Inside a purposeful partnership

The Ian and Shirley Norman Foundation (ISNF) has been an instrumental partner for The Footpath Library since 2021. As a small, grassroots organisation, ISNF provided a three-year funding commitment for capacity building, ensuring that The Footpath Library could maintain and expand its mobile library services across NSW, VIC and WA.

“What we love most about the Ian and Shirley Norman Foundation is that they just don’t donate,” explains Sarah Garnett, Founder and Managing Director of The Footpath Library. “They intrinsically understand that one of our biggest challenges is needing support for capacity building.

“As a small, mostly volunteer-based organisation, our part-time staff needed extra hours in their week to extend and expand our programs, and that’s exactly what the Ian and Shirley Norman Foundation got behind - funding additional staff hours over a three year commitment to ensure The Footpath Library had the capacity to deliver - and extend - its mobile library services across Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.”

Three years on, The Footpath Library – through ISNF’s capacity-building funding - was able to expand its programs, create new collaborations with other service providers and pilot some new initiatives, including extending our programs out of metro areas and into regional locations including Newcastle, Central Coast and Hunter regions (NSW), Ballarat (VIC), and Fremantle (WA).

“All this extra activity would not have been possible without ISNF’s support.”