2018 School Spending Survey Report
As National Book Award Longlists Are Announced This Week, National Book Foundation Executive Director Tweets Plea for Donations
Lisa Lucas took to Twitter to share this year's NBA selection process, and reveal a "gutted budget" and need for donations.
As the children's literature world continued to celebrate Wednesday's announcement of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature 2020 Longlist, National Book Foundation executive director Lisa Lucas took to 
Twitter to reveal this year's process for selection and make a plea for donations as the organization struggles with what she called "a gutted budget" caused by the pandemic and subsequent loss of programming and fundraising events. The 18-tweet thread detailed the hard work of the teams that not only selected the titles but also those putting together the virtual awards show.
"But here’s the hook," she continued before discussing the $600,000 normally raised from programs and gala tickets sales, which obviously aren't happening this year.
"So I hope that while most of this work happens behind the scenes and we aren’t real loud about a gutted budget—you’ll consider making a gift to support @nationalbook," she wrote. "We, as always, promise to use it well."
READ: SLJ Reviews of 2020 National Book Award Longlisters
It wasn't all award talk and fundraising, though. In her final tweet, Lewis took a shot at corporate statements and fast hires to publicly show support of Black Lives Matter.
The full thread can be read below.
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A quick note on the NBAs and NBF! Are you digging the Longlists? (We hope so!) 25 judges reviewed over 1700 books DIGITALLY from April to present. @annadobben made a new system out of whole cloth to change the way we’ve done things since... the 50s?!? Every file had to be reviewed, renamed, catalogued, delivered simultaneously to each committee of 5. (No one likes PDFs, everyone was sad, we carried along) Meanwhile the judges, great sports all, got. it. done. In a pandemic. No publicists (or judges) yelled at me or @annadobben. This is a miracle. So here we are. 50 books for y’all to read. We didn’t think we could do it. What we also didn’t think we could do was plan a fully virtual awards show (?!?!?!) in a pandemic. But here we go! Three design and production teams, tons of donated services, camera kits flying around the country, animations, music, all the things. But here’s the hook: we don’t have a single sponsor who pays for all of this and the awards are our fundraiser. We usually net 600k for all of our programs year round. But no tickets or tables will be sold... We ignored this for a while and carried on. We saved a little money. We won’t stop existing. Instead we tripled down on relief and raised 3.5 million dollars with CLMP and the Academy of American Poets to distribute relief to our field. We also got and distributed MORE books for kids and families in public housing. But we still don’t have ticket or table sales. Or a gala. So I hope that while most of this work happens behind the scenes and we aren’t real loud about a gutted budget—you’ll consider making a gift to support @nationalbook. We, as always, promise to use it well. We work to create ACCESS, to support other orgs, to make sure young people have great books in the home, to bring authors to all kinds of communities, to help people better understand and stop mass incarceration. So I hope you will consider sending us some bucks. We need em. And we will use em well. See y’all at 10ET with poetry, 3pm ET with Nonfiction, and tomorrow for fan fave—FICTION! And PS we didn’t need a CYA statement or an emergency hire to say out loud, with feeling, that Black lives matter. |
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Hello,
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