[aisle] LBSS Feed Your Need Grant Conference Session – answers to questions

LBSS AISLE lbss at aisled.org
Wed Nov 18 14:54:17 CST 2020


During the LBSS session at the AISLE conference, there were questions we
couldn’t answer.  LBSS has met since then to talk about the new Feed Your
Need grant, and we have some answers.

We were asked how many grants will be awarded, and that’s hard to answer.
Usually, we aim for around 20 grants, but that depends on a few things.
Sometimes we get many well-written, innovative grants; then we may be able
to fund more grants.  Other years, grants are poorly written or
applications don’t meet the goal of the grant, and we fund fewer grants.
Another issue is finances.  The LBSS Board is obligated to be sure our
financial resources are well-managed; we want to be able to continue
offering grants for a long, long time (forever?).  So we have to consider
how our investments have done and what other things we need to fund (for
example, sponsoring events at AISLE conferences).  We all know that money
can only be spent once.

Another question at the conference session concerned how many grants a
particular individual or district could win.  We know that some districts
have a librarian in each building, while in other places a district
librarian oversees multiple buildings.  A grant is awarded to a particular
building.  That means a district librarian could, conceivably, complete a
grant application for each library in his or her district.  But a grant
application needs to be specific to a particular building, and different
libraries in the same district need different things.  We can’t fund
duplicate grant applications for different libraries in the same district.
Our recommendation to district librarians is to write a grant for one
building one year and for another building the next year.

We also try – as best we can, depending on the grant applications received
and their quality – to spread our resources as widely as possible
throughout the state.  And Illinois is a pretty big state.

We hope this answers the questions that came up.  Since this is a brand new
grant, we’ll all be learning as we go along.  Undoubtedly things will
change over time.  And we thank the people who attended our session!  It
was great to “see” you.

And as people who attended the LBSS session at the conference already know,
the grant window for the pilot version of our new grant has opened, and
will close on December 15.  Details at lbssfund.org.


Chris Graves, Chair

LBSS Endowment Fund
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