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 Campaign for Conservation and Community
Did You Know? More than 135 million people visit Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited zoos and aquariums each year, pumping $1.6 billion into the national economy. The Indianapolis Zoo alone contributes to the Hoosier economy with an annual operating budget of more than $17 million and a base of nearly 400 full time and seasonal employees.
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The vision
 What we see ahead.
In the next decade, your trip to the Indianapolis Zoo will be a one-of-a-kind experience to one of the nation’s top zoological parks. You’ll encounter “blockbuster” exhibits. You’ll see world-changing conservation programs at work. You’ll plunge yourself even deeper into the animals’ world. And you will enjoy, in your own back yard, an experience that attracts people from throughout the nation – an experience that makes the Zoo and the city a must-visit destination.
 What we’re planning.
To become this kind of leading zoological park, the Zoo must offer visitors unique and enlightening experiences while at the same time conducting essential conservation research. Over the next 10 years, the Zoo will achieve these objectives by investing in new, nationally significant exhibits, enhancing its current offerings and upgrading its infrastructure. This collective effort will raise the Zoo’s profile both as an attraction and as a key player in world conservation efforts. It will attract an ever-expanding universe of visitors from a broader area, and it will boost the Zoo’s long-term financial self-sustainability as well as the city’s tourism industry. In short, it will help to increase the Zoo’s impact on individuals, the community, the region and the world.
What the result will be.
While the addition of major exhibits is a bold and ambitious undertaking, research suggests that such programs pose less risk than a series of small upgrades. And they deliver a greater payoff: When other zoos have added major exhibits, they’ve enjoyed attendance increases from 30 to 70 percent per year.
The plan
What the plan will do.
In 2001, Zoo staff, along with key community leaders and volunteers, developed a 15-year Master Plan to elevate the Zoo to new levels of excellence in terms of facilities, conservation programs and the experiences delivered to visitors. The Zoo has now completed Phase I of that plan, the $31 million Campaign for Conservation and Community.
What Phase I delivered.
.jpg) • In The Dolphin Adventure, three one-of-a-kind dolphin experiences opened to rave reviews. These include the world’s first completely submerged dolphin-viewing experience, a 30-foot-diameter acrylic-domed underwater room in the main performance pool of the Dolphin Adventure Gallery; a completely redesigned performance arena that captures the essence of a coastal wharf town; and, the Midwest’s only human-dolphin interaction program, giving small groups of guests the opportunity to have in-water experiences with the dolphins.
• Dramatic opening of the Oceans. The Oceans complex sets the Indianapolis Zoo apart from others by offering  an aquatic element that, when combined with a world-class zoo, provides visitors with a unique immersion in the natural world. Features new in 2007 include a walk-through entrance aquarium, a fantastic shark touch tank, walk-around pedestal tanks, a look-through floor panel in the penguin exhibit, interactive polling stations, and a hands-on education station for the kids, along with improvements to the basic infrastructure. With these innovative and interactive Oceans Project programming woven throughout the exhibits, visitors are engaged, enlightened and entertained at an entirely new level.
• Conservation and endowment development. In January 2003, the Zoo announced an $8 million endowment gift for the creation of the Polly H. Hix Institute for Research and Conservation, envisioned as a means for ensuring that the Zoo has the human, facility and financial resources needed to undertake internationally significant research and conservation projects. The endowment will also help to fund other Zoo projects and provide the kind of dependable revenue stream that is essential to any non-profit’s long-range financial health.
• The Indianapolis Prize is an award given every other year to an individual who has made significant strides in conservation efforts involving an animal species or multiple animal species. The first winner of the $100,000 award, Dr. George Archibald, received the largest individual monetary award for animal conservation in the world, at the Indianapolis Prize Gala presented by the AES Corporation, September 2006, and the second honoree, Dr. Georege Schaller, received his Prize in 2008.
How Phase I helped.
A conservation program that allows the Zoo to expand on its existing planet-wide impact. Education programs and experiences that make conservationists of Zoo visitors. A dolphin experience unequalled in any Zoo around the world. An Oceans complex that plunges visitors even deeper into underwater worlds. Projects like these not only increase the experience for the Zoo’s current audience; they are expected to attract an additional 100,000 annual visitors and ensure the Zoo’s long-term financial strength.
The vision, by the numbers.
Generous supporters supplied the $31 million goal of the Campaign for Conservation and Community, which reached its goal many months ahead of schedule.
| The Dolphin Adventure |
$10 million |
| Oceans |
$6 million |
| Endowment additions |
$11 million |
| Indianapolis Prize |
$1 million |
| General infrastructure repair & replacement |
$1 million |
| Interest expense, campaign, administrative & donor recognition |
$2 million |
Total: $31 million
The ongoing dream
 The city leaders who first proposed a zoo for Indianapolis had an ambitious dream: to create from scratch a facility that would entertain residents, attract visitors, and raise Indianapolis’ profile among American cities.
The Indianapolis Zoo of today surpassed that dream to become a source of continual entertainment, education and enlightenment for visitors from around the corner or around the world, and a leader in global conservation efforts.
The growth from that first zoo in Washington Park to the world-class facility we enjoy today proves that we increase our possibilities when we dare to increase our dreams.
Please join us in building today what will become the foundation for even greater dreams tomorrow.
The Indianapolis Zoo has many gift opportunities available. For more information, please contact Tim Ardillo at (317) 630-2703 or tardillo@indyzoo.com.
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