Fitchburg, Cottage Grove optimistic about library fundraising
The bleak U.S. economy isn't dissuading two Dane County communities from eyeing multimillion-dollar library projects.
But while Fitchburg and Cottage Grove organizers are putting on a positive face, saying they're confident residents will back their efforts, at least some of those whose job it is to track local fundraising campaigns see a potentially rough road.
Both the Fitchburg City Council and Cottage Grove Village Board have set Nov. 4 referendums that will gauge support for using taxpayer money to partially fund new libraries.
But even if those referendums pass, volunteer groups in each community are also gearing up to raise a significant chunk of private change.
In Fitchburg, $4 million would be raised privately, while one binding referendum question seeks about $10 million for construction costs and a second, advisory referendum asks for $965,000 in annual operating costs.
In Cottage Grove, the advisory referendum asks for about $3 million in public money, and another $4 million is proposed to be raised privately. The library would cost $460,000 each year to operate, but that isn't part of the referendum question.
"The economy is not in the best of shape for this," acknowledged Diane Wiedenbeck, a member of the Cottage Grove Village Board and president of the Cottage Grove Community Library Board. "But we have to try."
Anne Schoenemann, president of the Friends of the Cottage Grove Community Library, said the community has fallen short in livability surveys because it lacks a library.
"I personally feel confident that we can do it," she said of the fundraising drive.
Cottage Grove and Fitchburg are among a handful of Dane County communities still served by the Dane County Bookmobile because they don't have their own library buildings. The others that get regular Bookmobile visits, including places like Blue Mounds, Dane and East Bristol, are all smaller in population and mostly rural.
"One of the first things that people ask when they move here is, 'Where is the public library?'" Schoenemann said. "It is something that people value and expect to have. I think it is something we are ready to invest in."
But Kathleen Woit, president of the Madison Community Foundation, which each year contributes more than $10 million to Dane County, U.S. and global causes, said the timing isn't the best.
"I wouldn't think that anyone would start a capital campaign right now," Woit said. "The economy overall is not getting any better."
Woit said that while a slew of major local campaigns are just wrapping up, including the Goodman Community Center on Madison's east side and the Lussier Community Education Center on the west side, few new campaign launches are appearing on the horizon.
In the coming year, Woit said the foundation will continue to contribute to local causes "but won't have any extra money." Those that will get funding are likely those that have been in the planning pipeline for two to three years.
"I am telling people not to start anything new," Woit said.
Sandy Erickson -- director of community building at United Way of Dane County and the lead staff person for the Capital Fund Raising Committee, a broad local effort that monitors local campaigns and helps groups plan for them -- admitted that "it is unusual" that no groups have signed on for the committee's next cycle that begins in November.
But Erickson said she believes the cause isn't so much the stagnant economy, but rather a sign that a new training process begun two years ago by the committee has made groups more deliberate in their approach to campaigns and perhaps more cautious about whether to even launch them.
The bottom line: If fewer campaigns are starting, those undertaken are better run and more likely to succeed than in the past, she said. "They better understand what they need to do to be successful."
Not everyone believes that the economy will doom local fund drives.
Judy Lowell, community relations manager for American Family Insurance, said corporate revenue over several years determines how much the company -- which contributes heavily to local causes -- can give annually. That, she said, tends to soften the impact of short-term economic turbulence.
"One bad year is not really going to have an impact," Lowell said, adding that American Family won't be reducing its contribution level in the coming year.
And Lowell said just as the Madison area economy tends to weather economic storms better than some other parts of the country, local giving tends to hold steady, too.
"That's not to say that people aren't being careful. Maybe they are going to be a little more discretionary," Lowell said. "But in Madison we are very fortunate that we do have people who give to the community, and that has been pretty consistent."
Phil Sveum, treasurer of the Fitchburg Library Board, said no one's got a crystal ball when it comes to predicting whether the economy will stem local fundraising or erode referendum support, but he also said "the feedback has been very positive" from Fitchburg residents about the library project.
And if those who say the economy is poised to rebound next year are to be believed, opening the library in 2010 may be perfect timing, he said.
"When is it a good time to do something like this?" Sveum mused. "If we were doing this at a very attractive time economically, the question might be, 'What is around the corner?' "
"Everything is known right now. The worst-case scenario is what we are in," Sveum said. "As history will repeat itself, we have much better times to come."
Tom Wellman, vice president and market manager at Wisconsin Community Bank in Cottage Grove and chairman of the Cottage Grove library capital campaign, said the economy is "obviously a concern," but he also believes that support exists for a library there.
Dane County, Wellman said, is more insulated than other locales from major economic swings. "That bodes well for us."
A 2006 survey showed that $4 million in private contributions was a "challenging" yet reachable goal for Cottage Grove, Wellman said. "I fully expect that the community will rally around the cause and that we will have success."
Michelle Stocker/Capital Times
Sean Bina, his wife Amy and daughter Ava, 1, of Fitchburg look at books inside the Dane County Bookmobile Monday night at its stop near Byrne Park in Fitchburg.
