Making a Difference through Fundraising

Objectives: The US healthcare system will have to exist on reduced funding in the future, creating a need for new funding sources for health science libraries to survive. The purpose of this study is to investigate funraising in academic allopathic medical libraries. Methods: A cross-sectional methodology was implemented. An electronic survey was utilized to ask fifteen fundraising questions to participants. The questions consisted of: current status of library fundraising, perceptions of the central development office, utilizing fundraising positions inside the library, types of fundraising activities used, most successul fundraising positions inside the library, five year fundraising income, fundraising advertising, utilization of funds, challenges and motivations to fundraising, and donor recognition. These questions were loaded onto checkbox survey software for distribution. The survey was distributed to five members of a blinded focus group for testing. Potential academic medical library groups were identifitied that have academic medical libraries with diverse sizes and budgets. The decision to use CONBLS consortium was decided based on these factors. Results: An email letter containing a survey link and cover letter was sent to all 21 CONBLS members. Usable responses wree received from 15 institutions, or 71.4% of the libraries. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the responses to specific questions. Conclusions: Academic medical libraries in the Southeast region are highly interested in fundraising, but less than half of the libraries consider themselves active fundraisers. Many challenges associated with establishing an active fundraising program exist. Similar fundraising challenges exist in general academic libraries and medical library professionals should reference this literature. In order to improve these statistics, educating directors on fundraising at group levels as CONBLS, SCMLA, and ALADN would help encourage discussion and promote larger fundraising efforts. Establishing key relationships on campus is important for academic medical libraries to establish a continuous cycle of fundraising