Advancement Coordinator – Manchester Community Library (Manchester Center, VT)
Position Summary
The Advancement Coordinator supports Manchester Community Library’s fundraising, donor engagement, and communications activities. This role is responsible for maintaining advancement systems and processes, supporting donor cultivation and stewardship, conducting prospect research, and producing routine communications.
The position serves as the primary administrator of the Library’s donor database and helps ensure that gifts, donor records, fundraising campaigns, stewardship activities, and communications are managed accurately and consistently. Working closely with the Advancement & Communications Director and Communications Coordinator, this position contributes to an integrated approach to fundraising and communications.
Reports to: Advancement & Communications Director
Status: Part-time, 28 hours per week
Key responsibilities:
Advancement Operations
- Maintain the Library’s fundraising CRM and ensure the accuracy and integrity of donor records.
- Process gifts and pledges, generate acknowledgments, and reconcile gift records.
- Prepare donor lists, audience segments, reports, and data exports for fundraising campaigns and communications.
- Administer recurring-giving processes and respond to routine donor questions.
- Track fundraising results and donor cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, and follow-up activities.
- Conduct prospect research and prepare donor profiles and meeting briefings.
- Support stewardship of first-time, recurring, lapsed, and mid-level donors.
- Conduct appropriate donor outreach, including thank-you calls, emails, meeting follow-up, and responses to donor questions.
- Support annual appeals, MCL Sustainers, donor events, and other fundraising initiatives.
- Maintain advancement procedures, documentation, and workflows.
- Provide research, data, and administrative support for grant and corporate-giving activities as requested.
Communications
- Build routine newsletters and other communications using established templates.
- Schedule approved social media content.
- Create standard program posts, event webpages, and templated flyers.
- Maintain routine website and event information.
- Coordinate printing, mailing, and distribution.
- Maintain sponsor and donor recognition information.
- Support fundraising campaigns across email, web, print, and social media.
- Prepare audience lists and data segments for targeted communications.
- Track shared campaign tasks, deadlines, and handoffs.
- Work with the Communications Coordinator to ensure communications follow established brand, editorial, and design standards.
About You
- Highly organized and detail-oriented, with a commitment to accuracy and follow-through.
- Comfortable balancing recurring responsibilities with multiple projects and deadlines.
- Experienced with databases, spreadsheets, CRM systems, or similar recordkeeping tools.
- Strong research, writing, and communication skills.
- Comfortable communicating with donors and community members by phone, email, and in person.
- Able to handle confidential donor and financial information with discretion.
- Collaborative and able to work effectively across departments.
- Comfortable producing communications within established templates and standards.
- Resourceful and interested in improving systems and processes.
- Demonstrates sound judgment and professional integrity.
- Appreciates the mission of public libraries and the role they play in strengthening communities.
Compensation & Benefits
This position offers a starting wage of $23 per hour, along with a generous package of paid time off. Eligible employees receive paid vacation, sick leave, and holiday pay, supporting a healthy work-life balance.
We strive to provide a supportive, welcoming workplace where employees feel valued and have the opportunity to do meaningful work in service of our community.
Please note the above job description describes the general nature, tasks, responsibilities, and level of work; it is not an all-inclusive list of every responsibility, duty, and skill required for the position. Other duties may be assigned depending on organizational needs.
Interested candidates should send to Colleen Beamish at advancement@mclvt.org:
- Cover letter highlighting how your skills and experience support your candidacy
- Resume
- Professional references (submit 3 with contact information. MCL will only contact your references with prior notice)
https://mclvt.org/about-manchester-community-library/career-opportunities/
– Posted online 10/12/26
VLA proposes Youth/Teen Grant Program be created from Meta settlement fund
Hello Library World,
We want to share an advocacy update from the Vermont Library Association.
VLA has reached out to Governor Scott and state legislators asking them to consider directing a portion of Vermont’s Meta settlement funds toward improving youth and teen spaces in public libraries across the state.
Our message is simple: the Meta settlement resulted from concerns about social media’s impact on young people. Vermont has an opportunity to ensure that some of these funds have a lasting impact by creating or enhancing library spaces where young people can put down their phones, connect face-to-face, create, play, learn, and belong.
We are proposing a Youth and Teen Library Spaces Grant Program, administered through the Vermont Department of Libraries, that could help libraries renovate and create welcoming, flexible spaces for young people that foster connections & creativity. Capital improvement needs remain significant for libraries across Vermont, and pursuing targeted funding opportunities like this is an important part of VLA’s broader strategy to address those needs.
We have engaged with legislative allies and have sent our request to the Governor, asking him to include libraries as his administration considers how the settlement funds should be used and drafts their proposed FY28 Budget. However, engagement from local libraries themselves can play an important role in amplifying this work. If you are so inclined, you can submit a brief message to Governor Scott, sharing in your own words what we have outlined above as well as any relevant details about how a program like this may help children in your library’s community. You can also let your local state representative(s) and senator(s) know about our efforts by sharing our letter to Governor Scott with them.
We’ll keep libraries updated as this effort moves forward and let you know when there are additional opportunities for you to help advocate.
Thank you for all you do for Vermont’s libraries and communities.
The Executive Board
Vermont Library Association
Save the date: ACLU webinar on Act 150/S.209 (prohibiting civil arrests on library premises) for library staff and volunteers on Monday, August 17
Members of the Vermont ACLU’s legal team will join VLA to lead a webinar for library staff and volunteers on Act 150 and navigating interactions with immigration enforcement on Monday, August 17 from 12:00 to 2:00 PM. Act 150, signed into law last month, prohibits civil arrests (including most immigration-related arrests) on public library premises. This webinar will include the ACLU’s “Know Your Rights” training tailored for libraries, information about the new law, guidance on how libraries can protect themselves and their patrons through robust policies, tools for identifying judicial and administrative warrants, and instruction on handling situations in which ICE disobeys the law. The webinar, which will be recorded and available to VLA members after the event, will be followed by an un-recorderd Q&A session in which participants will have the opportunity to ask questions or request more specifics on any of these topics. Join from PC, Mac, iPad, or Android: https://us06web.zoom.
– Posted 8/2/26
Vermont Library Association Honors 2026 Award Recipients at Annual Conference
The Vermont Library Association (VLA) annually presents five awards during the annual conference for outstanding service to and support of the state’s libraries. The 2026 recipients, honored at the June 1 annual conference, are:
Birdie Award
Richard Pritsky, Assistant Director, Carpenter-Carse Library, Hinesburg, and Vermont Organization of KOHA Automated Libraries (VOKAL) Executive Committee member
Sarah C. Hagar Award
Starr LaTronica, Director, Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro
Trustee of the Year Award
Michael Epstein, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Mary L. Blood Memorial Library, Brownsville
Senator Patrick Leahy Library Advocate of the Year Award
Senator Ruth Hardy (D), Addison County District, Seat 19
There was no Green Mountain Award recipient this year.
In addition, these retiring librarians were honored:
Starr LaTronica, Director, Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro
Richard Pritsky, Assistant Director, Carpenter-Carse Library, Hinesburg
Theresa Czachor, Library Assistant, Chittenden Public Library
Erna Deutsch, Assistant Youth Librarian, Brownell Library, Essex Junction
VLA’s Scholarship and Awards Committee is charged with overseeing VLA’s five awards, with defining, overseeing, and funding scholarship opportunities for professional development and graduate studies in library science, and with honoring retirees at the annual conference. Nominations for the Senator Patrick Leahy Library Advocate of the Year Award are provided by VLA’s Government Relations & Advocacy Committee.
June 12, 2026 -sl
Do Your Library’s Book Challenge Policies Meet the Current Moment?
VLA Digital Communications Team
- Date of Challenge
- Type of Library (example: public, school)
- Description of the work or resource (example: title/author, title of program)
- Format of the work or resource (example: book, audiovisual, program, exhibit)
- Audience for work or resource (example: adult, child YA)
- Reason given for challenge
- Description given of challenge initiator (example: board member, elected official)
- Organization behind challenge, if applicable
- Status of challenged material (example: removed, recategorized, no change)
- Any media coverage?
Vermont Library Association 2026 Award Nominations Due May 1
Help the Vermont Library Association acknowledge your colleague by nominating them for one of the following awards. The nomination deadline is Friday, May 1, 2026.
The Birdie Award, for outstanding service in the field of technical services.
The Green Mountain Award, for distinguished service, support, or unusual contribution to a library or libraries.
The Sarah C. Hagar Award, for exceptional service or a significant contribution to librarianship.
The Trustee of the Year Award, for outstanding achievement by a library trustee.
To place a name in nomination for these awards, complete the appropriate online nomination form:
- Birdie Award nomination form
- Green Mountain Award nomination form
- Sarah C. Hagar Award nomination form
- Trustee of the Year Award nomination form
- Submit a reference on behalf of a nominee or applicant
Nominations for a fifth award, the Senator Patrick Leahy Library Advocate of the Year Award, are provided by the Government Relations & Advocacy Committee.
Honoring Retirees
Are you retiring or know a librarian who is? If that librarian is also a VLA member, we want to honor them at the annual Vermont Library Conference. Email pcartier@vermontlaw.edu with their name, library, and position.
Recognition
Award recipients will be announced at the annual Vermont Library Conference on Monday, June 1, 2026, at the University of Vermont’s Howe Library. Support all Vermont librarians by recognizing those special colleagues, mentors, trustees, and/or library supporters who help create the community that we value and who give us reason to celebrate.
Questions?
For more information, visit the Vermont Library Association Scholarship and Awards Committee webpage, or email committee chairperson Pamela Cartier at pcartier@vermontlaw.edu
Last updated April 4, 2026 (sl)
VLA Program-Smarter, Not Harder: Upgrade Your Library Workflows with the Power of AI!
When: March 23, 2026 10:00, EDT
Where: Hartland Public Library 153 US Route 5, Hartland VT
or on Zoom https://vermontlibraries.wildapricot.org/event-6552941
$10 VLA Members $15 Non-Members
Librarians wear a lot of hats — and AI might just be the one that ties them all together. This practical, two-hour session is designed for library professionals who want to cut through the AI hype and get straight to work with what’s actually useful. You’ll see AI tools demonstrated in real library scenarios — drafting PR assets for your next program, fielding a tricky reference or tech support question, developing policies or writing monthly reports, analyzing datasets, creating slideshows, and so much more. No jargon. No coding. No tech background required.
We’ll explore low-barrier, budget-friendly AI tools that fit the pace and values of library work — and we’ll be honest about their limits. Conversations about privacy, bias, accessibility, and patron trust are built right into the session, because responsible AI use isn’t an afterthought in libraries. It’s the whole point.
Mark Glisson is the Assistant Director of the Hooksett Library in Hooksett, NH, bringing nearly 24 years of experience in public librarianship. He specializes in technology support, digital literacy, and staff training, helping both patrons and colleagues navigate an ever‑changing tech landscape. Mark also serves as Co‑Chair of the NHLA‑ITS Section, where he contributes to statewide conversations on innovation and infrastructure. His professional passion lies in staying ahead of emerging technologies and fostering positive, accessible user experiences—especially in areas such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
You can attend in person, or register to attend through zoom.
Bill Would Establish Vermont Libraries Day, Provide Financial Resources to Public Libraries
Vermont Senate Bill S232, sponsored by Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, would name the third Monday in October “Vermont Libraries Day.”
S.232 would also allocate a portion of the state’s sales tax on cannabis to public library programs, and would enable libraries to receive guidance from the Vermont Bond Bank about eligibility for municipal bonds. Margaret Woodruff, director of Charlotte Library and chair of the Vermont Libraries Association’s Government Relations Committee, said many Vermont libraries face huge capital needs to offer spaces that are safe and accessible to everyone. She cited state data showing that library buildings have $260 million of deferred maintenance.
Hardy said the passage of S.232 would not result in new taxes or appropriations. The bill has eight additional sponsors and support from librarians across the state.
For more information, see “Bill would establish Vermont Libraries Day in October.”
Webinar: Digital Decluttering for Your Mind and the Planet
AI and the Environment Webinar
The Sustainable Libraries Initiative presents “AI and the Environment,” a Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, webinar with Sarah Tribelhorn, Sciences and Sustainability Librarian at San Diego State University, exploring the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence (AI). Tribelhorn will provide a foundational overview of AI: what it is, how it works, and how it’s increasingly integrated into everyday life. Then she will discuss the environmental footprint of AI technologies, including energy consumption, data center demands, and electronic waste. Participants will gain insights and practical knowledge to help foster informed conversations with their community about responsible technology use and its role in a sustainable future. The webinar begins at 2 p.m. EST. Register at AI and the Environment Webinar.
Vermont Library Association (VLA) members are eligible for one year’s free membership in the Sustainable Libraries Initiative, thanks to a memorandum of understanding between the two organizations. VLA Government Relations & Advocacy Committee Chair Margaret Woodruff says the membership includes free access to programming and a 20 percent discount for the Sustainable Libraries Certification Program (SLCP).
To receive your free membership:
1 – Visit the Sustainable Libraries Initiative Vermont Library Association Membership page.
2 – Choose your membership type and complete the form.
3 – At the “How did you hear about us?” prompt select “Other,” and then enter your VLA membership number in the notes field to waive the membership fee.
For information about the 20 percent discount for the Sustainable Libraries Certification Program, email sliadmin@suffolknet.org
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