Funding a Dia Program

Money is the question every Día planner asks and the one the celebration answers best, because a program built on books, paper and volunteers can run on almost nothing. This guide covers the real funding paths in order of usefulness: the grant programs that exist today, the Friends groups and local sponsors who actually write small checks, and a complete zero budget plan for the branch that has none of the above. It also tells the financing story of this domain, which spent its first decade as the home of a state funded Día grant program in Texas.

What did Texas libraries use before?

The archived copies of this site show how a state program funded Día in the 2000s: the Texas Library Association ran a Día committee that offered application based grants to member libraries, with pages for the 2004 round, an apply form and a press kit. Libraries applied, received modest sums and bought books, craft supplies and performers for their April 30 events. That specific application page is gone, but the model it pioneered, small grants, simple applications, state association backing, survives in the national programs running today. The full story of the Texas years is told on The History of Dia.

Which grants exist now?

Three programs matter most, checked as of this writing. REFORMA, the national association promoting library services to Latinos and the Spanish speaking, runs Día mini grants that fund celebrations across the country; its rounds are announced at reforma.org. The Association for Library Service to Children has funded Día programming through mini grant initiatives, including family book club programs that supported yearlong celebrations. And state associations, including the Texas Library Association at txla.org, run grant programs on rolling calendars that can fund spring programming even when the grant does not say Día on it. Every grant program changes; verify the current round before you plan around it, and note the deadline in the same calendar as your event date.

What can a Friends group do?

More than planners expect. A Friends of the Library group exists to fund exactly this kind of programming, and a Día event is an easy case: children, books, community, photographs that make the next fundraising letter. Ask for a specific number tied to a visible list, four hundred dollars for craft supplies and twenty giveaway books, rather than a general request. Bring the photographs from last year if they exist. If your branch has no Friends group, the same ask works with the library foundation or the system's programming fund; the request is identical, only the letterhead changes.

Who sponsors locally?

Local businesses sponsor children's book events at rates that surprise first time askers, because the ask is small and the goodwill is visible. The natural list: the grocery store families walk to, the pharmacy, the regional bank branch, the franchise restaurant near the school, the independent bookstore if you are lucky enough to have one. Offer the package you can actually deliver: the business name on the flyer, a thank you read aloud at the closing moment, and a photograph. Twenty five to one hundred dollars per business, three businesses asked, covers the craft table and the giveaways for a branch sized crowd. Put the sponsor's name on the bookmark template and the return is on every refrigerator in the neighborhood.

What does a zero budget program look like?

Complete. Schedule the date, the room and one strong reader. Pull the books from the collection you already own, guided by the checks in Bilingual Picture Books for Story Time. Run the craft table on supplies from the storeroom: scrap paper bookmarks, crayons, glue. Ask the partner school for two volunteers and the parent organization for a batch of cookies. Use free publicity only: the backpack flyer, the story time announcement, the shop window poster. The promise of Día, children honored and connected to books, survives every one of these economies intact. What the zero budget plan cannot buy is the giveaway book, and that is the single best use of any money you later find.

How do you write the small application?

Mini grant applications reward brevity and specificity. Answer four things in one page: what will happen, on what date, for how many people, and what the money buys, listed with prices. Name the partners who will bring families. Attach last year's attendance count if you have one; if you do not, say it is the first year and say why the community needs it, in the community's own words if you can. The selection habits that make applications strong, numbers attached to promises, are the same ones that make the run sheet in How to Plan a Dia Event at Your Library calm on the day.

How do you keep the money coming next year?

Count what this year produced and put it where the funders will see it: attendance, library cards issued, books checked out on the day, giveaway books that left the building. A two line thank you with one photograph goes to every sponsor and partner the Monday after. File the receipts and the counts in one folder. Next year's application writes itself from that folder, and the event after that gets easier to fund, which is the whole design. The old Texas program ran on this loop for years; the tools that replace it are on The Dia Tool Kit.