Templates for Library Partnerships Benefiting Youth

2. OBJECTIVES • Ideas for community partners • Examples of partnerships that work • How partnerships benefit • the library, • the youth we serve, • and local businesses and organizations

3. STEP ONE – GETTING STARTED Identify Potential Partners in your Community

4. STEP TWO – DEVELOPING PARTNERSHIPS Benefits Exchange Details

5. REAL LIFE EXAMPLES OF PARTNERSHIPS • Check It Out Promotions • Program Exchanges • Contests • Donations

6. • Check out five or more items • Receive a free child’s ticket • 1,353 circus tickets CHECK IT OUT PROMOTIONS

7. CONTESTS

8. PROGRAM EXCHANGES

10. OUTREACHES To be or not to be What to ask What to take Staffing Reporting and evaluations Follow-up

11. STEP THREE – MAINTAINING PARTNERSHIP RELATIONSHIPS • In-kind Receipts • Thank you • Recognizing your partners • Keeping statistics

12. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION • Examples to share • Ideas for new partnerships

13. SEE MORE! • Posters • Promotional language • Contest rules • Videos Pinterest.com/oclslibrary

14. QUESTIONS? CONTACT US Vera Gubnitskaia, Youth Services Manager Gubnitskaia.vera@ocls.info Brittany Nethers, Youth Programs Coordinator Nethers.brittany@ocls.info Natalie Houston, Youth Outreach Coordinator Houston.natalie@ocls.info Twitter: @natelibrarian

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We each introduce ourselves and that we’re from OCLS. – Vera, Brittany, Natalie Natalie – Group Activity To get an idea of who you all are: Raise your hand if you work in youth services Raise your hand if you are a manager Raise your hand if you a library administer or director Raise your hand if you have at least one established partnership at your library, for instance with your local schools Raise your hand if this is new to you and you are looking to learn more
Program Objectives: What three things will you take away from this program? – Natalie 1. Participants will go back to their libraries with new ideas for potential partners in your community. 2. You will have several real life examples of partnerships that have worked, templates in which they can use. 3. You will have a better understanding of how partnerships benefit the library, the youth they serve and local businesses and organizations.
Step One – Getting Started – Natalie - Identify Potential Partners in Your Community (Hand-out) Let’s get started with a brain storming activity. Get a pencil or a pen out and we will take a few minutes to complete an exercise and then share with those sitting next to us. Write down as many local businesses or organizations as you can in each of the boxes. There are no wrong answers. If you don’t have something, say a Zoo in your County, think of the closest one and write that down. (a few minutes for the activity) Okay, now share with a person sitting near you, do you have any blank spaces that they filled in? (Minute for sharing) Would someone share their wild card idea? When looking for potential partners, look for common interests, like serving children, but don’t rule something out because it hasn’t been done before! Meet and learn more about each others organizations. They may be involved in more than you think!
Slide 3 - Step Two – Developing Partnerships – Vera? · Developing Partnerships Partnership is a relationship. And as all relationships, you need to work on it before it works for you. So you identified potential organizations/businesses/individuals. What are the things you need to discuss. Goals of each organization. Why are you entering this partnership and why should they. You are getting a free program, what are they getting? Examples – Exposure to the community Tax break Free advertizing A storyteller coming to their location An additional credit for their award application Fair and equal benefits. Although your goals and objectives and things you are hoping to achieve are different, there has to be a common denominator that will assure both sides that that you equally benefit from this relationship. If you are doing a lot of work, it needs to result in more library cards, or more attendance, or donations, or something. Give and take need to balance. Get it in writing. The formats can be different, but it needs to be firm and formal. Get it in writing and stick to it. Library staff is mostly altruistic, we like to “do good”, but we have to remember about limited resources and time. Have contracts and memorandums of understanding (MOU’s) for any significant relationship that you enter in. I know, no one likes prenups, but if either party has a lot to invest – and to lose – they are necessary. We generally do semi-formal meeting recaps where we say what we do, what they do, when, and who will provide what and send it to all parties so everyone can read and agree. We have a formal contract that we use for our presenters, where we again specify the details of our agreement and make sure that all parties agree and sign. On a couple of occasions we had to be more formal. We constructed an MOU that had to be signed by a higher administrator before we could proceed. Generally these are used when significant resources are involved and a slip in some details can adversely affect the relationship and the community. MOU is a type of contract; there are many examples you can find on the web. If you are interested – leave us your name after the presentation and we will send. The main points of the contract are generally the same, whether it is a contract or MOU: What are the parties involved Timelines Staff involved Financial obligations Cancellation clauses What will you do, what will they do In each part be as detailed as possible, there is no such thing in the contract as unimportant details. It may see as an unnecessary hurdle, but trust me, once it’s done, you will be grateful that you’ve done it.
Thanks, Vera. I'm going to tell you a little bit about some of our real life examples of partnerships. For us, Check out promotions, program exchanges, contests and of course, donations. Slide 4 - Real Life Examples of Partnerships – Brittany
For instance, we have been pairing up annually with the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus for an annual Check It Out promotion. When children checked out five books last December, they received a bookmark that was exchangeable for a free children's ticket to the circus. Last year we managed to give out 1,353 tickets system-wide [at our 15 locations]. (90/branch) Some of our other recent partners for these programs are Disney on Ice, The Nautique Wake Games, and the Central Florida Zoo. Slide 4 - In our County, we like to partner with other organizations for a variety of activities and goals.
In addition to the check out promotions, we have also partnered with a variety of organizations to host contests and events. For the past several years we have partnered with the Central Florida Sports Commission to hold a Mascot Drawing Contest. The winner of this contest gets a VIP backstage tour for their whole family to the Celebrity Mascot Games at the Amway Center, an event that is fun for the whole family. You can see one of our previous winners on the screen.
And one of our long-standing partnerships is with the Central Florida Zoo. We do program exchanges with the Zoo, where they bring animals out to several of our locations every year, and in exchange, we are able to send storytellers out to the Zoo to host a storytime once a week for four months a year. During each of these events kids learn about all of the animals involved in each program and they get to ask questions to the knowledgeable Docents. This is a great partnership that not only benefits both parties involved, but it is a hands-on STEM program that reaches thousands of children each year.
In addition to these partnerships, we have a long-term arrangement with The City of Orlando to host the Mayor Buddy's Book Club. The club is geared to 5th through 8th graders, and was established as part of the Cities of Service grant that the City of Orlando received. We assist the City of Orlando to help them plan and implement this successful club. And now I will turn it back over to Vera who is going to tell you about considerations for outreaches.
Outreaches Something we all do, something we all know how to do, so what’s there to talk about. So why bother with developing templates? It is always good to step back and evaluate what you do, especially in these times of scarce resources, to ensure that what you do is necessary, benefits you and community, and is done in the most efficient way. For a smaller library when there is only one person doing outreaches considerations maybe different from the larger system that has numerous staff attending, but all will benefit from somekind of organized policies and planning. So the first question is - To be or not to be – should we consider it? Formulate your goal for attending the event. What are you hoping to accomplish? If you think of cost/benefit, is the ratio in your favor? E.g., sending 2 staff members for 4 hours to an apartment complex vs. 1 staff member for 3 hours to a Meet the Teacher event. What are immediate benefits vs. long-term benefits? When evaluating possible benefits, think of: The ultimate benefit is to provide the maximum library exposure; provide information to as many people as possible about library services, put the library on the community radar; get future library card applications and increase in people using our materials and services. Keep this in mind as a “yardstick” against which you will measure potential benefits. A sheer number of people potentially attending the event may or may not be a measurement of the event benefit for the library. Is the potential outreach in our service area? Will people attending be able to get library cards and use materials and services? Will attending the event result in valuable marketing/networking/programming opportunities, even if it does not result in many card applications? Will attending the event put us on the radar of important community and business organizations for future opportunities? Will attending the event identify us as a caring member of the community, contributing solutions to issues in education, employment, immigration, etc.? Will NOT attending an event have a potentially negative impact on our image? What types of events we will not attend, e.g., supporting specific political causes, specific religions, an event where people have to pay admission fee, an event where the library has to pay a vendor fee (unless benefits to the library will outweigh the cost of the vendor fee.) Evaluate minimum anticipated attendance against staff time/mileage/supply costs. If an outreach is requested by an outside party, how often are they requesting our presence? Will multiple outreaches at the same location potentially prevent us from attending an event at an organization that we have not attended before? Things tend to slip my mind. Have a outreach checklist with questions you always need to ask. Go through the list and check off points that you had covered. Examples of questions: Date Requestor’s contact Is that the same person who will be facilitating our outreach What is the event Audience Anticipated attendance Inside or outside Do they need a storyteller Will they have a mic, laptop, projector Will they have tables, chaiors, canopy (gets hot here in Fl) What other activities are going to be there on the same day that might interfere with yours – and their – plans (ex. Storytelling at a family fun nught) Same thing – preventing the memory slips – have a checklist of what to take and go thorugh it. Easier than recreating that checklist from scratch every time. Especially helpful when you have multiple locations and some staff who goes to outreaches is not experienced. If you provide them with checklists to use – they will be very grateful. Checklist is pretty obvious – Library card registration forms any program postcards, posters, bookmarks, flyers. Handouts promoting online resources. Table cloth, signs, large “library card” advertizing the library Clips, pins, etc. to hold table cloths and other in place Pens/pencils/paper (it is a networking opportunity!) Equipment that is not provided by the host, such as microphone, easel, laptop, projector, extension cords, etc. Acrylic sign holders for posters Bottled water, sunscreen, hats, umbrellas – for outside events. Staffing Who goes? What training do they need? What do expect them to do? Provide an outline of what staff is expected to do at these events. It can be a prepared elevator speech, training on some resources that you want to promote, examples of short demos, etc. Mascot Do you have one? We do – and we have guidelines for its use. If you are considering having a mascot, please make sure that you know how to use it correctly. Will your mascot talk? What are proper hygiene guidelines? How long is it safe for the mascot to be in the costume. (gets hot inside that Orange =even in the air conditioning). For those interested in the guidelines – leave us your contact and we will send you . Evaluations. Evaluations depend on the format, goals and objectives of your outreach and ultimately tell you if reached your goals and completed your objectives. Different formats (sometimes more than one) of evaluations can be used. Your evaluation will typically consist of outputs and outcomes. Outputs. Generally these record quantitative data – how many, how much, how often, etc. This is the data that staff collects by observation/simple counting at the event. For example – how many people applied for library cards? To how many people you demonstrated how to download e-books form the library? How many children listened to your story program? Outcomes generally present a qualitative data and are usually collected using surveys or other forms of feedback. Examples of outcomes would be: How many people said that they would recommend this program? How many people expressed interest in attending computer classes/downloading books? How many people stated that today’s event will help their child succeed in school? Both outputs and outcomes are important tools in evaluations and ideally should be combined. Outputs allow you to capture the data about population served. Outcomes allow you to measure the impact your outreach made on the population served. Follow-up When appropriate, send a thank you note to your hosts for letting you participate in the event. Outreaches – Vera
Step Three – Maintaining Partnership Relationships - Natalie · Documenting contributions through in-kind forms One process that has been helpful to maintain partnerships even when staff change is keeping that track of contribution and contact through in-kind forms. I’ve brought a sample of the form we use, but essential it is documenting the specifics of the donation, how many, and the value, along with the contact information for the person that you worked with. You may also consider sharing this information with other department in your library, possibly community relations or any other department that works on donations. · Maintaining contact information for donors · Thank you and recognition Does anyone have an example of a creative way that you’ve recognized a partner at your library? · Keeping statistics of participation in promotions - Depending on which statistics your library collects you may want to keep track of the number of people that participate in a promotion or how many items are given away, or perhaps that total value of the items that you’ve solicited to benefit your library. Make sure to include these numbers in presentations to your board and community. They may also be useful in grant applications.
Sharing – Audience Participation – Natalie · Does anyone have any partnerships they’ve worked on at their library that they would like to share with the group? · Does anyone have an idea for a partnership that they would like to work on for their library?
See More! – Natalie There are lots of examples we didn’t have a chance to mention today, I know I also find it helpful to read over the language other libraries have used for contests or promotions, so we’ve put together a Pinterest board, with videos, posters, and other examples of partnerships. Check it out!
Conclusion – Brittany Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have at a later time, our contact information is available. The slides from our presentation and the handout are also available on the FLA website.

Templates for Library Partnerships Benefiting Youth

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Templates for Library Partnerships Benefiting Youth

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