Hosting A Book Group

Bringing a Maine Humanities Book Group to your community means inviting people to spend time together for a particular, shared purpose, and setting things up so that their time together can be as nourishing and rewarding as possible.

Here’s where you’ll find everything you need to know about the nitty gritty of running a Maine Humanities Book Group, including: 

  • Maine Humanities staff support
  • Planning and participants
  • Record-keeping, reporting, and cost-sharing
  • and more

Resources

Staff Support

Planning, Timing, & Ease

Publicity, Outreach, & Partnership

Record-keeping

Cost Sharing

Forms and Links

Staff Support

After receiving a Book Group, we will connect you with a Maine Humanities Program Coordinator who will provide support throughout your program.

Your Program Coordinator will be particularly present during the planning phase. They will: reach out to find your facilitator, schedule and facilitate planning meetings, and guide you through the information outlined below. Our goal is to help you create the best plan for success and ensure everyone involved understands their role in making it happen.

More

To support you in your outreach process, your Program Coordinator will provide you with:

  • A customized and branded printable flyer
  • A branded graphic for online use.
  • For any other materials or graphics you make related to your Book Group, please use the branding materials provided in the Forms and Links section.

After the plan is set and you have your Maine Humanities outreach materials, the remainder of your Book Group is largely in your hands. While we may be in touch less frequently, we are still invested in your group!

It is incredibly important for you to stay in touch with us: 

  • Reach out if rounding up participants isn’t going as well as you intended. 
  • Contact us if something goes really wrong…or really right!  
  • Let us know if you need to postpone or reschedule a session because of weather or illness or other unexpected happenings.  
  • Through every phase of your project, your Coordinator will be available to talk, troubleshoot, or answer any questions you might have. 

Planning, Timing, & Ease

Taking the time to plan carefully makes hosting and joining a book group easier for everyone involved.

The easiest way to have a successful Book Group is to give yourself plenty of time to plan your program, and to center the convenience of your group members.

Good planning makes for a good group, so most of the work will be done upfront – extra time up front is time well spent.  Making sure every person (including yourself!) has the space and time they need to get the work done will leave you stress-free for the meeting and discussing part. Getting ready for the first session typically takes about two months.

More

Two months might seem like a long time, but every step of the planning process takes time. You’ll need to…

  • Meet and plan with your facilitator…you’ll likely need to meet several times.

  • Figure out what’s easiest for everyone involved…you’ll need to find out which days and times work best and find and reserve a spot to meet.

  • Gather folks…people take time answering and you may need to reach out several times.

  • Get your books…they need to be ordered, shipped, and distributed.

  • And group members will need to read and digest the material ahead of the first session.

As you begin the planning process, be sure that the convenience of your group members is a key part of your thinking. Before entering your first planning meeting ask yourself these questions: 

  •  What’s the best time of day or week for your group to meet? Are there days or times that would make it easier for people to attend?

  • What’s the easiest place to meet in? Is it ADA compliant? Convenient to get to? If you’re meeting online, is there a platform or service you are already using to connect?  Do your intended participants have access to wifi and computers / laptops / tablets? (Joining by phone is not recommended.)

  • What is a reasonable time commitment for the people in your group? Will you meet monthly? Weekly? Will folks have enough time to read in between meetings? 

  • Who else are you working or collaborating with that ought to be in that first planning meeting? Who’s best placed to answer the above questions?

Publicity, Outreach, & Partnership

Remember that at its heart the process of inviting people is relationship building. The way you invite them sets the tone for what will happen when you gather.

Maine Humanities Book Groups work best when a mix of people join: folks who are interested in the Book Group’s topic or focus for a variety of reasons, and who know each other in different ways.  When people arrive at the first session, there is often a mix of close colleagues or longtime friends, glancing acquaintances, and brand new faces.

There are four key aspects to inviting folks to your group successfully:

More

Be clear about who the group is for, and why those people will find the experience valuable. For example:  

  • ‘Our organization’s staff’ or ‘people in our county who work with our organization’s same clientele’

  • ‘People in our town who want to read THIS novel’

  • ‘People who care about THIS topic’ or ‘people who have lived experience of THIS particular kind’ 

Once you’re clear about who the group is for, imagine as broadly as possible who might be included. 

  • Have you thought of all the teams or departments at your organization? Are part-time employees, volunteers, interns included?  

  • When you think of people and organizations who work with your same clientele…could there be others you aren’t thinking of? The public library? The school? Who else?  

  • What existing connections might people who want to read THIS novel or care about THIS topic or have THIS lived experience already have? Who do you know who might know them or what organizations might already work with them?

Picture actual people or groups, and actual paths for connecting with them and then use all appropriate means of extending your invitation. Once you can picture actual ways to find the 15 people who will make up your Book Group, use the publicity and outreach methods that seem most likely to work:  

  • Spend time well ahead of your program intentionally building relationships with organizations and communities you hope to invite.
  • Circulate a flyer in the ways and places that they’ll see.
  • Use the social media they use.
  • Invite individual people personally.
  • Ask people who know your intended audience well to help you invite them.

Consider collaborating or partnering with other organizations on your Book Group. Two organizations might co-host a group for themselves – bringing their staff and connected folks together in a new way. Or one organization might host a group, but deliberately collaborate with other organizations to spread the word and extend invitations. Partnerships and collaborations like these can expand partnering organizations’ visions and draw together people who might not otherwise meet. Please remember that thoughtful collaboration of this kind takes time—conversations about the intent, scope, and work-sharing of a collaboration or partnership should be underway well before you apply.

Record-Keeping & Reporting

Maine Humanities requires every program host to provide Registration & Attendance information for all participants in the group, and completed Feedback & In-Kind forms at the close of the program.

Failure to provide this information may negatively impact the success of future applications.

More
Registration & Attendence

We have templates available for collecting both registration and attendance in the Forms and Links section.

Registration

  • Book Group hosts are required to collect complete registration information for everyone who plans to participate in their group, even if they only intend to attend one session.
  • Complete registration information includes: first and last name, email address, and mailing address (including town and zip code).
  • We do not share contact details with anyone; participants are able to opt out of mailings from Maine Humanities.

Attendance

  • Book Group hosts are required to take attendance at every session.
  • You will be asked to submit both registrations and attendance to Maine Humanities at the end of your program. All of this information is critical to securing ongoing support for this program by the National Endowment for the Humanities and other funders.
Feedback & In-kind

Feedback

  • Book Group hosts are required to reflect on all aspects of their program after completion. It is important for us to know both about how the mechanics of the program went, as well as what impact hosting this group may have had on your community or your organization.
  • Book Group hosts are also responsible for collecting and returning participants’ surveys from the final session.
  • We use feedback from program hosts, facilitators and participants to continually refine and improve our programming and to communicate the impact of this program to funders, including the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In-kind

  • Book Group hosts are required to track both their time spent on hosting duties and any expenses put towards this program — for example: preparation time (including meetings with us); unpaid attendance by staff or volunteers; costs incurred by sites for refreshments, publicity, meeting space, and WiFi.
  • The National Endowment for the Humanities and other funders ask that we report how much the partners we work with contribute in time and expenses and consider these to be In-Kind contributions.

Cost SHare

A Maine Humanities Book Group, on average, costs $2,500. This includes book costs, facilitator honoraria, and staff time.

When our program partners are able to share this cost, it enables us to support more programming like this across our state. Contributions of any size are greatly appreciated.

You will be asked in your feedback form whether your organization is able to contribute to the cost of your program. Ability to contribute in no way affects our decision-making process.