Page 97 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Library and Information Society

Notes Library fundraising professionals carry a variety of job titles; more than twenty were reported.
Regardless of their title, the individuals who were identied as the Chief Library Development Officer
(LDO) most often report to the library director (34 responses or 43%), particularly in programs with
two or more professional staff. Thirty-six percent report jointly to the library director and someone
in the university development office, particularly in the one-person programs. Twenty-one percent
report only to someone outside of the library. In most of the programs that have more than one
professional position, the other positions report to the chief LDO.

8.1 Library Director’s Role in Development

The survey asked several questions about the library director’s role in fundraising activities. From
the responses it is apparent that all directors are involved to a certain extent. Only 23 respondents
(29%) report that the director is required to spend time on fundraising. At these institutions the
director’s involvement ranges from a minimum of 5% of their time to a maximum of 100% for three
directors. The mean amount of time is 41% and the median is 25%. Of the 55 who reported that there
is no specic time requirement, the range is 5% to 85%, with a mean of 26.5% and a median of 22.5%.
The survey asked whether there was a dollar threshold that had to be reached before the director
became involved. The vast majority of directors participate in prospect meetings, calls to prospects,
strategy sessions, proposal presentations, and closing gifts without a specic minimum dollar amount
expected. Additionally, in three-quarters of the reporting institutions the director will—although
mostly on an occasional basis—even participate in fundraising calls without the chief LDO being
present.
Where there is a threshold, $5,000 is the minimum and $25,000 the median amount expected before
the director becomes involved in phone calls, strategy session, prospect meetings, or closing a gift;
the median is $50,000 for presenting a proposal. Directors will sign letters of correspondence for
almost any expected return.

8.2 Library Development Staff Evaluation

As can be expected, development staff is evaluated on a wide variety of criteria. The criteria used
most frequently for chief LDOs are number of visits, dollars raised, number of asks/proposals, and
overall dollar goal. These criteria are bunched fairly closely together with several others, such as
visits per month, pipeline reports, number of gift closures, and number of moves, following closely
behind. The pattern is similar for other development professionals. The situation is somewhat different
for library directors; their two top criteria are dollars raised and overall dollar goal. These two are
used far more often than all the other criteria.
When asked to rank the importance of the evaluation measures, the respondents chose dollars raised
as the most important measure for the chief LDO (49%), library director (54%), and other staff (38%).
All other criteria trailed far behind for all three staff categories.
At the top of the second tier of important measure for LDOs are the number of visits and the number
of asks/proposals. The number of asks/ proposals ties with the number of gift closures as the top of
the third tier. For directors, the overall dollar goal is clearly the second most important evaluation
measure, followed by number of gift closures as third. Measures for other staff are more evenly
distributed across the choices.
At about half of the responding institutions, the evaluation of the chief LDO is conducted by a
combination of the library director and the institution’s development department director. At a
little more than a quarter, the library director is the sole evaluator. Other library development staff
most often is evaluated by the LDO (33 responses or 65%).

92 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY