to partner with in Philadelphia. By pre-selecting a school, we hope to illuatrate their need to prospective donors and to also raise support and money in the neighborhood where the school is located.

By the end of the year, our tentative goals are to both raise enough money to actually begin renovations and to have started that work. (I say “tentative” because we are still working to approve our strategic plan which will determine both our fundraising and operating goals.) The first library will serve as a pilot project which we plan to use as a showcase to donors to help raise additional funds for future libraries and to begin the Library Fellows program. At the same time that we begin renovations, we will also be working to design the training program for Library Fellows and recruiting our first class of Fellows. It is likely that the care needed to properly develop this program will mean that at least one or two libraries will be renovated before we can place Fellows in them.

Throughout this entire process we will be working to ensure that our operations are sound – that we continue to develop the infrastructure needed to sustain an ongoing organization. This involves improving upon things already in place such as our website, accounting systems and internal controls and also implementing systems and ideas for the future such as an annual campaign, human resource policies and other groundwork for the future.

Next time, I plan to delve into the statistics that represent the state of school libraries in both Philadelphia and the US as a nation.