Effective September 1, 2011, the Fund for Illinois Libraries will begin shuttering as a service offered by Illinois Library Systems and begin transition to the Illinois Library Association. This transition is intended to ensure continued access to vital donation dollars from corporations to Illinois libraries.
As a way of increasing library funding, libraries often solicit funds from the general public, businesses, or foundations. In some cases, donors are permitted to give only to organizations holding IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. For many libraries this means foregoing a gift, as the time, effort, and costs of establishing and maintaining 501(c)(3) status are prohibitive. To help Illinois libraries in their fundraising efforts, Illinois Library Systems created the Fund for Illinois Libraries. The purpose of the fund was to enable libraries to receive gifts from individuals or organizations that can only make donations to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations.
Starting January 1, 2012, new donations should be sent to ILA for processing:
Illinois Library Association
Attn: Jon Daniels
33 W. Grand Ave, Suite 401
Chicago, IL 60654-6799
Illinois Library Systems will process any pending donations (employee matches, annual campaigns, etc.) through December 31, 2011; however, libraries should begin notifying donors, particularly those donors that participate in employee match programs, about the change in procedures. After December 31, 2011, checks incorrectly made out to “Illinois Library Systems” will be returned to the donor without being processed.
The annual fee associated with processing donations in a year is listed below and the library must be/become an institutional member of ILA during the year in which the service is being used.
