Library needs to act like a charity

The Daily Courier reports that Josephine Community Libraries wants to try for a tax district this year, and is asking for input from the public to figure out what services we want to force each other to fund.  After all, we are already sending them what we can afford if we wish to pay for it.

We haven't even funded our jail and justice system yet.  The library was cut loose from county government because the commissioners need to fund public safety first. 

The public safety situation has only gotten worse.  Citizens Securing Our Safety are finally pushing their own levy, rather than asking the Commissioners to put it on the ballot.  Almost certainly, JCL’s tax district will fail.  If it is on the same ballot as the levy for the jail and juvenile justice system, the levy may go down with it.  If it goes for the November ballot, it will still interfere with the levy campaign.

The beauty of a non-profit is that it doesn't need a majority vote of the electors.  They only need the people who care, including those whom they can get to care.

They are getting donations; they simply need to increase the number of people who donate and the amount they give.  The people who have library cards are not JCL’s only public, and many are less likely to donate than those who don't use the library because they have little spare money.  People without cards may donate so others can use the library.  Those are the people they need to reach.

          JCL has never fully embraced the non-profit financial model, which in contrast to the forced funding of government, depends on continual and consistent advertising. 

The Gospel Rescue Mission is the model they need to follow.  The original proposal was to make the library a non-profit on the public radio model.  But public radio has its own built-in advertising platform, and it is paid for mainly by people who listen to it.  The Rescue Mission has to buy radio ads, and they do so continually on KAJO.  They are funded by people who don't use their services.

JCL needs to talk to the Rescue Mission about their fund raising model, and use KMED radio for a start.  KMED has captured the boomers’ music, the '60s, '70s, and '80s, which KAJO abandoned a decade ago because their older listeners revolted when they started moving their music up from the ‘50s to the ‘60s.  This is the demographic they need to reach: older people with disposable income, who love libraries.

11/13/2013  Submitted to Yahoo Voices and published in GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com