More inquiries keep coming in about establishing a milk bank, so I am
posting my replies also to the list, and when I get sick of writing about
it, I'm just going to refer everyone to the archives, so fair warning.

You first need to organize a  coalition of other interested parties, and you
must have support from the docs (esp. impt. would be one of your neos.)
Suggest that one of your docs visit our milk bank.  Contact the MMBAustin at
512-494-0800 or visit the webpage at www.mmbaustin.org

We started with nothing but enthusiasm and great people working together.
Each of the founding board members pitched in for stamps for our first fund
raising letters,  and a couple of the docs paid their own way to visit two
of the existing milk banks to see what their phyical plants looked like.
This gave us an idea of what we'd need.  We all networked with people about
donating used office furniture, computers, appliances.  Most of all our
early equipment and supplies were donated.  We got donated office space.  We
created committees.  One (which consisted of  NICU-based RNs and the neos)
wrote policies and proceedures with the HMBANA guidelines as a guide.  One
committee worked on a board director's notebook so we had a model for what
our directors would be expected to do and a structure of governance.  One
committee worked on our by-laws, another rounded up a lawyer to do (for
free) our articles of incorporation as a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation.
We had a fund raising committee whose first task was to print up a
solicitation letter that all the board directors sent to their friends
shamelessly asking for money.  We recruited a board member who had some
grant writing expertise, and set her about researching what monies might be
available to us.  She did such a great job that we asked her if she'd
consider becomming our first exec. dir.  She was able to work free for 6
months in exchange for a contract that promised to pay her back once some of
her grants got funded.  They did, we paid up, and she was a terrific exec
until she moved.  We have a new exec. and she, like all our staff, is also
great and work so hard to make our milk bank a showplace.  We have a public
relations committee that networks with TV and other media.  Our chair is a
former news anchor at a local TV, so she knows everyone.  We are big
publicity hounds. And so on.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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