Upcoming Webinars

Boomers will carry philanthropy until 2035. Then what?! We’ve got less than a decade to replace these donors, who tend to give bigger gifts and donate on a more frequent basis. We need to start building our donor pipeline now, which means cultivating new relationships with donors from Gen X, Millennials/Gen Y, and Gen Z. Join Sarah Lange for this webinar to help you effectively build a “farm team” for the future. Participants will identify the characteristics of each generation, understand how each generation approaches philanthropy, and gain actionable strategies for effective engagement.

In this webinar, Karen Drill and Linda Hofschire share how data literacy supports everyday tasks at libraries and nonprofits, such as evaluating programs, understanding community needs, telling compelling stories, and strengthening proposals for funding.
Through practical examples and accessible strategies, we will highlight how even basic data skills can help you move from simply collecting data to using it meaningfully. Regardless of your role in your organization, improving data literacy can help your organization operate more effectively, communicate outcomes more clearly, and make decisions grounded in evidence.

Imagine something that interests you. Now, imagine you could only learn about that interest from one person, once a month, for one hour at a time. Would you still be interested? Training is so often constrained—by time, location, or presenters—that some learners expect it to only happen when they're told to show up. But what if they were able to learn what they want at a time they choose? Join Jeremy (JT) Tuttle for this democast to help you define self-directed learning, identify barriers within your online learning environment, and make changes so that learners can drive their professional growth.

Join Melissa Wong to take a deep dive into creating accessible slide decks. Participants will learn to use layout and reading order to create a slide deck that is compatible with screen readers and then learn to select and implement (or remediate) a slide design that supports visual and cognitive accessibility. Beyond slide design, the webinar will address speaking practices that support accessibility in presentations. Participants will have the option to download a sample slide deck and follow along with basic remediation practices.

Efficiency isn’t just about numbers and charts. It’s also about people and their stories. Join Joy M. Perrin for a one-hour webinar that brings process management concepts to life through real-world stories from libraries and archives. Each story highlights challenges, solutions, and outcomes that illustrate the practical steps any library or archive can take to streamline workflows, improve services, and reduce frustration. Whether you’re new to process management or looking for fresh ideas to apply in your organization, this session will leave you with relatable examples, actionable strategies, and a clearer vision for designing efficiency into your work.

Major technology corporations like Google, Amazon, and Meta have become ubiquitous in the digital landscape, and can feel like the only option for patrons and library workers alike. However, these companies’ practices and policies run counter to library values of privacy, intellectual freedom, and the public good. How can we help patrons make informed choices about the technologies they use, find alternatives, and reduce or eliminate reliance on these platforms? Hannah Cyrus provides practical strategies for teaching patrons of differing digital literacy levels about the issues and their options, with a focus on public library instruction. From casual reference interactions to program planning, learn how you and your patrons can dump Big Tech.

Join Niche Academy CEO, Jeromy Wilson, for a look at how training data can help you better understand and support your learners—especially when you’re training staff, volunteers, or trustees with limited time and different levels of experience. Jeromy will show how to move beyond simply tracking who completed a tutorial and start using data to see where learners are confident, where they may be stuck, and where follow-up support would make the biggest difference. You’ll get clear steps you can use right away, plus short demos that show how progress tracking, quiz results, activity responses, and engagement patterns can reveal what learners need. 

A library should never be looked at solely in terms of numbers, but adding numbers to your library’s narrative can deepen understanding of your library’s value to its community. In this webinar, Al Hayden discusses a library’s return on investment (ROI): how to calculate it, how to communicate it, and how to combine it with other data to create a fuller, richer picture of your library. Library administrators and library advocates will come away with an additional tool in their data toolkit and resources that can enrich your library’s narrative. Nonprofits, such as Friends of Libraries and 501(c)3 Trustees Boards, can also use this information to communicate to their stakeholders and donors the impact of their donations.

Your people are your program. Growing and retaining talented program staff is easier—and less expensive—than you think.  In this webinar, Elizabeth Kurtz will help you learn practical tools to keep your staff engaged, prevent burnout, and reduce turnover. Discover practical, easy-to-use (and often free) tools to keep staff engaged, prevent burnout, and create clear pathways for growth, even without a formal HR structure. Small investments in talent development yield big results in program quality, continuity, and impact. You’ll explore the real costs of turnover—not just financially, but in lost momentum and outcomes—and see how building your team can be one of the highest-return strategies for advancing your mission.

Over the past two years, members of the Mapping Information Access research group, including Emily Knox, Shannon Oltmann, and Andy Zalot, have been interviewing public library directors to find out more about their experiences with book challenges. Several new best practices for policies and guidelines have emerged from these interviews. Join Emily Knox and Shannon M. Oltmann as they share preliminary findings from this research, including best practices to implement in your library.