[Michlib-l] Guidelines on donation amounts for naming rights

[Christine Hage]

I believe that a library should not be named after an individual or company unless that donor has paid more than ½ of the construction cost for the building.  If the residents of your community pay more than half of the construction cost then the library is named after them (Rochester Hills Public Library).  In regards to naming rooms, donors should pay for the square foot cost of the room in order to have the room named after them.


Christine Lind Hage, Library Director
Rochester Hills Public Library
500 Olde Towne Road
Rochester, MI 48307-2043
248/650-7122

From: michlib-l-bounces at mail.mcls.org [mailto:michlib-l-bounces at mail.mcls.org] On Behalf Of Doug Koschik
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 10:53 AM
To: michlib-l
Subject: [Michlib-l] Guidelines on donation amounts for naming rights

The Baldwin Public Library has a naming rights policy:

http://baldwinlib.org/assets/PDFs/Library-Policies/Naming-Policy.pdf
It provides no guidelines, however, on how much money should be donated for any given element of the building.  For example:

How much of a donation will provide naming rights for the entire library?
How much of a donation will provide naming rights for a Youth Room or Teen Room or Reference Room or Local History Room or cafe or a meeting room or the story room within the Youth Room?
How much of a donation will provide naming rights for a section of a room--e.g., the beginning-to-read section of the Youth Room or the Adult history section?
If you allow a room or area to receive multiple donations, do you honor the multiple donors with a plaque instead of a name?  (For example, "This patio was paid for with contributions from ...")  In this case, do you charge each donor the same amount?  Or do you accept different amounts and then list the donors by donation amount?
If your library has such guidelines, I would very much appreciate hearing from you.  Alternatively, if you have no formal guidelines, but have given out naming rights in the past, I would appreciate hearing what your practice has been.  (For example, we had an $8 million building project.  Somebody donated $1 million.  We named the library after them.)

I realize that donation amounts will vary by the type of library.  Since a large library will have a larger and more expensive Youth Room, the naming rights for that room would probably be commensurately larger.  So it would be helpful if you could provide some indication of the size of your building.
Please send your responses to me at doug.koschik at baldwinlib.org<mailto:doug.koschik at baldwinlib.org>, instead of to the general list.
Many thanks for any assistance you can provide.
Doug

--
Doug Koschik
Director
Baldwin Public Library
300 W. Merrill St.
Birmingham, MI  48009
E-mail: doug.koschik at baldwinlib.org<mailto:doug.koschik at baldwinlib.org>
Telephone:  248-554-4681
Fax:  248-647-6393
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail3.mcls.org/pipermail/michlib-l/attachments/20131028/b30c1b85/attachment.html>