Mission & Impact

Family reading book

Building Awareness, Appreciation & Support for our Library

Friends of the Hennepin County Library is the fundraising partner of Hennepin County Library with a mission to build awareness, appreciation, and support for our world-class library. Together, Friends of the Hennepin County Library and Hennepin County Library share a vision of a library that ensures every person has the opportunity and resources to read, engage, graduate, work, and learn.

As Friends, we build a library that is more than the sum of its books. When our community invests in our library, we invest in the knowledge, equity, and empowerment of all.

Together, we make our library stronger

12,000

Supporters in our growing community of Friends

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Woman with Little Girl

$2.3 million

Our library funding commitment for 2023

Your generous donations will support youth development, community outreach, local library equity funding, and expanding our library's world-class collection.

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810,000

Library patrons who will benefit from your generosity

From homework help for youth to outreach for the homebound and everything in between, your support makes a difference in our community. 

Read Stories of Impact

Library Bike

We extend the library’s reach in new and innovative directions

Our library touches the lives of you, your friends, neighbors, and community every day—from providing a world-class collection, to encouraging teens to explore and achieve in STEM fields, to bringing neighbors together. What can your gift do?

Our Core Values

We share a passion for radical inclusivity where anyone can be a Friend of HCL, and where everyone has a seat at the table. We seek partnerships that build equity, celebrate diversity, and encourage participation of all communities.

We recognize our community of library supporters and patrons as part of a mutual bond of trust. We extend acts of kindness, empathy, and understanding into the world because we know that, in order to have good friends, we need to be good friends.

We believe philanthropy is a powerful force that can change the world. More than an exchange of currency, the joyful act of giving connects us more deeply to our innate human goodness and fosters a community where we can all feel good about doing good.   

We seek to build trusted relationships through a culture of accountability, transparency and responsiveness. We listen to and align with our supporters’ passions in an effort to use the resources entrusted to us with a great purpose and integrity.

We believe there is always more to the story than meets the eye. We ask the question ‘Why?’ in an effort to expand our minds, open doors, and pioneer new ways of thinking and doing. Ours is a culture where curiosity is encouraged and new chapters are always being written.