Taking a Page from the Fundraiser’s Book: What Liaison Librarians Can Learn from Major Gift Officers

Abstract

This article suggests that liaison librarians in academic libraries can adopt relationship management tools and systems traditionally used by major gift officers in order to make their work more efficient and impactful. A brief literature review first highlights similarities in the skill sets and functions of liaison librarians and major gift officers and then explores business practices that librarians have previously suggested integrating into academic libraries–namely, customer relationship management and relationship marketing. The author, a former major gift officer and current academic librarian, then proposes specific tools and techniques that liaison librarians can use even without library-wide relationship management systems and proposes multiple ways to scale these tools to fit a librarian’s circumstances.