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

“Everyone, no matter how little or how major their personal losses have been, is impacted by the region’s recovery, and things will fall through the cracks,” she says. “We’re all learning to be more patient and to realize what’s essential rather than what’s done because it’s always been that way.”

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.