At ALA Midwinter in Atlanta, the YALSA Board voted to assemble a taskforce to create and implement a year-long fundraising effort to raise $20,000 for the YALSA Leadership Endowment. The Endowment is designed to generate income to support opportunities for the development and training of future YALSA and library leaders by capitalizing on the considerable contributions and talents of YALSA Past Leaders. The Endowment honors both those who created the fund and those who receive support from the fund.
At its inception in 2007, Past Presidents made the initial donations to get a fund started to create an endowment focused on leadership. By 2009, enough funds had been collected to petition ALA to formally create the Leadership Endowment. The name and background information of the Endowment encourages participation from many types of sources while acknowledging the contribution of those Past Presidents who initiated the creation of the fund.
YALSA currently receives $2,392 per year in interest from this endowment. In 2016, the Board voted to use $1,000 of the interest to support the Dorothy Broderick Student Conference Scholarship and to invest the remaining $1,392 back into the endowment to build capital to support a proposed PhD Fellowship.
Our $20,000 targeted goal for 2017 will provide enough funding to support one additional leadership initiative, such as the proposed PhD Fellowship.
If you would like to help raise additional funds to support YALSA’s leadership initiatives, we are accepting volunteer forms for the Leadership Fundraising taskforce through Feb. 15! YALSA President Sarah Hill is looking for several virtual members, including a chair to serve on the taskforce from March 1, 2017 through January 31, 2018. You can read more about the taskforce here. Please email Sarah with any questions.
If you would like more information about the Leadership Fundraising Campaign, see Board Document #38.
And as always, if you have questions, contact any of the YALSA Board members.
Sandra Hughes-Hassell
YALSA President Elect
