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Leveraging A Landmark Anniversary
Christina Spoegler, Senior Associate

Schultz & Williams’ client, the Philadelphia Zoo, recently concluded its 150th year as America’s First Zoo. Embracing this special birthday, the Zoo used the opportunity to transform itself and set the foundation for its next 150 years of leadership and growth. They created a year-long watershed celebration and challenged themselves to think in a visionary way about their mission and programs. The result is an organization that is newly defined – poised for the environmental challenges of today and focused on the programs it is uniquely qualified to carry out.

The Zoo had recently completed two major exhibits – Big Cat Falls and McNeil Avian Center. Both have a strong conservation focus and have set new standards for exhibit design and educational programming. The Zoo’s education and conservation initiatives – both local and global – reach thousands of people, including schoolchildren, every year.

As the 150th Anniversary approached, the Zoo decided to launch more than a commemoration. The Philadelphia Zoo needed an affirmation of the its core values and mission: a full year of innovative programs, which would touch people from South America to the Zoo’s local neighborhood, and reflect the Zoo’s continued commitment to preserve endangered species.

On March 21, 2009, the 150th anniversary of its charter, the Philadelphia Zoo unveiled its “Gifts of Gratitude” initiative and began making gifts to the community that continued throughout its anniversary year:

• 15 grants of $1,500 each to local conservation projects in its own region
• free Zoo trips, including transportation, to 150 classes from Title I schools in the Zoo’s region
• year-long Zoo memberships, given through local community organizations to 150 families
• 15 visits from Zoo on Wheels, the Zoo’s community outreach program, to neighborhoods and communities in the Zoo’s region

In closing its Sesquicentennial Year, the Zoo made a truly audacious Gift of Gratitude, its “Gift to the Planet.” Through creation of the Philadelphia Zoo Global Conservation Prize, the Zoo made a ten-year commitment to a conservation program that will help ensure the long-term survival of an endangered primate, the Golden Lion Tamarin, in its native habitat in Brazil. As the only conservation prize the Zoo is aware of that combines this high level of financial commitment with dedicated long-term support, the Gift to the Planet helps guarantee this species’ conservation success.

The Global Conservation Prize – magnanimous in itself – is a springboard to an ambitious plan for the Zoo’s next 150 years.

• The Zoo has a unique opportunity to redevelop nearly a third of its 42 acres by relocating its existing Children’s Zoo into one of its historic buildings and creating the Hamilton Family Children’s Zoo and Education Center in the newly available space. In redeveloping its campus, the Zoo is creating an innovative series of animal “raceways” – passageways through which the animals can travel between exhibits. Using this revolutionary concept, the Zoo is creating a new model for zoo animal housing that provides an opportunity for the animals to travel and explore and creates visitor experiences that are linked to the animals’ movements.
• The Zoo is incorporating sustainability planning in all of its operations, making optimal use of green technologies and becoming a model of sustainable operations.

The culminating event of the Zoo’s 150th Anniversary Year celebration was the Philadelphia Zoo Global Conservation Gala, hosted by ABC News Anchor Bob Woodruff and attended by Mayor Michael Nutter and other government officials, donors, community leaders and the Zoo’s many stakeholder partners. The Zoo gave three awards that night – the Emerging Conservation Leader award, the Conservation Impact Award and the Global Conservation Prize.

Now in its 151st year, the Philadelphia Zoo is poised to continue its leadership role in species conservation and innovative programming. Its leaders have carefully and strategically leveraged their 150th Anniversary to be one of transformation and change – in its mission focus, programs, operations and outreach activities. The Zoo is now positioned for the next 150 years of leadership, addressing the challenges of our times.

Schultz & Williams is a national consulting firm based in Philadelphia; providing management, fundraising and marketing consulting for nonprofit organizations, along with full-service direct marketing, database and creative/production services.