Our Wishing Tree: Innovative Fundraising

This past month, we took a chance.  The library is often about taking chances though this usually comes after copious research, statistics, and varying approvals in order to enact them, but still, we innovate!  Both in honor of our year-long 100th Anniversary celebration and the fact that the budget of all libraries is small, another librarian and I collaborated to create our very own Wishing Tree.

The Set-Up

Our Wishing Tree is similar in principle to a Mitten Tree with little papers stating what the library needs or wants that someone can help us with.  Our theme was "Help Your Community Bloom" so we had two parts:

1) Seed Packets - Any library staff member could write a wish on a seed packet, which would then be hung on the tree.

2) Flowers - Once a wish had been granted, we considered this the "planting" of the seed, which would then bloom into a lovely Spring flower.  Where the seed packet hung, a small fake flower took its place with a note saying who donated the "wish."

In addition, each time we received a donation, we a took a picture and posted it on Facebook so we could continually advertise for the event itself and promote the generosity of others to the library.

The base of our project was an old tree branch we happened to have at the library (don't ask).  As more seed packets were replaced with flowers, the tree would "bloom" as the community gave more.

The Reception

Realistically, we kept our hopes fairly low.  I would have been happy if we had gotten one donation thanks to the Wishing Tree.  But our community and patrons dug deep and were incredibly generous! 

By our count, 20 of our individual wishes were granted, most of them multiple times over.  For instance, I am now the Queen of Duct Tape as patrons donated over 10 rolls of unique patterns for Ducktivities (Duct Tape crafts the Teens absolutely love!).  On top of this, we had monetary donations wherein the patrons simply said to use it for "Wherever it's needed most."

Make it rain!

The end left us with dozens of little items such as piles of construction paper and mountains of glitter glue bottles and some big ticket items such as two new vacuum cleaners and Halo 4 on XBOX 360.  Put all this together and you've got some inspired librarians.  Who knew this would work so well?  All our patrons needed was an opportunity and they gave what they could.

Blooming Community

This was a fantastic passive event that gained a lot of recognition.  I highly recommend it to small libraries.

Many people in your community love the library and would love to give back to a place that has provided them with something they needed at the time whether it was a place to relax, a book to read, or a person to help them with their resume.

By creating a tree filled with a combination of big and little things, many people took this as a chance to participate in this little movement by buying a box of popcorn or some post-it notes.