Update: The Hillsdale (NJ) Free Public Library has asked me to edit this post because...

Teaming up with your community's restaurants is a great way to raise money for your library, and a fine way to connect & collaborate with local businesses. Here are two examples of successful Dine Out for the Library events.  Have you done a restaurant collaboration fundraiser also?  Please leave a comment if your library has done one too! Caestecker Public Library (Green Lake):

At the blog 658.8 – Practical Marketing for Public Libraries, Susan Brown shares ideas you can use to build local partnerships in your community.  She says, "In an era of decreased budgets, over-stretched staff, and limited resources, partnerships make more sense than ever."

Driving Kids to Read: Southern Door Bus Drivers on Board With Books — what a great story!  Could you work with your local bus drivers to see if you could replicate this in your community?

Lots of libraries do a Food for Fines week, especially during National Library Week.  But consider collaborating with a food pantry in your community, to offer a Food For Fines day on a more frequent basis.

Not only does it ...

Is there a CSA farm in your community? If so, consider working with them to have member shares delivered to your library as a pickup location! In 2011 Fairfield (CT) Public Library’s Fairfield Woods branch served as a community-supported agriculture (CSA) pick-up location on a a weekly basis.

Librarians joke that Reader's Digest Condensed Books are the zucchini of the library world — like a bagful of squash deposited on your doorstop by a neighbor, these abridged anthologies get donated by the bagful at libraries.  Sadly, the fate of most of these books is doomed — most libraries don't add them to their collections and find them well-nigh unsellable at their book sales. But now, a genius idea!