Library Outreach

to Underserved Populations

[The purpose of this essay is to offer a primer - a practical approach - to obtaining grants for rural and small-town public libraries.]

Some 20 years ago during my undergraduate days, I was introduced to both the pleasure and pain of grants in a very real way. I wanted a sojourn in France, the land of wine and roses, but I had no money - nary, a sou. A professor told me about cash available for nothing from foundations and other venues. Or at least that's what I heard: something for nothing. So, I grabbed the opportunity to scoop up this golden chance.

I then encountered a whole new world of prodigious work and hours of effort, reinforcing the old adage that there's no free lunch in this world! I spent all of my time - after classes and studying - at the college library. I learned a whole new range of skills by using the card catalog, directories of foundations and businesses, subject encyclopedias, volumes of quotes, statistical abstracts, handbooks on correspondence, and other reference sources. I became quite a regular in the stacks, and I also experienced the helpfulness of librarians again and again.

Oddly enough, my serendipitous quest led me to a career in libraries as well as to the perfect grant. Two months before the end of my senior year, I garnered acceptance to the Masters Program in the School of Library Science at the University of Chapel Hill, NC. On my very last day before college graduation, I also learned that after ten rejected proposals, I had finally scored the grant that I had always wanted: one from the Rotary Foundation for a year of studying on the French Riviera and in the wine country of Bordeaux. This success hooked me absolutely on both the yin and yang and the ecstasy and agony of grants, forever.

As a public librarian in mainly rural and small-town areas, I have, through grants, seen repeatedly across the years the veritable array of goodies available to our profession: desktops, laptops, LCD projectors, printers, and other computer hardware; artists, musicians, storytellers, scholars, archivists, and other professional services; books, compact discs, videos, magazines, and other collections of materials; chairs, desks, tables, cabinets, and even entire buildings filled with furnishings.

I have also experienced the intensity of interminable writer's block; caffeine-filled evenings racing towards the deadlines of impossible dawns; wild midnight careening to the nearest Kinko's on deer-filled, country roads; hand deliveries of proposals after hours behind the wheels of cantankerous library vans; and files replete with rejections. Sometimes the stars glitter through grants, and everything seems possible; sometimes, there's just plain, old dust.

The purpose of this essay is to offer a primer - a practical approach - to obtaining grants for rural and small-town public libraries. It doesn't include everything there is to know, not nearly. But it may provide some pointers on reaching goals while avoiding pitfalls. For the more experienced of you, there may be a nugget or two amongst the shards. For beginners, you may learn some basic methods of staking claims on mother loads. The point-of-view is an entirely personal, unscientific one regarding types of grants, methods of applying, and sources for more money. This limited knowledge comes from winning about two million dollars in successful grants and having a lot of stimulating failures.

Let's start with some easy grants, move to the most difficult ones, and then return to the middle of the road. Local corporate outlets and private foundations are often the simplest and most lucrative sources for funds, particularly if factored on an hourly rate of payoff for work. For instance, Wal-Mart gives $1,000 regularly to nonprofits, churches, schools, and local governmental agencies in a number of very flexible categories such as matching, bonus, literacy, safety, and environmental grants. There's even one for Grandparents Day!

The effort of completing the Wal-Mart application form is minimal consisting of checking off categories in three boxes concerning the type of organization, the groups served, and the benefit to the local community. Then, you must list your organization's name, address, contact person, and phone; mission statement (two lines); and grant objective (two lines). The entire process takes five minutes. Notification of approval occurs generally in less than ten days.

For just writing a paragraph and submitting a simple budget, we have easily obtained similar sums ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 from local steel and paper mills, fast food establishments, family foundations, and historical societies. Often, success in small towns and rural areas depends on who knows whom, doesn't it?. And what organization is more mom-and-apple-pie in Mayberry, USA, than the public library? Such money is "easy pickings," and it can add up! Often too, required reports on progress are minimal or nonexistent - another important timesavings related to small, local grants.

Other grants may be much more difficult to obtain depending on the demand for them or on the frames-of-reference of the officials who administer them. Bricks and mortar grants for public libraries, for instance, are hard to find nationally. At one time for decades, of course, the federal government provided such money through the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) - but no longer. To obtain such support now, one must appeal to Congressional Representatives and Senators to initiate innovative, funding strategies such as adding requests onto enabling legislation of a various agencies. But rural and small town libraries can also apply for building funds from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The USDA has rural development grants and loans to assist in the construction of essential community facilities - including public libraries - in rural areas and towns of up to 20,000 in population. According to published guidelines, "Grants are authorized on a graduated scale. Applicants located in small communities with low populations and low incomes will receive a higher percentage of grants" (http://www.rurdev.usda.gov). In South Carolina, awards average at $50,000.00. They are administered by Rural Development State Offices. Preliminary forms take at least four hours to initiate. If approved, they must be followed by even more detailed paperwork that will probably require the assistance of one's local water and sewer district or an outside specialist knowledgeable on architectural and environmental factors.

The Kresge Foundation is even more generous and, in a certain manner, more daunting. According to its web site, this nationally-oriented, private foundation founded in 1924 aims to strengthen the capacity of organizations like public libraries "to provide effective programs of quality…by helping an organization broaden and deepen its base of support from the private sector and by encouraging volunteer involvement in the fund raising effort and beyond" (http://www.kresge.org).

Basically, the Kresge Foundation gives challenge grants for "construction of facilities, renovation of facilities, purchase of major equipment or an integrated system at a cost of at least $300,000, [and] purchase of real estate." For construction, grants average at 5% of the total project. Many recent ones ranged from $150,000 to $600,000. The key point is that the Kresge Foundation requires evidence of "a fund raising strategy to approach a broad and diverse number of prospects." Guidelines also stress participation by volunteers, strong board leadership, and key financial pledges ranging from 20% to 50% of project costs. The Kresge Foundation is definitely an excellent, potential source of funding in the limited bricks-and-mortar sector, but its application requires very careful preparation of fundraising plans.

Many national grants, especially on the federal level, mirror the complexities of the USDA and Kresge Foundation guidelines. Examples would include those offered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (http://www.imls.gov) and the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (http://www.ntia.doc.gov). Even e-rate applications (www.sl.universalservice.org) may prove challenging to the novice. But by going step-by-step, any application can be thoroughly completed over time. Where there is a will, there indeed is a way, if the benefits outweigh the complexities.

In the category of medium-difficulty-to-easy grants are a lot of very worthwhile ones. State humanities councils offer some of the best. The South Carolina Humanities Council (www.schumanities.org) is typical. Its funding general ranges from $1,000 to $10,000. Creativity is encouraged as long as the ultimate focus stays on employing humanities professors to guide the general public in the critical examination of humanistic values. Last year, my library used funding from this source for an oral history project involving ten, elderly ladies. This year, we won money to do a similar project on men. In prior years, we have funded series on Gullah (South Carolina Lowcountry African American culture), films, and general history.

The South Carolina State Library (www.state.sc.us/scsl) in my state administers Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds. This money can be used for a variety of grants here including ones directed at technology and children. In Georgetown, SC, we won a lab of laptop computers and an LCD projector through the LSTA program. We also funded a special project to teach childcare providers and parents to use music to prepare preschoolers to be better learners. You might check in your state to see what you can do with these funds, too.

Appropriately, promoting literacy remains a key concern for public libraries nationwide. We have found it helpful in Georgetown County, SC, to collaborate with other agencies to combat illiteracy through a variety of medium-difficulty-to-easy grants. A state-funded program called First Steps (http://www.scfirststeps.org) places an emphasis on interagency and community collaboration to promote family literacy, childcare provider training, and the improvement of preschoolers' physical, emotional, and intellectual abilities.

My public library has used this First Steps opportunity to establish closer links with other agencies and with local citizens. Through grant funds, we have also hired a literacy instructor who visits monthly over 40 childcare centers to tell stories to about 750 preschoolers. She also instructs childcare providers how to use stories and other methods to promote literacy in children. Additionally, we have been able to establish libraries in each of the centers, and the children regularly receive books of their very own to take home. Quarterly, we have also had workshops on a variety of literacy topics for childcare providers and parents. We plan soon to offer these latter sessions each month.

Another collaborative literacy effort included supporting the school system in an application to the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy (http://www.barbarabushfoundation.com). We also collaborated with a Catholic outreach program for disadvantaged children to provide fifth graders and their parents with computer training through a Virburnum Foundation/Center for the Book Family Literacy Project grant (www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/viburnum.html). I also understand that Verizon does a lot of good work in the area of literacy, although I have not yet explored that option.

Health also exists as a key area of concern for our citizens. Through a grant from Libraries of the Future (http://www.lff.org), we have established a Family Place Center in our public library to enable children to play while physicians observe them and consult with their parents. We have also collaborated with the Medical University of South Carolina on a diabetes grant that they initiated through Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Reach 2010 Grant (http://www.cdcfoundation.org) "The REACH 2010 program is part of the federal government's response to President Clinton's Race Initiative, which was unveiled in June 1997. The initiative strives to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in six priority areas of health - infant mortality, deficits in breast and cervical cancer screening and management, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV infections/AIDS and child and adult immunizations." We have also promoted education about HIV/AIDS through mini-grants offered by our local Eastern Carolina HIV Prevention Collaboration. This funding has enabled us to provide information about HIV/AIDS to teenagers to an extent and in a manner not possible in our schools.

While the present is always a concern for us, so also is the past. As the only public library recognized as a Local Legacy by the Library of Congress, we take pride in the fact that we are a year older than our national library. Founded in 1799, the Georgetown County Library has a quantity of unique materials including antebellum library records, 18th Century real estate indentures, slave documents, commercial records, and banking material. In order to preserve these items and acquire archival training, we secured grants from our state archives (www.state.sc.us/scdah/homepage.htm). Should you face a similar need of preserving primary sources and valuable documents, you might also check with a similar organization for assistance in training, preserving, and microfilming.

Because of our lack of money, we are always looking for additional grants. One of the best paper sources is the newsletter entitled Grants for Libraries Hotline. The website is http://www.grantshotline.com. For additional information about this publication, email: info@quinlan.com or telephone: (617) 542-0048. The Foundation Center website (http://fdncenter.org) is also a good place to investigate, or you can visit one of the Cooperating Collections of their materials in your state. Others swear by the US Department of Human Services Partner Gateway Website (http://aoa.dhhs.gov/jpost/gr-foundations.html), although the Catalog of Federal and Domestic Assistance (CFDA) is the all-encompassing governmental site (http://www.cfda.gov). For a pretty good overview of everything - including writing and reporting - find a copy of the book Grant Writing for Dummies by Bev Browning (copyright 2001, cost $21.99, ISBN 0-7645-5307-0). It's a good investment.

Now have some fun. Identify your needs, and begin to look for grants. Try local sources first to hone your skills. And then focus on the moon! Remember the sky is indeed the limit. You can reach any goal, if you have the determination. You might even find yourself in the south of France!