Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show every week as we are doing right now. And it will be available later for you to watch at your convenience. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested, excuse me, interested in any of the topics we have on Encompass Live. For anyone who's not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries here in Nebraska, similar to your state library. So we provide services to all types of libraries in the states. So you will find shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries, public, academic, K-12 schools, corrections, museums, archives, historical societies, all sorts of things. Really, our only criteria is that it's something to do with libraries. We do book reviews, interviews, mini-train sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that sometimes come on the show and talk about programs and services we're offering here through the commission. But we also bring in guest speakers and that's what we have this morning. This morning with us is Laura England-Biggs. Good morning, Laura. Good morning. And Linda McLean. Good morning, Linda. Good morning. And they are both from Fremont, Nebraska, and the one working with the Keen Memorial Library, who's been doing some major changes happening recently. And this happened all during the COVID-19 pandemic that we're in here, and they're still working on things. So they're going to tell us some tips and tricks for fundraising during a pandemic and how it went in their library. So I'll head over to you, both Laura and Linda, to tell us all about it. Thank you, Christa. Let's see here. We're going to go to talk about our expansion project background. Back in the 1980s, one of our local philanthropists left us a lot of money to allow for an expansion. We needed to purchase a couple of houses next to the library's property. And she left a sunset provision that the expansion needed to start by 2021. In 2004, our director at the time, Anne Stevens, commissioned the first of what we're ending up being three space needs studies. We worked with George Lawson, who has since retired, I believe, as a library planner. Our third space needs study went to city council, and we got approval to seek a $2 million bond vote, which was approved by 67% by the voters in 2018 back in May. So all of this happened before anything untoward. The Keen Memorial Library, I'll give you a little background on the library itself, was built in 1971. It replaced the Carnegie Library that was built in 1901. And it is named Keen Memorial Library because Hazel also gave the largest individual donation to the building of this quote new library in 1969 to bring it up to date and more current. So we began fundraising. It was always intended to be an eight to $10 million project with a $2 million bond, which we saw as a mandate, the voters said do it. We tapped community leaders to become a fundraising committee. And they worked side by side with the current director at that time to set up some donor cultivation events. We hosted some at the library, some at folks residences. The Friends of Keen Memorial Library put together a separate expansion fund at our Fremont Area Community Foundation, and a professional fundraiser was hired to assist with that process. No. There was a steering committee put together. There was any number of committees I can't remember three or four different committees. I worked at the library at that time, but I was only the assistant director slash youth services librarian. So I wasn't as involved at that point. And then Linda, do you want to talk a little about our talent is Sure, I so I'm Linda McLean and I'm the president of the Keen Memorial Library board. I'm also liaison with the friends of Keen Memorial Library group. And at the time the bond was taken to the voters I was actually a member of the Fremont City Council. And we took three different I'm referendums to the voters that year, two of them, including this one passed. As a city council member I can say now looking back we probably didn't ask enough questions at the time about how this deficit was going to be realized because as Laura said, this was always going to be an eight to 10 million project and we really had with the bond we didn't even have four million dollars so we were really like not even halfway there. And no one really said like oh well what's your fundraising plan because the reality was, you know, we really didn't have one and the friends were going to raise this money however the friends had really never raised this kind of money in the past. So any of you who've done fundraising at any level you know how hard it is to raise money so you know where Laura kind of left off there was the hiring of a professional fundraiser which, you know, while that can be. And I think it was at the time everyone thought oh this is a really good idea because we need help we don't know how to raise money. Unfortunately, if your fundraiser doesn't know your community, you're probably still going to have to rely on some local folks to really be your leaders. When I got off City Council, I kind of said, I'll go on the library board and I'll take some leadership of this process. And, and so that's kind of how I came into it we did have the retention at that time of the professional fundraiser, which we later did terminate that relationship I'll let Laura kind of jump in here to talk about then how we how things got a little bit derailed along the way. Sure. Folks probably remember 2019 was of the year of historic flooding in this area of the state. Fremont was an island for several days. This is an actual picture from the newspaper showing Ridgeland and Broad Street, and you can see the water is up to the houses. It came within eight blocks of the library, but the library was not affected. I remember that you were one of the ones that your library was one of the lucky ones not necessarily staff people members. Yeah, yeah, it was that was yes devastating flooding. It was, I actually had been home sick that day that the flooding began in Omaha and by the time I felt better than waters had receded so I missed most of the panic. And I'm grateful for that. But the recovery efforts, the library served an important role helping folks get in touch with FEMA get in touch with insurance agencies. So we got a little bit back on our feet. And then March 2020 happened. We were just relaunching our capital campaign in February with an event at the library. We brought in potential donors, we served wonderful food. And then March 7, the community was informed that COVID had arrived and the library closed down for three months. And our capital campaign chair and that director at the time, both resigned at different times for different reasons. So we were a bit adrift. I was appointed interim director and everything dropped in my lap. You can imagine, you can imagine also that the last thing you want to be doing in a town, really in any town but you know in a town the size of Fremont is to be pushing the library's fundraising agenda during the time when we're trying to raise money for flood victims and when we're trying to raise money for food security during COVID. So I mean necessarily we had to postpone really doing major fundraising simply because there were just too many other competing priorities in the community. And again then the staff change that Laura referred to the leadership changes really set things back. So here we're now you know the bond was passed in May of 2018 now or 2019 2020 we're, you know, we're getting a bit out from. Fortunately, there's no time limit on these bonds and their passage as to when they can be implemented but it's definitely been a challenging road from that passage of that bond. Perfect storm horrible things just happening. Yeah, I did mention that the Hazel King funds had a sunset. We did get the houses removed torn down whatever you want to call it before that sunset period, because to be honest, the Hazel King Trust Foundation didn't want the money back didn't want the houses back. So we got that accomplished. Moving ahead we regrouped. We have grow with us was our campaign slogan this is grow with us 2.0 in April 20 of 2021 we held a fundraising dinner. It was invitation only to over 60 individuals in our philanthropy, excuse me philanthropic community in Fremont. Two of the members of the steering committee sponsored the dinner. We had 40 folks come some wearing masks, some not. The attendance was lower due to lingering COVID worries, but we did net some donations and definitely sparked new interest in the library project. So, it was, it was a worthwhile kickoff. What you see on the images are some renderings the architects had given us of what the new library would look like. Some of the colors. Those were very popular with folks and we had a wonderful fly around video showing the exterior of the building just kind of on a loop. We started making the tough calls. We, we made that decision Linda referred to to discontinued the relationship with the professional fundraiser. In July of 2021, we found the outgo had not kept pace with what we hoped would be coming in. We were spending more than we were getting out of the relationship. And we do have wonderful pieces that were created by their graphic designer. And we, we thank them for that. That was a positive of that relationship. But we began the hard work on our own and the fundraising committee really looked morphed into Laura and Linda. Denise Kai, the friends board president will come in and review things with us and we sort of have her permission to apply on behalf of the friends. I think that, again, tagging off what Laura was saying about the dinner, the, the cultivation event dinner that we had in April. The timing was, was good. And we also had created, which is, I think referenced in the next slide, but we had created a video which for anyone who is looking to raise money such as this. It's really important to tell your story and we had rolled out at that dinner, our video, a local videographer that we have here in Fremont the grader he worked with us at a quite reduced cost to create about a five minute video that started with the history of the library in Fremont. It went through the needs, why we needed to do this, the age of our library the ADA concerns the technology infrastructure concerns. So we were able to, and we, we did that pretty much on our own, we didn't have a professional myself and Vic worked together on a script and we had the mayor involved and we had some board members involved we had some people from the friends involved who kind of gave little testimonials Laura was very integral in that video so that was something that we were able to immediately put up during, you know, and I think it was very effective we were able to put it on our blog, online, and we were able to have a consistent way of viewing our story so to speak so I can't, I guess underestimate the fact that I think that was a very important piece of media social media that we were able to create at a pretty low cost, and and we used it for quite a while during the campaign. Linda referred to project log that we host. I'm going to see if I can pull that up. Let's see if my computer behaves itself. Hot dog. This is just a very simple done through WordPress site.  It's a lovely preview. Let's see if I can skip the ad. No, it doesn't seem like I can just yet. There it is. Now you can. We won't watch the whole thing but we'll give you a taste. Can you turn up the volume on it sounds not really coming through the gift of $15,000. The first public library building on the corner of military. The ritual Kennedy library search for not well for almost 70 years. I mean, they have a good library. A group of dedicated volunteers, including Hazel King, worked with the city of Vermont to design and construct the current Memorial Library, which opened in 1971. Well, the Memorial Library is an organization under the umbrella of the city. The library is the beneficiary of much philanthropy throughout its life. A long time free month area philanthropist, Hazel King, obviously played an important role in the life of this institution. Visitors to the King Memorial Library with its distinctive limestone exterior, brand staircase, Italian chandelier, and statue of a young girl came to look at the many fond memories of time spent at the library. Well, I remember as a kid coming to the library and doing the story at the time. I just remember sitting there and learning and listening and enjoying just the love of learning and college. I have many fond memories of the Memorial Library. I worked with the summer reading program. And so my favorite summer reading program is Moving with Susan. All the children remember me as Moving with Susan. Okay. I know we can go on, but you can watch it later. Right. Feel free to go and watch it on your computer. There we go. The idea. While we're, while we're showing how you clicked over to there to the blog and the video. As usual afterwards, everyone have access to these slides so you'll be able to get to everything that was mentioned here today. Absolutely. One of the biggest supports we have as you saw is our mayor, Joey Spellerberg, getting his family involved. If we could have watched it to the end, there's a really great piece where he and his three daughters and his wife say, won't you help us write the next chapter in our story. We rehearsed that several times. It was adorable. We did participate in the Fremont area community foundation big give.  We'll do just about anything for money. You can see that we get great coverage on the Fremont Tribune newspaper.  We, we utilize our radio station our newspaper. We put up on social media all the time. So as I mentioned, we are the fundraising grant writing committee we've written over 20 grants 15 of them have been successful, but it has not always been easy has it my friend. No, it's, you know, it is a journey and I liken it to a marathon I am a former runner marathon I've done two marathons and the last marathon I the last marathon I ran when I was at about mile 20 or 21. There's a picture that the photographers from the race took where my face looks like it's contorted in pain and my leg looks like it's a weird angle and I remember I didn't want to go on that day. There's there's times in this journey where it feels a little bit like that where it's like we feel like we're in about mile 20 or 21 of a 26 mile race. But we have come to the conclusion that we tell our story the best. We have used and leverage these initial donor gifts which anyone who is looking to do a major fundraising campaign. I think it's critical that you get some initial lead gifts. If you don't have a lead gifts you're really going to be at a disadvantage when you go to the foundations to ask for grants because in many cases, there will be a match required. So you need to kind of know the amounts that are appropriate for you to be asking for and then in some cases, if your lead gift is $100,000 for example as ours was from the free monetary community foundation, that that might be the most you could apply for from some foundations because even though we have the bond at $2 million, the foundation might still say we want, we will only match up to the amount of your largest single donor gift. So we had communication with a lot of foundations in the Omaha greater Omaha area regional area. We actually waited on our application in one case with the Kiwit Foundation which that is a public knowledge grant that we can talk about I think because that was a case where it was a match involved and we were fortunate that one of our local businesses did a whole stone farm stepped up with a $500,000 lead gift early on in the campaign which we were then able to leverage with that foundation. So it's really important to leverage those matches. I can't I can't stress that enough and and and try to have someone in your back pocket who is going to or they are going to be your lead guests. Yeah, and those partnerships and leveraging them is something I always mentioned to our libraries to when we give out grants to libraries for various things. And sometimes we don't have a big budget to give to fund the full amount that a library may have asked for will do partial or something at least. And I always say, you can use this info though, you know the library commission is supporting your project and that will help you to get grants from other places to you know I've seen that where other grants have said, Oh yeah we see in our decision that this organization in this one and this one have already helped them out. They've got a good thing going and they're on a roll let's help as well so it all kind of works together. Yeah. Exactly. I do want to point out that the picture you see is Linda and myself at our September 27 groundbreaking. At this point where we were able to move forward with the project. I think Linda referred to our starting pot was about 3.5 million between trust funds, city funds, and the bond. At this point we are sitting just shy of 7.6 million with a $10.7 million budget. And the fundraising continues. When you're getting started with fundraising we found it's very important to know your deadlines and work backward if you have to to get pre qualified for a letter of intent. Whether you need to apply as a public entity versus a 501C3 and Linda's referred to making the right ask, knowing what's a reasonable amount to ask for. In one case we didn't ask for enough. And we are going back to that organization to say, Hello, we realize that perhaps under asked, and we would like to kindly ask that you contribute again. We talked about levering leveraging matches and getting that local support. That has been crucial to getting some of the larger grants are always always take pictures right Laura. Right. Like those pictures. Yes. The free Monterey Community Foundation has the big check they love to run around with. We have a good question. They chose to sponsor our computer lab. We were able to with the support of Mayor Spellerberg explained to them the importance of the computer lab and supporting their, their employees in becoming more fluent in English or Spanish or whatever language they need. In building the skills they need to be contributing members of society and better workers. So that was a win win for both parties. And kind of to that point, earlier on, I can't remember when Laura was shortly after our initial event we did come up with sort of a list of what we called commemorative naming opportunities. So we do have those available for donors to pursue peruse, not pursue peruse and decide if maybe perhaps some and those kind of range from $5,000 for a bench in the courtyard up to like $500,000 for the naming rights on the computer lab. I just recently watched an ALA webinar about fundraising on a much kind of larger scale I guess it was like the Philadelphia Library or something but it was really interesting because they did say that for in order because this has come up before like how much would it take to get naming rights for the entire project. So if we wanted to rename our library how much would you have to donate and their take on that was usually it would be 30% of the total project before you would consider renaming so I just throw that out there as an interesting fact that I learned on another training I was recently on because we had talked about that kind of in just in just you know if someone walked in with a million dollar check would we rename our library of realities, probably not because again there's a lot tied into the name of our library with the Keen family. But if you think about on a $10 million project, then that would you know mean they'd have to donate 3 million that kind of makes sense to me a little bit so just interesting thought for thought. Some of the other projects we've done as fundraising included challenging local businesses to help sponsor part of our summer reading program as a piece of the capital campaign. We got three businesses who each contributed $1000 and received logos on the blog and mentions on our, our social media. We've approached the local banks and they've made charitable donations. We've got folks making required minimum distributions. We've gotten donations from our local service clubs. We're running a commemorative brick campaign. What you see there is a single brick I did in honor of my mother. This is the librarian that got me started. You can also do a double sized brick. And those are priced at $200 and $400. The price of the bricks is very low so it's a. It's not a great fundraiser but it's something people can contribute if they can't give four figures. I've tagged a lot in social media. I haven't figured out why I was standing on a tilt I must have been wearing extra jewelry on my left side that it's interesting. That's funny. But that's the first state bank commitment to us they are naming the. I believe they are naming the children's room. Children's room is Kiwanis first state bank is naming the children's library. I have too many things in my head. So many people so many places supporting you yeah, and that's that's a great thing offer your name on something and yeah that'll definitely get people's attention it's good PR for everybody. And I've got it all written down. Yeah, I think we have right now. I mean we have a lot of what was our list for we just sent another letter out to, we sent a letter to people who previously donated and people who we still would like to donate. And our previous donation list is about 100 and 125 fish. Yeah, right. And the total mailing was around 230 I think so. We've netted over $2,000 in responses. So it was worth doing that mailing. We just keep have to keep plugging away at end of the year. We've gotten several phone calls from the foundation folks with how long can they stretch their donation out and what are your levels again and so those make me think very positively about what's happening based on our work. Folks are are looking to larger donations which we welcome anytime. But you're put in the door. There's a lot of tips we came up with there. Linda has really been instrumental in making our applications in our own voice. The fundraiser used flowery language and I don't even recognize what library they're talking about half the time. Linda helped us bring it down to. Hi, here's who we are. Here's what we need. And here's the statistics that help support it without saying here's the statistics that help support it. You mentioned earlier Linda that it's important that whoever you are hiring to do something with with you like this, yet knows your community knows your library understands, you know, not just I mean you said professional fundraiser. Okay, but in what. Right. Can they really. Yeah. Can they really effectively tell your story, you know, I, I think that Laura and I actually are more, you know, we bring a personal passion to it that makes a huge difference. In part, you know, I, I grew up and the first fundraiser we did I spoke about just the importance I didn't grow up in Fremont but I grew up going to the library a lot and I'm an avid reader I still have a book that I won as the third prize in the 1969 reading con summer reading in my hometown, and you know, I have a love of reading reading it has sustained me through times in my life when you know I was lonely or sad or depressed or whatever you know it's something that I turned to as I mean I'm just so glad that I love to read because I feel like it's such an important thing and what we provide at the library to people is more than, you know, it's, it's access it's, you know, just being able to to get education and, and seek knowledge like Joey said in the video so I am don't get me going because I'm like super passionate. That shows to people and people don't always think they think oh I haven't gone to the library in years you know and they're not thinking like oh well if you can't afford Wi Fi like more than 20% of the people in Fremont.   You know if they list five questions they want you to answer. Boom boom boom answer them in order. If they say there's a 500 word limit you don't have to give them 500 words if you can answer that question and 150 words so. Yeah. Right, we found using standard fonts for those that are not online applications using our paragraph breaks to give the ease of the flow and right for eighth grader lower. It's not that these folks don't have the education, but you're not trying to impress someone and get a doctor here you're trying to get some money. And that's what the story is yet you explain exactly what you're doing why you're doing impact it will have I mean it is.  Linda couldn't do the technical part that Laura can do so. Kind of skills all kinds of skills Laura Laura can move things around from two screens and she can cut and paste and she can make PDF so. So Linda can't do all those things so it truly is a team effort and she also keeps all the numbers which you know my career was in HR for you know my whole life, and I always said if I was good at math I wouldn't have gone into HR so. I'm not really this spreadsheet guru, but Laura. Like I said it works as a good team effort. It really does. We have a good relationship. We've built lots of good relationships. We've worked one of those relationships into a six figure gift over a year and a half. And then we kept working is another six figure gift, both of them are anonymous and we won't be seeing press releases but it's significant. So we maintained contact persistent, but not pushy and just sent them updates and eventually we're invited to apply. And that was, that was one of our, our big learnings was, if you have an email address for someone and you have some kind of a personal relationship. Don't be afraid to use it strategically.  I had a particular relationship and I think there's an example which you probably can't read on a page there but I mean, I would just kind of periodically send an email and say, you know, I would even say, I don't want to, I don't want to be pushy but I want to let you know what's going on because this is an exciting project for free mom. This is what we're doing. This is how much money we've raised. You know, as always, I appreciate you and your interest in key memorial library. You know, let us know if there's a chance to apply for funds from your foundation. So eventually these, you know, they don't all work out but as Laura mentioned at the beginning, I think we've applied for like 20 foundation grants and we have received funding on about 15 of them. So we have a fairly good track record and success does breed success. It does, you know, the more you raise the easier I think it becomes in a way to, you know, to leverage that for future gifts. But as she said, we're still, you know, costs have gone up and we're still in an active fundraising mode. We hope that we'll be able to, we've got a couple big grants on the radar in the first part, first quarter of next year that we hope will take us quite a bit closer and we appreciate the city's confidence in what we've done and what we're doing. And that brings us to the next slide of staying on their radar where you need to know your timing again. It's important to know what's their fiscal year, what's their grant cycle, when is all of this due, some urgency can get their attention. And if you can connect your request with their interest, maybe they really focus on education, maybe they focus on early childhood, maybe they focus on technology. You can look at their websites and news articles, you can also research in the foundation resource directory from Nebraska children.org. I've gone through and highlighted another 15 or 20 places we might tap. It may not be huge gifts, but it's going to be potential gifts that will go towards the final result.  There might not be the, the one grant that covers everything the one thing it's, it's, it's got to be for something so large, it's what you're doing unless you get some billionaire who does want a billionaire with you all that money. If a billionaire wants to come along and give us a few million we're fine with that. Our largest gift to date is $750,000 and our smallest grant from a foundation is 1000 or 2000. Yes, I like that. So I mean, there's a wide range there. We have over 60 donors who've given from $25 to $1,000. Just, we don't track those, I don't track anything under 1000 separately, but I know there's like 62 individuals. And that foundation resource directory to, and think outside the box, like you were saying Laura like focusing on if someone said if in the coordination says we're into our education, look for things that are not just for libraries. There are grants for nonprofits or grants for municipalities or grants for. I mean, just think about what does a library do and just don't just search it for library because you limit yourself so many times they don't necessarily mention the word library in what they do, or who they fund, but you do fall into the categories of what they are interested in supporting. And so, you know, look at the ones you wouldn't necessarily think about. Exactly. So the slide that Linda was talking about with the email to our, our contact that she worked literally worked for over a year. This is just one of those touch base notes, longer messages sometimes work better but it doesn't mean to be flowery and unnecessary that you're an institutional hub and pillar of society. And the book I read which is referenced in a couple of slides I think that really said you you write a paragraph you make your ask you write a paragraph you make your ask you write a paragraph, and you repeat your ask at the close. And people are going to skim and they're going to find your ask, popping out to them. So that was the thought there. And again as Laura said before, you know why, why is your request urgent right now well now we're actually you know we're in a point where we're saying hey it's urgent because we need to finish the project. But you know it's, it's, you know, it's urgent because we have this time frame because the bond passed four years ago because, you know, our building is not ADA compliant, it's not easily accessible to all. You know our technology infrastructure is tapped out we can't continue forward without these improvements you know you've got to, you know, communicate why it's important that we're doing this right now. We're not just doing this because we don't like our old library, we, we do, but we need to do this to keep pace with what's happening. And every 51 year old building needs to be updated right I mean, at our age, we all could use a little work so I feel called out here. Oh, that's okay. I found that the grammar and punctuation make a difference proof read proof read proof read have someone else read it and tell you what they think. Make sure your numbers are consistent. That has been the biggest pain in my rear, but my spreadsheets I finally have one that I trust, and I just marked all the rest of them do not use. All of their questions if you can't answer it for instance, tell them why you can't. One of the questions was what's your pro forma budget for the next five years. Well the city doesn't budget like that. So I, I, I don't know yet. But when I have one, I will deliver it. We take it about the donor not about us. We give them a clear call to action. Tell them what they can do. We've talked about the commemorative naming opportunities. We need to know if the grantor wants that public recognition. Some want to have the name on the room, some just want the name on the wall. We need to acknowledge without telling how much they gave their several examples of donor walls we've seen the size of the name indicates the amount given but nobody knows what that amount was. I don't want people to know exactly and that's perfectly fine. And it is kind of tacky if you think about it to like put the amount I don't know I kind of we did visit was it the Crete library they have a beautiful new library and Crete. And they have a beautiful donor wall also it's and it's there's no amounts it's just, you know, lovely pieces of wood in different sizes so I think that also works well into the future. And when we look at our original donor plaque wall from key memorial library which we're preserving and going to be using in the genealogy conference room. It didn't have any amounts on it it just had a list of, you know, kind of a key donor or so. I think that idea. I know other places where they've had to adapt their walls because as people give more than they change and so in a way it's kind of nice to not attach those dollar amounts just using the size of the plaques to to denote sort of a general size of donation so we also believe you can't say thank you enough. Letters that we send out we have one version you see here from the friends. We have one version from the library. Both of those have the tax information at the bottom, because the municipal. The city as a municipality is also something where you can give to the city and its tax exempt based on different language than what you see there for the 501 C3. We've sent holiday cards to folks at the end of the year just thanking them we've had an individual sponsor those we're having the friends sponsor them this year. We follow up in person with folks. We do recognition at our events and make sure that we just say thank you thank you thank you. I'm rushing a little because I have a 1115 appointment at Head Start to read to the kids. I'm a little late it's no big deal. These were the invitations to our dine and discover dinner. This is part of what we got from the professional fundraising folks was some really beautiful pieces that we can use. Yes, it's very definitely I catching as nicely done. They worked with the color scheme that we wanted. The case study we're still using we just print our own now as we need them. There's, we simplified our original letter of intent on the left is very complicated. On the right, we made it how much would you like to give us and how long would you like to take to pay it. And it really is a lot easier. Our groundbreaking ceremony was a different designer but still beautiful. We're very grateful to one of our friends, board members who's got a staff member who does graphic design and put this together on very short notice for us. Yeah, if you can find someone to volunteer to do some graphic design for you that's a really, that's a great in kind donation for sure. Absolutely. This is the book I read it's a short read 3395 on Amazon is the fundraisers guide to irresistible communications real world field tested strategies for raising more money. Nice. And it's, it took me, I don't know, three hours maybe to go through it. I, I just, I worked my way through in breaks and things and picked up some good tips. So, I highly recommend it to folks I've given it to our, our city's grant coordinator to read, because she said, Well, if you're getting good ideas, maybe I should read it. And we're on the question screen. Yay. I didn't put Linda's information up here but if you want to talk to her I can connect you. Sure. I just didn't want to have people from across the country calling her odd hours. No problem. Awesome. Well that was great and almost perfect on time it's like only 1101 we did start a little late. Thank you so much, Laura and Linda. Does anybody have any questions you want to ask right now as Laura said she just have a reading thing to get to head starts we don't want to make sure she gets our time for the, for the children. But does anybody have any desperate questions you want to ask them go ahead and type into your question section. Nobody typed anything while you were talking that's okay. We've got some thank yous coming through thanks a lot. And I have one last thing is it when, when will the, you did the groundbreaking groundbreaking in September, when is the proposed end date of when it will all be done. And we have a date. Well, at the moment we're working through some little hiccups we had some abatement issues. But if everything goes according to schedule there is the potential that we move back in in November 2023, and reopen in December. Only about a year night bad okay. Subject to change of course, of course, supply chain and whatever. That's back. Yeah, last estimate. Okay, but I know you're in a temporary location now in the city auditorium and that's great you're still running the library is still available during this. Is it a different spot. We have six computers instead of 15, but that's okay. We still have printing we still have internet we still have books, lots of books. It's really pretty amazing. Yeah, if you're in Fremont are we call it affectionately the library, the library auditorium. It is actually very nice the feedback's been really, really great and we we worked through some, you know, issues with the parks and recreation department here to make this happen. Again, a really good partnership. It takes a village really to do this. Absolutely. Well that's good. Yeah, I'm sure that the community knows this is a temporary situation. We're still offering the services that we can and we'll see you in in about a year and everything will be back and wonderful again. Yeah, that's right. Awesome. It doesn't look anybody has any questions now that's fine. You all have Laura's contact info there you can reach out to her. If you do have any questions you want to ask. So thank you everybody thank you so much Linda and Laura this is great. I've been wanting to know how things were going because I've been your question keep an eye on things going on our libraries here in Nebraska and seeing how it was progressing so I was glad to see a nice kind of wrap up here. And maybe when you do reopen in the year or something you can come back and talk about what did happen over the since the last time and how what wonderful things popped up out of the blue that we had to deal with. And I think we have to go through between groundbreaking and when everything was done because it should be an interesting year for, for everyone there. Yes, absolutely. Yes, if anyone is looking at moving out of their library temporarily I recommend they speak with Laura. In its own I'm sure yes. That's a whole nother and compass live. We'll talk about that. All right, I'm going to pull presenter control back to my screen. And do my wrap up here for today's show. There we go. So thank you everybody for being here thank you learn Linda. This, as I said this is recorded. If you go to our main and compass live page river upcoming shows here and then underneath those is a link to our archives. And this recent one will be the top. So today show will be up there I should have it done and posted by the end of the day tomorrow. We do poster recordings for YouTube channel for everyone to watch. And the slides will be available. Well, Laura you can send those to me is whenever you get a chance between today and tomorrow. Everyone who attended today's show and registered today shows will get an email from me letting you know when the recording is ready and available here on our page. I'll send it out to our various social media. You'll notice on our encompass live page on HR session page with a link here to our Facebook page. We do a Facebook page for encompass live we do reminders reminder login today show meet our speakers. So we will post on here when the recording is available. Here is last week's. We do Twitter and Instagram we post things there. Pretty sweet. And come live is the hashtag for the show. Revision for encompass live. All while I'm on the archive page here you can search for any other topics you might be interested in if there's anything you're wondering we did a show on go ahead and do a search there. Just to present your names whatever. Do be aware when you are searching this if you're searching the full show archives and not just the most recent 12 months we do have that filter here. This is the show archives for going back to the very beginning of encompass live. We premiered in January 2009. So that's a lot. Yeah, believe it. And we're still going strong. And everything is here as long as we have a place to host all the recordings. That's what libraries do we keep things for historical purposes oftentimes. And right now everything is available there on YouTube, but just pay attention to the original broadcast dates. Some shows will still be good will stand the test of time still be good valid info but some things will become old outdated information resources will have changed drastically. Some links may no longer exist. Resources might not exist anymore. People may work at different libraries now. So just pay attention to that original broadcast date if you are watching any of our previous shows. Next week show we're still working on getting a confirmation on that so keep an eye on the schedule to see what we have there, but then you do see over other shows coming up we've got January all fully booked Sally Snyder are doing her usual summer reading program session on the 21st and then her best new teen reads on in January. She did her best children's reads of 2022. There we go. Just a couple weeks ago. So those of you who've looked always look for those shows. You can watch those. I just want to do one last plug for along with our weekly and compass live show here at the Nebraska library commission we also host the annual big talk from small libraries online conference. This is a conference that's held on the last Friday of February every year. So we are from libraries that have a population served or an FTE of 10,000 or less. So small libraries talking about what they are doing. And the call for speakers is open right now. So, if you are a small library or you know of a small library who's doing something cool. So go ahead and tell them to submit the proposal the deadline is next Friday December 16. The proposal in and then we will should have a schedule together and the conference will be Friday, February 24 fully online using the same go to webinar software we're using here today. So do please, please do spread the word about that you can see all of our previous conferences over here as well if you want to see what has been done before, or what the conference is like going back to our first one in 2012. There we go. All right. So that wraps it up for today. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks, Lauren Linda. Good luck. Thank you. And hopefully we'll see all of you on a future episode of and compass live. Bye.


I imagine we've all had our fair share of good and bad experiences. You've had classes that you really enjoy and you look forward to going to.  You've had group experiences, undoubtedly, that are the same, right? There are groups that we just really enjoy being a part of and find very fulfilling. And then there are those groups that we just, it's a slog to get through them. It's just everything feels like an uphill battle and it's just not a positive experience, an experience that we enjoy. So that's what we want to focus on in this video. What can we do to cultivate a supportive group climate? That's really what we're getting at is group climate, positive or negative group climate. So what can we do to kind of enhance and support a positive group climate rather than a negative one? So let's start at the beginning. Let's start by talking about what is group climate? Group climate is very simply the relatively enduring tone and quality of group interaction that is experienced similarly by group members. So we're not talking about isolated individual experiences here. You can have those as well, but we're talking about just in general, what's the tone of the group? Is this a positive or negative experience for those who are involved in this group and something that they're enjoying and find fulfilling and is successful and those types of things? So just the general tone or climate of this group, what's the overall experience for the majority of those people in the group? And so we start by talking about something called cohesion, cohesion, right? Which is this stickiness, so to speak, of the group. How close is the group? How functional is the group and what level of cohesion and togetherness does this group have? And there are two types of cohesion. You break down cohesion a little bit, there's cohesion as a whole. But there's what we call task cohesion, which has to do as you might expect with how well the group comes together in accomplishing their purpose, their goal, how effective are they at doing that and how close are they experiencing the climate as part of their task and just the operation of the group in performing its function. And then there's social cohesion, which is just how close is the group, how well do they get along, the task notwithstanding. How well do they get along? This does not mean everybody has to be best friends, but are they able to interact and experience positive interactions and positive relationships as a result of that group experience or not? And are they coming together in that way as well? So we have task cohesion and social cohesion. There are a lot of benefits to cohesion. We're going to spend a lot of time on these, but just very broadly the benefits of cohesion include things like the ability to set goals easily. The group has an easier time of setting goals. You have a higher level of commitment from group members being committed to the task and committed to the group itself. You see an increase in productivity in groups with higher cohesion. You see fewer attendance issues. People aren't missing as many meetings and you're not having as much trouble getting people together. There's a greater willingness just in general among group members to listen and offer support and constructive criticism and that's an important distinction. There are lots of groups where people are more than willing to offer criticism, but as that constructive criticism is a criticism that helps the group achieve their overall goal and our group members are more willing then to listen and offer support. We see that in groups that are more cohesive. And then a higher satisfaction among members. It's not probably surprising when we think about that, that when people experience greater cohesion in a group, when a group experiences greater cohesion, people are happier in that group. They're more satisfied with their efforts both in terms of task and in their personal productivity and personal growth and there's just a general sense of higher satisfaction among group members when you have better cohesion as a part of that group. So there are lots of reasons that we should strive for cohesion including these and some others. But so that's one of our goals in creating a positive group climate is experiencing cohesion among group members, positive cohesion among group members. So what then can we do to achieve a positive group climate? What can we do to really enhance the prospect of achieving a positive group climate? One thing we need to do if we're going to do that is encourage participation. We need to encourage participation among all group members. We need to discourage social loafing, which is something we'll talk about in a different video, but encouraging participation helps people feel more involved and it helps them feel like they're a part of something and it just enhances the positivity within a group climate. So when we encourage participation among all group members, it really can enhance the possibility of achieving a positive group climate then. We can use confirming messages in communicating in a group, meaning messages that send a message of value that we value that other person, we value their ideas. This is in contrast to what we would call disconfirming messages, which send a message of a lack of value to the other person, right, that we don't value you. We don't value your input.  That's a disconfirming message. So we need to enhance and focus on sending confirming messages and make sure that even when we are providing constructive criticism and things like that, that we're doing so in a confirming way in a way that conveys a sense of value regarding that other person. So we want to focus on confirming messages. We want to provide constructive feedback. That's come up a couple of times now. We want to provide constructive feedback. It's not to say that we can't ever disagree with somebody or offer a suggestion or whatever. We want to do so in a constructive way, in a way that builds that person up, even if we're contrasting their idea that builds that person up and that really focuses on what's going to be best for this group and for our effort and make sure we have that in mind as well when we're providing feedback, when we're receiving feedback, but we need to emphasize and focus on providing constructive feedback and then receiving feedback as such, as constructive. We need to strive for equity among members. Now equity is not the same as equality, right? Equity and equality are different things. That doesn't mean everybody has to do the same thing or be treated in exactly the same way, but we ought to be treated equitably and fairly and every group ought to have their voice heard and feel as though they are a valued member of that team and we ought to strive for that equity among members, even if it's not equality. Again, we're not looking for the same thing from each person and each person's not going to get the same thing out of the group. That's not what we're looking for. What we're looking for is equal treatment of people, equitable treatment of people and their ideas and their contributions. We find positivity in a group climate when we have clear and accepted roles. When people have a specific purpose, when they know what that is and they've accepted that role and that purpose, that can be helpful. And again, as we talked about when we talked about roles, sometimes people have multiple roles, so it's not even just a matter of this is your lane, you have to stay in it, you can't do anything else, but groups operate more efficiently and more cleanly and find greater satisfaction when there are clear and accepted roles among the group members. And finally, we've created a positive group of climate when we activate motivation. When we encourage members to be involved, when we pull people in, not just encourage participation and discussion and things like that, but when we activate people, when we give them the tools to succeed and when we put them in the best position to succeed, when we activate that kind of motivation among people and we find what it is that motivates them, then we see a positive effect on the group and the group climate. So if we want to build a positive group climate and we want to see a group where everybody's just excited to be there and everybody's contributing and pulling together in the same direction, when we activate that positive group climate, these are some things that we should focus on and seek to achieve within that group. One of the things that we see in positive groups and kind of a byproduct that also a tool to create positive groups is what we call symbolic convergence. So symbolic convergence very simply is the sense of community or group consciousness that develops in a group through non-task related communication such as stories or jokes. So when you have these shared experiences, these shared stories, these shared kind of inside jokes and things like that, it creates this sense of symbolic convergence. So symbolic convergence basically says you may have these different group members and group members may be kind of all over the place and you may even have subgroups within the group but you know you're on the same group and you have people going about their business and doing their things and you have all these individuals but then something happens, you have that shared experience, that shared joke that whatever it is that creates this common bond and touches everybody in that group. Not everybody again equally, but it touches everybody in that group so you have this sense of shared experience and something that you as a group can use symbolically to kind of pull together to create that kind of cohesion and enhance the cohesion amongst the group. So watch out for that and try and look for those and create those moments of symbolic convergence as well. So okay let's get down to some details of what can we do communicatively to develop a positive group climate. Well what we want to do is try and enhance the supportive elements of group communication and decrease or minimize the elements of defensive group communication those instances, those experiences. So when we think about, you know, there's a spectrum here of ways that we communicate that are supportive and ways that are defensive. Oftentimes there are two sides at the same coin, two ways that we can approach the same thing but will have very different impacts. So for example, if we look at the first two we have our evaluation versus description. When we have evaluation nobody really likes to be evaluated in a sense of, you know, you're doing that wrong. Oh that was terrible, that was awful, that was, you know, again sometimes we need to let people know that what they're doing may not be the best way to do it but when we communicate that in an evaluative sense like we are evaluating them, then that can create a defensive posture in that person and lead to a more negative group climate. Instead we have to focus on description and focus on, okay, here are the facts, here's what happened. Okay, when you did this, when you tried this, which is, you know, maybe okay if they tried something and we tried things, we did trial and error, but when you tried this, this was the result. So this, and we're sticking to the facts here, we're describing what happened.  We're describing, hey, you know, when you took, so what just happened was you took this action and as a result, this is kind of what followed then, right? And we're being very descriptive in that and talking through that and saying maybe, you know, so maybe there was a, was there a different way that we could have approached that? We're describing it instead of evaluating it, that's going to create a more supportive, positive group climate, right? That's kind of supportive communication. And another set that we can look at is control, which is going to create defensive posture. Nobody likes to be controlled, right? I can tell you as the youngest to five, I really strongly resist being controlled in any way because I had it all the time growing up, my older brothers and sisters were very, I mean, not very controlled, it was a great family environment for me, but still, I'm the youngest, so I was always being told what to do and when to do it, right?  I get really defensive about that, right? I close down and I just, no matter if it's, you know, cutting off my nose despite my face, if I'm being controlled, I don't like that, as opposed to a problem orientation, right? Saying, you know, here's the problem that we have, and here's the problem that's being created, and what can we do to kind of overcome that? And it could be that I am the problem, right? And so we're recognizing that, but a very problem orientation, as opposed to, hey, you're going to stop doing this and you're going to do this instead, as opposed to, hey, this is the issue we're having, and so to do that, we need to change the way things are operating. Can we look at how we might do that? And I'm ideally going to come to the realization that, oh, yeah, that means I need to change and that's fine, but there's a difference, right? And the way you approach it, and that's going to create a more supportive group climate and a positive group climate, as opposed to control, which is going to be more defensive for him. Another set we can look at is strategy versus spontaneity. So what do we mean by this? Shouldn't groups be strategic? Yes, absolutely. Groups should be strategic in the way they approach things, but we don't want to feel like people are being strategic in the way that they are managing us or communicating with us. We don't want to feel like we're being set up, right? This is like when somebody says to you, hey, what are you doing this Friday?  Oh, great. I'm not doing anything Friday. And then say, oh, wonderful. So you can come help me move because you're not doing anything else, right? So you can come help me. Man, you feel really set up in that instance, right? We don't want that in groups either. We don't want people to feel like there was a strategy here and people are trying to manipulate us in some ways and it kind of comes back to that control thing. We want that spontaneity. We want to feel like, OK, I'm being given the opportunity in this moment to respond and this is coming up right now. It's not that this has been, they haven't developed strategies for dealing with this and now they're just bringing it on me. This is something we're dealing with in that moment. That's spontaneity. And that will create a more supportive group environment. Neutrality versus empathy. Neutrality seems like it would be a positive thing, right? It kind of has that positive connotation, except when somebody's struggling or somebody doesn't feel understood and you're being very clinical about it, right? When you're maintaining that neutrality in the way that you communicate with them, people want empathy. I mean, we all want empathy. We want to feel like we're being heard and understood. That does not mean you have to agree with everything somebody says or endorse what they say or do, right? But empathy just indicates, I can see where you're coming from. I can see things from your perspective. That's all we want, as opposed to a colder, more neutral type of communication standpoint. That's going to lead to a more defensive posture. And then superior, superiority versus equality. Again, nobody wants to be made to feel like they are less than, right? So in a group, when you treat somebody and communicate with them in a way that indicates that you have superiority, now, if you're the boss, that's one thing, right? But even if you're the boss, that doesn't mean you always have to come out from the standpoint of I'm telling you what to do because I'm your superior and I know best. And people don't respond well to that. They want equality, right? And they want to be treated as an equal, to be as though we're on the same level, whether we are or whether or not, initially, we could come at them and come to them with a sense of equality, right? And then finally, certainty and provisionalism. You know, again, nobody likes to know it all, right? Nobody likes to know it all. So when you go to somebody and say, no, this is wrong, it is absolutely wrong, 100%. Again, whether it is or not is almost immaterial. But when you come to somebody and say, you are 100% wrong, you don't know what you're doing, I know everything. I know what's going on here. I have the answers. And again, that's going to put somebody on the defensive. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant. It's going to put somebody on the defensive, as opposed to coming to somebody and saying, you know, perhaps there was a better way to do this, or perhaps we could consider another avenue toward getting this done, or there may be a different way or a better way to do this. But people don't like to be made to feel like you know it all and they don't know anything, right? So when we communicate, we can use that sense of provisionalism as opposed to certainty. And all of those things that you see here will create that supportive kind of communication environment, which will lead to a more positive group climate then, right? When we want a positive group climate, we need those supportive communication behaviors as opposed to those that are going to create defensiveness in the other person or people. So hopefully we can take all of this, you know, as a start to create this wildly successful group, both in terms of task orientation and also social orientation. Again, you don't have to be best friends with everybody in the group, but you ought to be able to get along and not want to strangle each other when you're in the same room, right? That's going to detract from even just your task ability. So we ought to be focused on creating task and social cohesion for creating the most positive group climate that we can and also using the supportive group communication behaviors and creating that positive communication climate and group climate. Do you have questions about group climate and how to create a more positive group climate? How we can go about that? Please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there. In the meantime, I hope this makes sense to you that we want a positive group climate. In every aspect, that's going to improve both the performance and the ability of people to survive in this group and not completely dread being there at all times. So hopefully this is giving you some insight into how we can go about creating a more positive group climate in our own groups.