By the time we got into serious fundraising, we had a foundation of executives from the St. Louis area that were not only donors to the zoo but also very familiar with the people in St. Louis that had either the corporate foundation or family money behind. And so I was usually part of the storytellers saying, “Here’s the history of the zoo. This is where we have been in the past. Here’s where we are now and this is where we’d like to go in the future.” And then the major corporate head would make the ask. It was someone who had already made a big contribution and say, “I made my $500,000 donation. How about you join me with another 500,000?” That’s the way they ask usually when I told a story, they made the ask.
