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

In the months following the hurricane, giving to the Katrina recovery effort became less of a knee-jerk reaction and more of a thought process, as people began asking deeper questions about the future of New Orleans: Is it coming back? Will it survive?

“People are going to put those giving priorities up there now and take a look at where [ANI is] versus everything else. It’s not only about rebuilding those institutions, it’s a part of rebuilding New Orleans,” Schultz says.