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How zoos get auction items donated
Most of the catalogue is a colleague conversation, not a donation letter.
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For letter structure, follow-up cadence and tracking, see how to get silent auction donations and the donation request letter template. At a zoo, the majority of the catalogue never involves either.
Internal, where the value is
1. One meeting with curatorial and veterinary
Bring the whole proposed list. Ask what is possible, what needs conditions, what is prohibited, and — the question that saves the campaign — what happens when the animal is unavailable. Agree the substitutes in that meeting rather than in February.
Keepers are usually enthusiastic about this once asked properly. What they resent is discovering an encounter has been sold in their section without their knowing.
2. Education, horticulture, commissary and facilities
Behind-the-scenes access, a programme delivered offsite, a night opening, reserved parking. Each has an owner and each is a short conversation.
3. The retail and membership teams
Gift shop bundles, membership tiers, adopt-an-animal packages at levels not normally sold. Coordinate rather than assume: the membership team has a pricing strategy and an auctioned lifetime membership cuts across it.
Then outside
4. Corporate members and sponsors
Already in a relationship, already comfortable with the institution. Ask for items and for a match; sponsors of an exhibit are frequently willing to fund something adjacent to it.
5. Members with something to give
A zoo's membership includes business owners, photographers and people with holiday homes. Ask the list directly with named examples — it is the same move a humane society makes with adopters.
6. The local community and travel partners
Hotels, restaurants near the zoo, wildlife travel operators. A wildlife trip is the kind of headline lot a zoo audience will bid hard on, and specialist operators are a natural fit.
What to offer
The item listing, a post to a membership list of local families — which for a family-facing business is a real placement — recognition at the event, and a receipt from the correct entity, named rather than implied.
Timing
- Twelve weeks — curatorial and veterinary meeting; substitutes agreed
- Ten weeks — other departments; membership and retail coordination
- Eight weeks — corporate members, sponsors, travel operators
- Six weeks — the membership list and local business
- Three weeks — catalogue closed, every encounter's conditions and alternatives written onto its item page
Committee structure: committee and volunteer roles.
More guides for Zoos
Revenue benchmarks from platform data Encounters and keeper-for-a-day
Scoped by the animal team, not development Behind-the-scenes items
What the public cannot buy Item ideas that actually sell
And what welfare policy decides Valuing an experience item
What to disclose when nothing has a price Adopt-an-animal, paired
A product you already sell
Frequently asked questions
Where does most of a zoo catalogue come from?
Internally — curatorial, veterinary, education, horticulture, retail and membership. It is a series of colleague conversations rather than donation letters, and outside business is the smaller half of the job.
How should we ask keepers?
In one meeting with the whole proposed list, agreeing conditions and substitutes there. Keepers are usually enthusiastic once asked properly; what they resent is discovering an encounter has been sold in their section.
Can we auction membership tiers?
Coordinate with the membership team rather than assuming. They have a pricing strategy, and an auctioned lifetime membership cuts across it.
What outside items suit a zoo audience?
Wildlife travel from a specialist operator is the headline lot this audience bids hard on. Corporate members and exhibit sponsors are the warmest business asks.
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Free for up to 20 items · Unlimited bidders · No credit card required