With many of its facilities in ruins, and its employees, customers, volunteers and donors scattered by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ Audubon Nature Institute turned to the Web to raise the money needed to get back to its mission.

By Abny Santicola

Just a little more than a year ago, ANI operated the top three most-visited attractions in Louisiana, with an economic impact of more than $330 million a year for New Orleans, and it served as a tremendous science resource for the public schools and the surrounding community.

“To have us gone from the community would leave a huge, gaping hole that nobody else could fill at this point,” she says. “I think we need to be here for families in New Orleans. We need to give people in New Orleans a reason to come back.”

While DRM post-Katrina is harder than it was before, even for things such as one-on-one meetings with local major donors, with a greater, now more widespread constituency, Conkerton is cognizant of the need to keep everyone involved and engaged.

“The ball is very much in our court now,” she says. “We have the support from outside of the city. We need to make sure people stay connected.”