Steve Thomas:
This is Circulating Ideas. I’m Steve Thomas. My guest today is John Chrastka. He is the president of the board of directors of the EveryLibrary Institute and executive director at EveryLibrary. This quick episode of the podcast is to help give a boost to the HALO fund, which is a Help A Library worker Out fund, which helps librarians, library staff and library workers who need help with their expenses during the COVID-19 crisis. If you want to find out how you can support the HALO fund, go to everylibraryinstitute.org/halo.
John, welcome back to Circulating Ideas.
John Chrastka:
Hi Steve, it’s nice to be here. Thank you so much.
Steve Thomas:
I kind of wish the circumstances were a little bit better for having you back on, but we do want to talk a little bit about the HALO fund that EveryLibrary has set up.
John Chrastka:
Well, the HALO fund, Steve, is intended to help a library worker out. You know, we went with HALO cause it’s got… well, it lends itself to a really nice logo, I think, with the halo over the book and everything. But the idea of mutual aid, you know, we’re all in this together. Well you can say that a lot, but let’s really take a look at and help each other. Help A Library worker Out: it is a nonprofit charitable activity. We are raising funds from individuals and from vendors around the country, and pretty much just pushing it right back out to people in need. We’re acting as like a clearing house, and it’s a very low barrier kind of application. We don’t need an essay. I don’t need two forms of identification. I need you to self identify and tell me that you’re either, or tell us that you’re either out of work or somebody in your household or it could be your roommate, your significant other, your spouse is out of work or you’ve had a reduction in wages. And then we, right now, we’re doing $250 grants, $250 unrestricted, no strings attached grants that you can use for any kind of a household expenses or you know, cell phone. I don’t actually care what you’re using it for as long as it’s legal activity. No, seriously. I mean, and in some States that’s more, it’s more than others. What I’m saying is we want to make sure that we can put cash into people’s hands when they need it the most right now because library workers and their families, are really in a bad spot. Coming together like this is, I think, really important and focusing on the people who are powering libraries, whether it’s school libraries, academic libraries, public libraries, and even archives. The chance to be able to talk about the people instead of the institution, I think, is also really key.
Steve Thomas:
Yeah. And like you said, I mean that’s… this is really what libraries are about, building our communities and now we’re helping our own community.
John Chrastka:
Well, I’m grateful to be in a position to be able to do that. We’re set up as a 501(c)3 organization with the EveryLibrary Institute. That’s a companion organization to EveryLibrary, which is 501(c)4, and the last couple of times I’ve been on, we’ve been talking about the C4, which is a political action committee side. That’s not this, this is a C3 and 501(c)3’s are set up to do charitable and to do nonprofit kind of work. So we’re making sure that it’s the right legal structure and you know, so all the donations right now are tax deductible, which is very important for people to realize. And that we’re doing, $9 of every $10 that’s donated, goes right to the person who needs it. The other dollar that’s left over, about 33 cents of that, 34 cents of it goes to process the transaction. Another 40 cents or so goes to process the advertising because we want this to, we want to be able to appeal to people to donate on social media. And that costs money. And then the rest of it, I mean, honestly, I need some postage and handling, you know, so it’s important to be able to put it together in a way that’s very smooth. We got it up and running in, like, two days.
Steve Thomas:
That’s fantastic. So you talked a little bit about how you can apply for it and who it’s for, but from the other end, how can people give to this fund?
John Chrastka:
Sure, sure. So, everylibraryinstitute.org/halo or if you wanted to Google up “EveryLibrary HALO,” it’ll come up. We’re in the top two or three there, but everylibraryinstitute.org/halo, it’s also on the top banner. You know, however you want to give, however much. Our smallest donation has been five bucks. I got $1,000 from somebody, some just nice human librarian the other day. Our corporate, our vendor community is really stepping up. Today while we’re recording here on the 13th of April, the folks at Brainfuse are doing one. Last week, it was a Zoobean / Beanstack. The Urban Librarians Unite folks did a challenge match the week before. Coming up on Wednesday, EBSCO. We’ve got a few others lining up as well. You can look for a challenge match, but that’s really just designed to encourage, you know, folks, none of the vendors are saying, “You’ve got to make the match in order to get the money.” They want to put it to work too, but we’re looking to be able to hype it. So everylibraryinstitute.org/halo and then from that HALO page itself is where the application is. And it’s very important for us to be able to put this money to work in the hands of people who need it. Like I said before, it’s a low barrier to doing it. You don’t need to prove anything other than, well, most people I did just Google them up and see whether or not their LinkedIn comes up as being a library person. Let’s go. We have a hundred people and I’m sorry, 98 people right now in the queue waiting for money though. And one of the biggest challenges right now is that this is a “cash in, cash out” operation and EveryLibrary does not have an endowment. We are not a big organization. We haven’t been around for a super long time and that’s why it’s “cash in, cash out.” So I’m very interested in seeing more come in because the need is very real right now.
Steve Thomas:
Well, it’s been great to be able to see, just like you said, you launched just a couple of weeks ago and you’ve been blowing through the goals that you’ve had. Right now you’re at 20,000, for your next goal. This is on, again, Monday the 13th.
John Chrastka:
That’s right. Our next goal is 20 grand. We have 15,365 right now. I’m sorry, this is actually 17, 500 roughly, because there’s two other donations that came in off checks that I haven’t put in the database yet. My apologies, but I’d love to be able to, to click over 25,000 very soon. I can guarantee it’s all going to go right at the door. That’s the thing about this. About a third of the people who are in need are coming from public libraries, about a third are from schools, and then a third are from academics. This is affecting the entire ecosystem of librarianship and of library work. The job titles have ranged from library clerk and aide. We have navigators, you know, we’ve had folks who are school library media aides as well, all the way up to library directors and you know, marketing managers, et cetera. It’s a confidential application, but I’ve got folks from Alaska down to Florida and everywhere in between.
Steve Thomas:
Yeah. And you mentioned getting a couple of checks. I mean, do they need to go somewhere else to give checks…?
John Chrastka:
No, all that information about donations is on the EveryLibrary Institute page as well. It’s just important that folks use the words “EveryLibrary” and “Institute,” because it’s a separate legal organization, separate board of directors, separate tax structure, separate addresses. Now granted, one of them is my living room right now. They don’t have a PO Box, but EveryLibrary Institute, the information is on the site.
Steve Thomas:
Well I think it’s a fantastic thing and I’m glad to try to help get the word out about it cause I want to see you blow through all your other goals so we can keep helping other librarians out there.
John Chrastka:
Yeah, this is a time when I’m really very edified by the fact that a lot of companies are showing up, a lot of vendors are showing up and our colleagues, too, the ULU folks, the Urban Librarians Unite, the Awesome Libraries chapter of the Awesome Foundation, Urban Libraries Council put it on their newsletter last week, which is really just, I gotta say that’s really wonderful. We tend to be very siloed in this industry. And, I’d rather not be. Now this is a time when some of those old paradigms need to be really considered. And, I look at the companies, the vendors that are showing up here as the people who are paying the most attention to not just the institution – which should be strong, don’t get me wrong – but right now to the people, and I think that those opportunities to take a look retrospectively at where people are putting their attention, their time, their rhetoric, and their dollars. Really, Steve , it does. It’s gonna matter.
Steve Thomas:
Yeah. So, and if people have further questions that we didn’t kind of cover here, or if they’re a vendor who’d like to come up next and be a donor match, how can they get in touch with you?
John Chrastka:
You can contact me through either the everylibrary.org site or the everlibraryinstitute.org site, info@… either of those URLs, info@everylibrary or info@everylibraryinstitute, comes right to me. We’re getting to know people for the first time on this project as well. There’s two upcoming challenge matches that’ll be around the 21st, 22nd, 23rd of April for folks that we’ve never worked with before. The companies that are new to our group of vendors who care. And again, that’s an exciting opportunity to silver lining in this, getting to know the folks who are really committed to not just the industry but to the people who work there.
Steve Thomas:
Yeah. And I think that’s kind of what everybody’s looking out for is these silver linings that we can kind of get because it’s obviously a crisis, but we can always help each other out still.
John Chrastka:
Yeah. Steve, you’ve been great for wanting to get this thing out real fast and getting the word going. I appreciate you over the years, you know, bringing us up to the people’s attention, to be able to circulate those ideas out there and to love in the conversation. But this kind of mission-driven approach to getting a show out real quick. Man. I really appreciate that.
Steve Thomas:
Oh, you’re welcome. And I hope, I encourage all listeners to go to everylibraryinstitute.org/halo and give whatever you can, even if it’s just a dollar. All right. Thanks so much, John.
John Chrastka:
Steve, it’s been a pleasure. Have a good one, pal.
Steve Thomas:
Thanks, you too.
John Chrastka:
Cheers. Bye.
Circulating Ideas 