For six a long time, the Higher Los Angeles Zoo Assn., generally known as GLAZA, has been the nonprofit fundraising arm of the Los Angeles Zoo.
Now it needs to interrupt up with the zoo.
GLAZA, with its skilled administrative workers and greater than two dozen trustees drawn from enterprise, philanthropy, the humanities and different fields, has raised tens of tens of millions through the years for the zoo. It additionally does advertising and marketing and oversees the in depth volunteer program.
The zoo, a metropolis company, is headed by a chief executive and director — presently Denise Verret — who solutions to the mayor and the Metropolis Council.
There have been rifts earlier than. GLAZA has walked away from contracts talks with the zoo earlier than however ultimately labored issues out. GLAZA trustees typically have sturdy concepts about how all these funds they labored onerous to boost — and contributed themselves — needs to be used. And, after all, the chief government of the zoo has particular concepts about easy methods to run the zoo. At the moment Verret can also be serving as chair of the board of the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums, the accrediting company for zoos principally in North America. Nobody on this combine is shy about expressing opinions.
However then the zoo, prompted by a need for what it known as extra transparency and equity, put out a request for proposals for the job (or quite, jobs, plural) that GLAZA had been doing. Primarily the zoo put GLAZA’s numerous roles out to bid — and inspired GLAZA to compete for them.
That didn’t go over properly. GLAZA officers, already upset by restrictions in its present settlement with town, balked. In October, the chair of the trustees wrote a letter to Mayor Karen Bass telling her that GLAZA wouldn’t vie for a place and when its present settlement was up on the finish of June 2025, so, too, would the partnership with the zoo finish.
“Sending this letter to you brings us no pleasure,” wrote the chair, Erika Aronson Stern. She stated the truth that town determined to take all of GLAZA’s tasks for the final 60 years “and carve them into six, distinct separate classes is a really clear signal that the Metropolis has little interest in persevering with our overarching partnership.”
Then GLAZA went rogue — or so town mainly contends in a breach-of-contract lawsuit it filed in opposition to GLAZA late final month.
GLAZA amended its articles of incorporation to permit it to distribute funds to “organizations aside from the Zoo if GLAZA winds down or dissolves” regardless that GLAZA was solely ever purported to be elevating funds for the L.A. Zoo, the lawsuit contends.
GLAZA has additionally refused to show over donor info, the swimsuit says. Extra alarming, in accordance with the swimsuit, is that GLAZA claimed in a letter to the zoo that it might management the endowment for which it raised funds even after it ended its settlement with town subsequent summer season. The zoo estimates GLAZA has almost $49 million underneath its management. Amongst different issues, town needs at the very least that a lot in damages.
And on high of all that, GLAZA “unilaterally” canceled the zoo’s signature annual fundraising gala, the Beastly Ball, for June 2025. The zoo says it anticipated to reap $975,000 from the occasion this 12 months.
GLAZA says in response that there was little enthusiasm for it this 12 months and that it wouldn’t be value placing on the occasion.
A few of the issues outlined within the metropolis’s lawsuit have been said in a Nov. 8 letter from town lawyer’s workplace to the GLAZA chair. In a Dec. 6 letter, a lawyer for GLAZA responded that “it was with nice unhappiness and shock when GLAZA obtained the Metropolis’s November 8 letter accusing GLAZA of a number of acts of wrongdoing, together with breach of fiduciary responsibility and monetary misappropriation.”
Amongst different issues, the affiliation argues that it’s retaining management of the restricted funds — which might be donated for particular reveals or initiatives — solely to ensure they get used for the donors’ supposed functions. The lawyer additionally contends that GLAZA is an unbiased group, “not a division of the Metropolis or underneath Metropolis administration or management,” and that neither town nor the zoo has management over the Endowment Fund. “Given the duties GLAZA owes to its donors, GLAZA will proceed to handle the Endowment Fund,” the lawyer wrote.
OK, it is a combat between sensible individuals who all care in regards to the zoo. That’s comprehensible — to some extent. However on the finish of the day, the L.A. Zoo wants to have the ability to run the zoo as its managers see match. This can be a very difficult time for zoo managers normally and this one specifically. Elements of the zoo are outdated and wish overhaul — which a brand new Vision Plan is designed to handle. Moreover, the zoo is underneath assault by opponents of elephant-keeping. And the zoo might want to deal with that sooner or later. Possibly it’s time to stop keeping elephants in enclosures, on condition that within the wild they stroll miles and miles every day.
The underside line is that the zoo wants a devoted and strong fundraising group for its future initiatives. And that group must be on board with what the zoo chief government decides. For so long as they’re in battle, the zoo and the general public should not being served.
