Fundraising at the Henry Vilas Zoo was already up this year, even before Zoo Lights event kicked off on Nov. 29.
Dane County officials would like previous donors to the Henry Vilas Zoo to reach out to them directly and to renew their memberships. The group that used to run the facility’s fundraising activities says its donor and membership lists should remain confidential.
The Dane County Corporation Counsel’s office confirms those lists have not been turned over or used since the county took over operation of the zoo this spring from the Henry Vilas Zoological Society; the two entities are still trying to negotiate a legal resolution that would determine what happens to the lists.
The county and the Zoological Society remain enmeshed in an ugly professional divorce. Isthmus first reported last week that the Dane County Sheriff’s Office is investigating whether all the money raised by the Society in the zoo’s donor tubes has properly been documented. The Society later pushed back, calling the accusations part of a campaign by the Dane County Executive’s office to “tarnish the reputation of the Society.”
Marcia MacKenzie, Dane County’s lawyer, writes in an email to Isthmus that the county wants to hear from the Society’s donors directly. “I have been working with the donors that we are aware of,” she writes. “Unfortunately, the Society will not provide either member lists OR donor lists so that we can contact folks. Thus, we have not been able to contact members and/or donors about renewing memberships or about benefits they have coming to them and special zoo events.”
The latest salvo from the county comes during #GivingTuesday — the worldwide phenomenon that takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The event has helped the zoo raise a lot of money in the past few years. In 2017, donors provided more than $32,000 to bring Yuri, an Amur tiger, from a Michigan zoo to Madison. Last year, the zoo raised more than $10,000 on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to help pay for facility operations.
This year, the county is hoping to raise enough money to bring five new flamingos and a bison to the Henry Vilas Zoo this winter.
“Interestingly, the Society represented in its financial audits that ‘the purpose and operations of the Society are inseparable with that of the Henry Vilas Zoo,’ yet they claim that the identities of Friends of the Zoo members and donors to the zoo are confidential,” MacKenzie wrote. “It is unclear to us why they continue to act against the interests of the zoo and its members/donors.”
Tom Hanson, the president of the Zoological Society, acknowledges the donor and membership lists remain a sticking point between the two entities, but disputes MacKenzie’s characterization of what’s going on. Hanson points out that the nonprofit has been praised for its fundraising track record by independent auditors like Charity Navigator and GuideStar.
Hanson writes in an email that the Society recommended that the county prepare a direct mail piece about how current members could continue to contribute to the zoo, which the Society would then send to its members.
MacKenzie says the county had been considering the offer, but not anymore. “Now that the criminal investigation is underway, the county is not comfortable further associating itself with the Society,” she writes in an email. “There has been too much confusion in the public about who is responsible for the donation box/tubes money that may be missing. The county wants the Society to turn over information about donors and members so that it can directly contact those individuals who want to maintain their association with the zoo.”
During the acrimonious breakup with the Society in March, at least one long-time supporter of the Society pledged not to continue donating to the zoo. At a Dane County Board of Supervisors meeting, Carla Moore told officials that she had a “significant” legacy donation in her will. But she said she’d change that if the relationship with the Society were dissolved.
After the meeting, where supervisors did terminate the partnership, Moore told Isthmus that she would be revising her will. “I won’t be giving money to the zoo, which is very distressing for me because the legacy would have been in the name of my late husband, who absolutely loved the zoo,” Moore said. “Under the current circumstances they will hire an unproven fundraising arm, I suspect.”
According to the county executive’s office, fundraising for the zoo hasn’t suffered since the break with the Society. Ahead of the zoo’s holiday lights show, the zoo had brought in $952,518 in donations, including $197,007 from donation boxes at the zoo.
Josh Wescott, chief of staff for Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, says that between 2013 and 2018, the zoo brought in an average of $739,835 a year in donations. “As you can see, more money is already staying with the zoo than under the previous fundraising arrangement,” Wescott writes in an email.
The zoo’s website, now controlled by the county, has information about how to donate. Hanson says the county has also taken control of the zoo’s social media accounts and can use those sites to solicit donations.
As legal negotiations over the donor lists continue with no end in sight, MacKenzie wants the public to know what’s going on in case prior donors to the zoo don’t realize that they haven’t been asked for help in the last six months.
“It would actually be helpful for members and donors to know that we do not know who they are,” MacKenzie writes. “They should contact us if they want to get on our mailing list.”
