Meet the YALSA Financial Advancement Committee Chair!

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Hello there! My name is Joel Shoemaker and I’m the new chair of the Financial Advancement Committee for YALSA. I’m very excited about this new endeavor and thought I’d utilize this opportunity to introduce you to our charge and our committee members. 

If you’ve never heard of it, the Financial Advancement Committee supports the Friends of YALSA and works to create and implement various fundraising efforts, both virtually and, when the time comes, at in-person conferences and events! This work is an effort to support scholarships and stipends that YALSA gives out annually.

We are a small but mighty group! Here is a bit about a few of our members:

Angelique Kopa is a Collection Development selector for the Baltimore County Public Library in Maryland. She loves serving YALSA and ALSC by volunteering for committees and is also a committee member for ALSC’s Children and Technology committee. In her free time, she enjoys being active and doing anything outdoors.

Celeste Swanson (she/her) is the Youth Services Coordinator for the Lane Libraries in Ohio. In addition to the Financial Advancement Committee, she also serves as chair of the Selection List Oversight Committee. She is currently reading (and loving!) Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. 

Yvette Garcia has served in various roles throughout her career with Chicago Public Library, with nearly twenty years of experience advocating for patrons of all ages in libraries. Outside of CPL, Yvette has contributed to the field of librarianship by taking on leadership roles with the young adult division of ALA, YALSA. Additionally, she has presented in a variety of settings and topics. Yvette graduated with an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.A. in Economics from Knox College. 

As for me, I’m the library director for the Illinois Prairie District Public Library and a magician. I’m in my second year of a three-year term on the Rebecca Caudill Committee, which is a statewide committee that chooses books for fourth through eighth graders to vote on a favorite each year! I’m married and have a dog named Maximus. One day, I long to have a smaller dog called Minimus.

We’re looking very forward to serving our members this year!

YALSA Board @ Midwinter 2016: The Fundraising Plan

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The Charge of the YALSA Financial Advancement Committee (FAC) states that the Committee “provide[s] oversight and continued enhancement of the Friends of YALSA (FOY) program, including fundraising efforts and donor recognition”.  As a part of that work, FAC develops and presents a fundraising plan to the YALSA Board for approval each year. At their Midwinter meetings in Boston, the YALSA Board will review and take action on item 22, FAC’s proposed 2016 plan.  The Board wants to act on the item during their Midwinter Meetings so that FAC is able to move forward with their plans without interruption.

An effective Fundraising Plan is integral to YALSA’s ability to support several FOY initiatives. These include the Advocacy Travel Stipend, support of the ALA Emerging Leader Program, support of the ALA Spectrum Scholar Program, and the association’s Board Fellow.  All of these give YALSA the opportunity to help members grow professionally.

For the 2016 plan, FAC outlined a set of year-long virtual and face-to-face initiatives that provide YALSA advocates a variety of opportunities to give to FOY.  If you have questions about FAC, FOY, or other YALSA financial topics feel free to get in touch with FAC Chair Jane Gov or YALSA’s Fiscal Officer Linda W. Braun.

All YALSA Board Meetings are open to Midwinter Meeting attendees. Feel free to drop by for a short or long period of time. The meetings are an excellent way to learn what YALSA is working on and get a sense of how the association’s governance works. If you’re not in Boston, follow @yalsa for live Tweets from the meetings.  

 

Jane Gov is a librarian in the City of Pasadena, CA and Financial Advisement Committee Chair. 

 

YALSA Board @ Midwinter: Organization & Bylaws Update

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One of the tasks of YALSA’s Organization and Bylaws (O&B) Committee is to review the association’s bylaws with an eye toward accuracy, consistency, and success in supporting the work of the organization. This fall the current O&B Committee took a close look at the YALSA Bylaws and proposed several updates and changes to the document. The YALSA Board discussed and approved the proposal at their Midwinter Meetings and now the membership needs to cast their vote on whether to adopt the proposed changes. None of the changes will take place unless the majority of the membership votes in favor for them. That means the proposed revisions will be included on the YALSA ballot this spring: Read More →

Thanks, We Did It!

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As YALSAblog readers know, in December an anonymous donor gave YALSA a challenge. If the association was able to raise $500 for the Books for Teens project, the donor would give a matching $500 to the project. The good news is that because of the generosity of those who support and understand the importance of teen reading, the challenge was met and even exceeded.

Donations to Books for Teens in December were $800. YALSA uses Causes on Facebook for donations via that social media platform, and that vendor charges a small processing fee for donations via their service. In December they charged YALSA $20. Therefore $780 was raised by donations, after the service charge, and add another $500 from the donor making the challenge for a grand total of $1280.

That is an impressive monthly total and will make it possible to get many more books into the hands of needy teens.

Thank you to all of the donors! Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

Linda W. Braun, Chair YALSA Financial Advancement Committee

Give $10 in ’10

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Be sure to take part in FOY’s (Friends of YALSA’s) Give $10 in ’10 campaign that will kick off at Annual in Washington, DC. All FOY funds collected during 2010 are earmarked to support YALSA’s Advocacy efforts.

On the Tuesday of Annual, library advocates from across the United States will meet on U.S. Capitol grounds as part of a rally in support of libraries, followed by meetings with elected officials and their staffs. Five YALSA librarians applied for, and received, funds (provided by FOY) to extend their conference days and attend Library Advocacy Day. In addition, FOY funds are being used to print materials in support of advocacy and to develop an online class in Advocacy Techniques. Read More →

Latest YALSA Board News

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The YALSA Board of Directors held their winter meeting via conference call on Thursday, February 25. The primary focus of this meeting was to go over post-conference reports from YALSA member group chairs. However, a few other items were discussed and acted on. These include:

  • Establishment of a Teen Services Evaluation Task Force – the YALSA Board voted to form this task force that will be charged with creating a tool that library administrators and librarians can use in order to evaluate an individual institution’s overall level of success in providing teen services. The group working on the development of this tool will use YALSA’s recently revised Read More →