A generous lead gift means the Georgia Aquarium need not rely too heavily on fundraising

By Abny Santicola

We did a fundraising campaign before we opened called Fish Scales. It’s similar to a brick program. And nearly 90 percent of the people who gave to that program and bought scales bought online.

It saves us money, and we can communicate very quickly with our members on any issue — anything that’s changing, anything that’s new, any new benefits. Just this week, one of our animals was euthanized. He came from Mexico City, and we worked for months and months to try and rehabilitate him and he was suffering from osteomyelitis, which is a bone infection. And we were able to communicate with our members just as quickly as we were able to communicate with the media. So it really allows us to have people feel like they’re part of the family. They know immediately what’s going on.