Membership benefits may include special borrowing privileges, invitations to events, advance book sale opportunities, bookplates, and other forms of public recognition or involvement. The structure of friends groups varies. Most are set up as advisory boards without policy or operational responsibilities. In this capacity they provide a connection to the library for avid supporters that is mutually beneficial. On the library side, benefits from friends groups are many.
Friends can help raise funds for special purchases, initiatives, or programs.
Volunteers drawn from friends groups can help carry off functions that the library's short staffing might make impossible. Friends can help the academic library form partnerships with other community entities, including the public library, by co-sponsoring programs and events with them. Friends can act as advocates to increase community awareness of library issues and challenges. One of the great appeals of the academic friends group is the opportunity it affords the library to conduct public programs that have not traditionally been part of the library's role. Many academic libraries utilize friends groups to enter more fully into the intellectual life of the campus and surrounding community.