Why should zoos seek external funding at all?
This is an unedited and unproofed excerpt from a forthcoming book: Transformational External funding for Zoos, Botanic Gardens, Aquariums and similar site based organisations By John Regan and J.J.W Edwards to be published in 2010.
Why seek external funding at all?
The majority of people who have opened this book represent institutions which either charge for admission to their site; receive substantial revenue subsidies from their city, county, state, region or nation; or perhaps both. All these organisations will trade, maximizing margins on sales of ice creams, sandwiches, cuddly toys, etc., and engage in all manner of legitimate and very valuable commercial activities. Some of you may be NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or, in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and other nations, charities or close equivalents; others will be wholly private organizations; others again will be operated by some level of government; all will in most senses see themselves as very far from a traditional conception of ‘a fundraising organization’ and will instinctively look to their gate as the main source of reliable income.
So the question is easily begged, why seek other forms of investment at all? Surely if the pressing issue is financial, all available resources need to be firmly and solely targeted on commercial activities?
So why bother with this extra agenda?
- Because further streams of external income will reducing a vulnerable dependency on the gate
- Because, dependent on your business model and its success, your current annual profit or charitable surplus may be insufficient for major new development. A desire to refresh your offer, or to maximize delivery of charitable purpose will thus be compromised.
- Because you have vision of a future dream site that simply cannot be delivered without external transformational funding
- Because – quite simply – you can! Site based organisations are especially well suited to raise external, non-commercial funding as they are high profile, exciting colourful subjects, already in contact with vast swathes of the public and can visibly showcase their social, cultural and environmental work.
- Because, when done well, the cost/ benefit ratio of a development programme is actually through the roof (recently estimated at a 60 to 1 ROI) compared with all other financial activities.
- Because a casual perusal of those elements that have really changed the permanent landscape for zoos and botanic gardens show these not to be commercial as such, but government funding, fiscal changes due to lobbying, major philanthropy and major commercial sponsorship
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