Who are these people, anyway?

Laura Blanchard, left, and Adam Corson-Finnerty

Adam Corson-Finnerty is currently the Director of Development and External Affairs for the University of Pennsylvania Library. In that capacity he is responsible for all aspects of fundraising for this 15-library system. During his tenure the Library Development Office has become a nationally recognized pioneer in the use of the Internet for fundraising, membership, communications, and public relations. He is, with Laura Blanchard, the author of Fundraising and Friend-Raising on the Web (ALA Editions, 1998).

Prior to his position with the Penn Library, Adam was Development Director of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. The Historical Society is one of the nation's premier private research collections, and includes a 500,000 volume library, and a manuscript and graphics collection of over 15 million items.

Adam was the Co-Founder of the Ivy-MIT-Stanford Library Development Group (IVYMITS) and a Co-Founder of the Academic and Research Library Development Network, (ALADN) a 400-member international professional organization.

Adam has led numerous workshops on using the Internet for fund-raising and constituency-building. Recent consulting clients include: click4kids.com, GivingCapital.com, Virtualdonors.com, Giving Magazine, the Johns Hopkins University Library, and the Free Library of Philadelphia. Pro bono clients include the University of Michigan Libraries, the Friends Journal, and numerous non-profit organizations.

Laura Blanchard is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries and an electronic publishing specialist at the Department of Development, University of Pennsylvania Library. She is responsible for the design and creation of both sites. She is currently in the process of working with Adam Corson-Finnerty on the Penn Library's new alumni and friends portal.

Laura comes to library consortium management and development support from a career in advertising and marketing communications, including seven years in advertising sales and promotion at Rodale Press (publishers of Prevention and Organic Gardening magazines, in addition to other magazine and book publishing projects) and four years with a Princeton-based industrial/technical marketing communications agency.

With her colleague Adam Corson-Finnerty, Laura wrote Fundraising and Friend-Raising on the Web (American Library Association, 1998); she created the web-enabled CD-ROM that serves as a companion to that volume. With Adam, she teaches the use of the internet for fund-raisers at the University of Pennsylvania's College of General Studies, and she created their web site to provide online updates of the book and of course handouts. She also is responsible for web design and content, or consulting, for a number of nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia area.

In her spare time, Laura manages the award-winning web site for the American Branch of the Richard III Society, a site she describes as "one where content trumps design every time." An outgrowth of this project is her particular interest in internet fund-raising strategies for the very small nonprofit.

Laura-Relevant URLs:

• http://www.library.upenn.edu/portal/ (Penn Library Alumni & Friends Portal)
• http://www.pacscl.org/ (Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries)
• http://www.ltsp.edu/ (The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia)
• http://history.pcusa.org/ (Presbyterian Historical Society)
• http://www.friendsjournal.org/ (Friends Journal)
• http://libwww.library.phila.gov/medieval/ (Free Library of Philadelphia - Medieval Manuscripts)
• http://www.r3.org/ (Richard III Society, American Branch)
• http://www.southphillyblocks.org/ (South Philadelphia Blocks)
• http://www.southofsouth.org/ (SOSNA -- The South of South Neighborhood Association