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

“They contribute a lot to the economy as well as the education and quality of life in New Orleans,” he continues. “They’re really an important part of the fabric of the city.”

Schultz says the key now, more than a year after Katrina, is to work at cultivating major gifts from past major donors and one-time recovery supporters, which tend to take more time than the spontaneous gifts given via the Web immediately following the disaster.