With Uncertain Fundraising Prospects, Library Project Taps Woodbury Fund
Photo: https://www.joneslibrary.org/
Friends of the Jones Library Direct $500K to Support Renovation-expansion
The fundraising arm of the Jones Library has approved withdrawing $500,000 from the library’s Woodbury Fund account to be used for the proposed $46.1 million renovation-expansion of the building.
Trustee and Capital Campaign Co-chair Lee Edwards announced at the December 20 Meeting of the Jones Library Board of Trustees that the Friends leadership had voted to direct $500,000 from the $791,000 account to support the building project. The account had originally been funded by a $721,000 bequest from Nathalie and Richard Woodbury who died in 2008 and 2009, respectively.
$180,000 of the Woodbury Fund was spent in 2012 to renovate the 100-seat large meeting room on the library’s lower level. Kuhn-Riddle Architects were the project designers and Teagno Construction, Inc. handled the construction. Renamed the Woodbury Room, the refurbished meeting room is scheduled to be demolished under the renovation-expansion plan.
“I find this to be truly thrilling and exciting and wonderful,” said Edwards.
Details behind the announcement were sparse. Edwards did not explain whether the allocation would be treated as a cash gift to be handed over to the Town of Amherst to cover project-related expenses, or if it is a pledge to be converted to a cash gift should the costly project move forward. The renovation-expansion is awaiting the results of historic preservation and environmental reviews and subsequent execution of a construction contract.
The Library reported in September that the Town had spent $2,415,080 to date on multiple design iterations and two rounds of construction bidding for the project.
Size of the Library Funding Commitment Reveals an Inconvenient Truth
The financial viability of the library project is dependent on the Jones Library Capital Campaign contributing all funds beyond the $15,751,810 million appropriation approved by the Amherst Town Council in December 2023. This means that the Capital Campaign must raise $ 30,387,990 to support the estimated total cost of $46,139,800.
Campaign fundraisers have succeeded in winning $15,565,472 in construction grant funding from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, a historic preservation grant of $1,000,000 from the Amherst Community Preservation Act Committee and $250,000 from two state grants. A $1,110,661 HUD Economic Initiative Grant for sustainability improvements, and $1,000,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create a Humanities Center in the Library’s lower level are contingent on the satisfactory completion of a Section 106 historic preservation review and a National Environmental Protection Act review. Including the contingent funds, the total of public funds secured by the Capital Campaign is $18,926,133.
This leaves a total of $11,461,857 needing to be raised from private businesses and individuals. The Capital Campaign has made optimistic predictions of how much it expects donors to contribute, but as of December 2024 has remitted only $1,650,000 to the town. For the library to pay its full share of the project, another $9,811,857 must be raised and transferred to the Town Treasurer.
Town and library leaders have proposed that the Jones Library endowment serves as security in case fundraising falls short. But as of December 1, 2024, the value of the endowment was $9,302,531 – half a million dollars less than the outstanding fundraising requirement. Trustees have also acknowledged that library operations rely on an annual draw from the endowment of at least $300,000. With a customary draw rate of 4%, this will require maintaining a minimum endowment balance of $7.5 million. The Library has drawn $354,619 from the endowment for FY25 according to the director’s budget summary.
What will happen if Capital Campaign fundraising falls short and Library assets are insufficient to make up the difference? The Town of Amherst, and ultimately its property taxpayers, will be responsible for paying back all debt incurred to support the library project.
Monthly Capital Campaign Reports Go Dark
The relationship between the Jones Library and its fundraisers is defined in the Capital Campaign Memorandum of Understanding approved by the Jones Board of Trustees and the Friends of the Jones Library in 2019.
One of the terms of the agreement is that “The Friends will submit Capital Campaign Income and Expenditure reports to the Trustees at least monthly.”
To assess fundraising progress, previous Library Trustee Treasurer Robert Pam had been insistent on receiving monthly Capital Campaign reports which were generally published in Board of Trustees meeting packets. The reports detail monthly receipts, cumulative Community Campaign totals broken down into pledges and actual gifts, and Campaign Expenses – both personnel and other. The expenses are important to know because they reduce the amount of receipts that the Campaign will remit to the Town.
The September 1 report showed that the Capital Campaign expenditures-to-date totaled $477,989, of which $420,631 were “Personnel Expenses.”
Trustee Pam resigned in June to relocate. His replacement as treasurer, Nat Larson, has not shown an interest in reviewing monthly fundraising details. After a Jones Library Capital Campaign report was published in the Library Budget Committee packet for its September 10 meeting, no further monthly reports have been published.
The monthly reports have apparently been replaced by a much less informative Project Funding Sources report.
One might expect that the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) who require the library to submit monthly Construction Grant Round reports, would also be concerned. The Jones Library’s monthly submissions to the MBLC regularly included the Capital Campaign report until the practice was discontinued after the August report.
Interestingly, the Capital Campaign reports that the library submitted to the MBLC had had the Expense section removed.
I asked perplexity.ai : Considering this report, with its footnotes and charts, plus past history of the Amherst, MA library project, what are the odds the library board will manage to raise the additional $11 million needed through donations and gifts?
PRO SEARCH:
– Fetch the report from the provided URL to analyze its content, footnotes, and charts regarding the Amherst, MA library project
– Research the past history of the Amherst, MA library project to gather information on previous fundraising efforts and outcomes
– Synthesize the information from the report and the past history to assess the odds of the library board raising the additional $11 million through donations and gifts
Answer:
The prospects for raising the remaining $11.46 million appear challenging, based on several key indicators:
Current Fundraising Status
The Jones Library Capital Campaign has remitted only $1.65 million in private donations to the town as of December 2024
This represents a relatively small portion of the $11.46 million still needed from private sources
Financial Challenges
Endowment Limitations
The library’s endowment stands at $9.3 million, which is insufficient to serve as backup funding since:
• It’s already $500,000 less than the outstanding fundraising requirement
• The library requires an annual draw of at least $300,000 for operations
• A minimum balance of $7.5 million must be maintained
Recent Fundraising Patterns
While there have been some successes, including:
• A $1 million gift from Amherst College
• $800,000 in recent campaign receipts
The pace of fundraising appears insufficient to meet the substantial remaining goal.
Risk Factors
Transparency Concerns
• Monthly Capital Campaign reports have stopped being published
• Campaign expense details are no longer being shared publicly
• $477,989 has already been spent on campaign expenses
Project Complications
The project has faced several challenges:
• Cost increases from $36.3 million to $46.1 million
• Delays due to project opposition
• Post-COVID inflation impacts
Given these factors, while not impossible, raising the full $11.46 million appears highly challenging. If fundraising falls short, the financial burden would ultimately fall to Amherst property taxpayers.
follow up question:
How reliable are the predictions made by the Capital Campaign regarding future donations?
Pro Search
– Search for information on the reliability of predictions made by the Capital Campaign regarding future donations
– Look for any recent updates or reports from the Capital Campaign that might indicate their fundraising predictions
– Synthesize the gathered information to assess the reliability of the predictions
Answer
Based on modern fundraising analytics and the campaign’s performance, the Jones Library Capital Campaign’s predictions appear unreliable for several critical reasons:
Data Transparency Issues
The campaign has stopped publishing detailed monthly reports that previously tracked donations and expenses.
This lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess the campaign’s current performance and prediction accuracy.
Performance Metrics
Current Achievement Rate
• Only $1.65 million in private donations has been remitted to the town
• $9.81 million still needs to be raised from the remaining $11.46 million goal
• Campaign expenses have already consumed $477,989 of donations
Predictive Model Limitations
Data Quality Concerns
Modern fundraising predictive analytics require:
• Clean, updated, and accurate donor data
• Valid assumptions and mathematical formulas
• Awareness of all relevant variables
Missing Critical Elements
The campaign appears to lack:
• Qualitative donor data about timing and capacity
• Information about donors’ actual wealth capacity and interests
• Current donor behavior patterns
Risk Factors
The campaign’s optimistic predictions are particularly questionable because:
• They’ve stopped sharing detailed expense information
• The endowment cannot serve as adequate backup, being worth less than the outstanding requirement
• The library needs to maintain a minimum $7.5 million endowment balance for operations.
Given these factors, the Capital Campaign’s predictions appear to lack the robust data-driven foundation that modern fundraising analytics require for reliable forecasting.
Without transparent reporting and comprehensive donor analytics, their optimistic projections should be viewed with significant skepticism.
The Woodbury Bequest was specifically to the Friends, not the Library. At the time, the Friends had a significant programmatic role and did its own fundraising in support of that. When the Friends became the fundraising arm of the library, it could still support the intent and terms of the bequest by using those founds and the income derived to support library programming. To provide those funds to the building project is certainly a violation of that intent and those terms.
If this action by the Jones Library Campaign and its principals/fundraisers violates The Woodbury Bequest, then should it not be immediately challenged in the appropriate court(s) having jurisdiction over such matters?
Seriously….
Question:
With the actual secured funds in the bank amounting to “bubkes” (= less than a drop in the bucket), millions of federal and state funds subject to results of MLBC v. MHC power struggle over disparate visions and motives etc.: WILL THE TOWN MANAGER SIGN THE CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT?
A construction contract cannot be signed until the Section 106 process is completed, and that is far from resolved. After that, there is the question of whether or not a contract is still possible without a rebidding process given that the bidding documents only allowed for a 60 day hold on bids and the fact that there is now a real possibility of design changes. Then there is the larger question to which Hilda alludes: can/should the Town Manager sign a construction contract when the secured funds are literally several million dollars short of the cost? I would add several other questions, but will at least start with: Will the Town Council do its job and demand that the full fiscal status of the project be thoroughly and publicly vetted before allowing the Town Manager to enter into any agreement? The last time an analysis was done was over a year ago, before they voted to authorize $46 million in borrowing but were not fully informed about the status of either the $2 million in historic tax credits that were eventually lost or the need for the Section 106 review that will determine the fate of another $2 million. The Town Council has an obligation to engage; it will bear the responsibility of the outcome regardless.
On May 24, 2024, outgoing Jones Trustees Treasurer Bob Pam warned that he saw no possibility that the Library Capital Campaign would be able to raise the funds that they had promised to the town. He declared that the project was no longer fiscally viable and cautioned that moving forward with it posed significant fiscal danger to the future of the library and the town and he reiterated what he reported on May 17, 2024 that these risks were no longer acceptable.
https://www.amherstindy.org/2024/05/24/opinion-i-see-no-reason-to-hope-that-the-jones-expansion-project-will-become-affordable/
https://www.amherstindy.org/2024/05/17/jones-library-treasurer-expansion-projects-risks-to-town-no-longer-acceptable/
Pam was not afforded the opportunity to elaborate on his concerns at trustees meetings, building committee meetings, or council meetings, and neither the trustees nor the town council ever engaged in a discussion of Pam’s warnings, which seems astonishing, given that Pam was by far the most fiscally knowledgeable person of anyone involved with the library. Given the gravity of the warnings and their dire implications, one might have expected that someone in town government would have wanted to know if there was anything to them and we might have expected someone to ask, why would Bob Pam, a passionate supporter of the library and someone who had until then had unequivocally supported the expansion say such a thing? But no one asked and Pam was denied the opportunity to elaborate on his charges at subsequent Jones meetings.
The AI analysis that Ira Bryck offers us above, is far more substantive than anything that transpired as a result of Pam’s warnings.
FWIW, in the month following Pam’s warnings, the Town Council did narrowly defeated a motion (by a vote of 7-6) to kill the expansion project but even that vote lacked an exploration of the substance of Pam’s fiscal warnings.
https://www.amherstindy.org/2024/06/07/council-narrowly-defeats-move-to-end-jones-library-expansion-project/
In the last eight months, the fiscal situation surrounding the expansion project has only grown more precarious as construction costs are expected to soar under Trump’s deportation and tariff policies and as the Capital Campaign fails to meet its most basic fundraising goals or to meet its payment schedule to the town.
https://www.amherstindy.org/2024/11/15/opinion-the-coming-trumpocalypse-and-the-jones-library-expansion-project/
https://www.amherstindy.org/2024/12/27/with-uncertain-fundraising-prospects-library-project-taps-woodbury-fund/
Just as it was irresponsible of the council and the trustees to push the project forward without a meaningful exploration of the warnings coming from the library’s own treasurer, it is now all the more irresponsible to sign a construction contract without an objective analysis of whether the project is fiscally viable. The viability of the project has not been examined in over a year and proponents continue to cite numbers that are either out-of-date or simply untrue (such as their assertion that the town’s liability is limited to $15M and that the library is responsible for all other costs). The town is responsible for the upfront TOTAL COST of borrowing, that is, $46M+ plus debt service and for any shortfall in fundraising by the capital campaign. And the library director has made clear that she intends to come back to the town to ask for additional funds to pay for expenses not covered in the construction budget (like furniture and landscaping and a book sorting machine and a larger annual operating budget). Right now, it seems even more doubtful than when Pam offered his warning last May that the Capital Campaign will be able to fulfill their promises to the town. We need more than their assertion that they are good for the money, before we take on an obligation that could cripple the town for a generation.
JC Penney store in Hadley asked shoppers at the cash register this holiday season if they wanted to round up their purchase and donate the extra money to the Jones Library. Clerks said the money went specifically to Childrens programming if/when asked by customers where the money went. Was the money sent to the Woodbury fund earmarked for children’s programming but has now been diverted to the building project? I was one shopper who asked if the donation went to the building expansion project. The clerk said no. I also asked the store manager. Manager said they have been doing this fundraiser for children’s programs at the Jones for many years. Would be good to know answer to this question and inform JCPenny of any irregularity.
It is worth digging out the text of the Woodburys’ will or trust, which set forth the purposes for which the Friends of the Jones Library could use their generous Fund, and what the Friends told the SEC about the purpose(s) of the Fund, and ascertaining whether expending its capital on the demolition/expansion project can be regarded as a proper purpose. At the outset, this was a vexed issue.
It is difficult to believe the things I have been hearing and reading about this very costly, seemingly unnecessary, library project. I think it is truly time to bring this to an end.
With Amherst property taxes as high as they are, it is not feasible, nor is it a wise decision to go forward.
The taxpayers of Amherst are constantly facing “wishlists” of newly proposed projects. The schools are crying about never having enough funding. Roads and sidewalks are in terrible condition, yet, we continue to spend and spend.
And: In reply to Sarah’s idea….maybe dig out Samuel Jones’s will at the same time and see what he had to say about his library!
I also wonder, how many taxpayers are in arrears on their property taxes? Any?Maybe this needs to be revealed.
Amherst was, until fairly recently, a thriving, New England college town. Now, we have a downtown that appears almost deserted on some days. Where have the people gone? Many of the former successful businesses and fine restaurants have left. This unfortunately leaves even more town funding on the backs of homeowners.
There has been so much controversy surrounding this “addition/renovation” of the library. Why spend any more tax dollars chasing this?
We all should know that current projected cost figures will not be enough to pay for this construction and taxpayers will have to make up the remainder. “Spending good money after bad,” is never a reasonable thing to do.
Let’s listen to reason. It is not too late to insist on a wiser path forward for our town finances. Many questions remain. No construction contract for this library should be signed by the Town Manager or approved by the Town Council.