We're Writing Checks and Keeping Libraries Open!

Earlier this year, the Alabama Public Library Service Board attempted to bully the Fairhope Library into removing LGBTQ+ challenged materials from the library by threatening to revoke state funding.

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We helped the team at Read Freely Alabama, our statewide advocacy partner, mobilize hundreds of donors across the country to answer that threat and safeguard the library’s budget.

We set up a campaign on our FundLibraries.org crowdfunding platform and raised $42,230 in just four days!

The money we raised on FundLibraries.org from hundreds of donors in Fairhope, around Alabama, and across the country will ensure that the library remains open and available to all its readers.

Together, Read Freely Alabama and the EveryLibrary Institute showed the state Board that censorship and discrimination should not be state policy.

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EveryLibrary and the EveryLibrary Institute were created to do what no one else has done in the library sector: build durable political, legal, fundraising, and organizing power for libraries. We are a PAC and a charitable 501(c)(3) working side by side on coordinated advocacy campaigns that reach from small towns to state capitals to Washington, D.C.

On Monday night in Fairhope, Alabama, we saw what that infrastructure can make possible.

Since then, the library has stood firm on its principles, ethics, and the law, refusing to capitulate to the state board’s demands to remove books.

Last month, the APLS board took the unprecedented step of cutting off the first half of state funding.

On Monday night this week, it was time to hand over a check to the local Friends of the Fairhope Library.

Your donations to the EveryLibrary Institute (501c3) are tax-deductible.

Fairhope was not the first time the EveryLibrary Institute stepped in with national fundraising support for a local fight against censorship and erasure.

• In February 2022, when the Mayor of Ridgeland, MS., threatened to cut the library’s funding because he didn’t want “gay books in the library,” we raised $110,000 to help ensure the library had resources, visibility, and the support it needed to stand firm.
  
  
• When book banners at the Patmos Library in Jamestown, Michigan, MI., defeated an August 2023 ballot measure to renew the library’s funding, we helped raise over $250,000 to keep the doors open while the library went back out to the voters. This fall, we completed a two-year project directing every dollar of those funds to collections, services, materials, and programs for Patmos patrons.

These fights are why we built the EveryLibrary Institute as the type of 501c3 non-profit organization we did.

Our FundLibraries.org initiative is the only crowdfunding platform dedicated to libraries and literacy projects.

No other fundraising site has this kind of focus on libraries, especially those that are facing a crisis.

FundLibraries has also been used by nearly 100 library communities to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for new projects and great ideas. It is purposely built for this kind of work.

Do you want to raise money for a library-related cause or campaign?

Launch it on fundlibraries.org, and we'll help you every step of the way.

We are very proud of our partners at Read Freely Alabama. From the beginning, they predicted the financial threat to the Fairhope Library, so our joint fundraising could be set up quickly and effectively.

They have been on the front lines of opposing censorship and discrimination by the state Board, especially their recent campaign to oppose state code changes that make other Fairhopes inevitable.

The EveryLibrary Institute not only helps them with fundraising, but we are also Read Freely Alabama’s fiscal agent.

This means we take care of the organization’s infrastructure needs while the group’s volunteer leaders and local organizers take the fight for libraries to the state house, APLS Boards, and the media.

We are the only national library organization that offers this type of fiscal agency and fiscal sponsorship to state and local advocacy organizations.

This is more than just talking about an ecosystem; it is building it donor by donor and campaign by campaign.

Please, make your tax-deductible donation today and help us continue to support libraries.

New Stories about this Donation to Safeguard the Fairhope Public Library

Alabama Reporter: Read Freely donates $40K to Fairhope library to replace state funds

Gulf Coast Media:  Fairhope Public Library presented $42k check to supplement loss of state funding

Alabama.com: Will Fairhope library lose funding again in 2026? Donation replaces state cuts

Alabama Reflector: Fairhope Public Library receives donations to cover funding canceled by state