Libraries can be excellent delivery partners for anyone working to make progress happen across a wide variety of policy areas. And indeed, this is already happening! Thanks to the support of Stichting IFLA Global Libraries, it has been possible to bring together information about which major funders – public and private – are already supporting libraries.

Through this page, find out more about this project, access the results, and learn how you can enhance them, for the benefit of the library field as a whole!

Purpose

Everyday around the world, libraries play a vital role in our communities. Their buildings, services, people, and resources help ensure access to information, improve education, create opportunities for civic engagement, and so much more. Despite these important impacts, few libraries would say they have enough financial support to do the good work for which people and governments count on them.

One call we have consistently heard from library leaders is how helpful it would be to be able to more easily discover examples of private philanthropic grants, as well as other funding sources, that other libraries have been able to leverage, and to view examples of development aid projects where libraries received funding or were critical implementation partners. This data set is a first step toward making such information more discoverable, and the results are promising. It is meant to help you find examples of how private philanthropy and development aid funding could be useful for your library and its mission.

IFLA, with funding support from SIGL, commissioned the consulting firm Doyenne Strategy to conduct this initial research, based on the firm’s prior experience with public libraries and philanthropy.

What’s here?

There are two data sets on this page:

  • “PRIVATE GRANTS” is an initial data set of grants made by private grantmaking organizations (such as foundations and companies) to libraries since 2017
  • “DEVELOPMENT AID” is an initial data set of national, regional, and multilateral government aid agency projects since 2013 that included a library or libraries as recipients, beneficiaries, or implementation partners

By “initial” we mean that neither data set should be viewed as complete and comprehensive, and we can not guarantee their accuracy. Rather, we have completed an initial scan for key information, described below, and we invite your information and insights to help build on this data set to make it better, more useful, and current. Able to improve this dataset? Read more in the Methodology section below.

How To Use It

PRIVATE GRANTS
  • Go to the relevant GoogleSheet
  • Open the tab “Master List of Grants”
  • Sort any of the columns by clicking on the inverted triangle symbol next to the column title in Row 1 and chose alphabetical, reverse alphabetical, or narrow the sort by one or more criteria
  • Use “Control + F” or search for any search term
  • Watch a brief video on how to use the private grants spreadsheet
DEVELOPMENT AID
  • Go to the relevant GoogleSheet
  • Open the tab “Validated Projects”
  • Sort any of the columns by clicking on the inverted triangle symbol next to the column title in Row 1 and chose alphabetical, reverse alphabetical, or narrow the sort by one or more criteria
  • Use “Control + F” or search for any search term
  • Watch a brief video on how to use the development aid spreadsheet

Methodology

Download a full explanation of the methodology for this work.

Improving the Data and Its Usefulness

The information shared here is meant to be crowdsourced – meaning that we work together as a community to expand and improve upon it. We invite your help by:

  • Sending us corrections for any errors you notice
  • Providing additional information or context to a grant or project in the datasets
  • Sharing additional examples that are not yet included here
  • When inspired, researching any of the agencies listed as “To Research” 

The best way to send information is by submitting this form. If you prefer, you can send an email. 

We will review submissions and update the data monthly throughout 2024, and then evaluate.