Policy Plan 2022

Objective

The object of the foundation, which is exclusively charitable and educational, is to strengthen the library field and to empower public libraries to improve people’s lives and support growth of sustainable societies. This objective will be pursued by, inter alia:

1. Research and Innovation: funding projects and research on public access to information and the internet, trends that affect how libraries and the library field serve their communities, and ways to foster innovation;
   
2. Training and leadership: supporting efforts to identify strong library leaders and equipping them to create high-impact libraries;  
   
3. Delivery: supporting efforts to create library programs and services that can be replicated on a broad scale and customised for different settings;
4. Impact, Advocacy and Policy: working to ensure adequate resources and public policy support for libraries and helping public libraries, library staff, and the library field measure the impact of public access in libraries and strengthen their advocacy skills, and all other activities that are beneficial to achieving the object mentioned above or are related thereto.

Income

The SIGL will raise funds through donations. The assets of the SIGL will mainly consist of the donations it received from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a foundation based in the United States of America. Other organisations and/or individuals might also donate to SIGL as well. In principle, all received donations are directly used to promote and support the objectives of the SIGL. However, the SIGL can designate funds when the foundation decides to support long-term projects which need financial support over several years. Furthermore, the foundation could designate funds to ensure its long-term sustainability.

Financial Policy

The Stichting Board is under obligation to annually, within six months after the end of the financial year, record and draw up on paper the foundation's balance sheet and statement of income and expenditure. Before adopting the balance sheet and the statement of income and expenditure, the Stichting Board shall designate a registered accountant or accountant-administrative consultant in the meaning of Section 393 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code to audit these documents. This expert shall report his findings of his audit to the Stichting Board and will present the outcome of his audit in a statement on the faithfulness of the documents referred to in the previous sentence.

Payment of the Board

The board of the Stichting SIGL does not receive any remuneration for their services as board member of the board. A reimbursement of expenses is possible.