Our supporters

Membership

Our Members are incredibly important to us. Throughout 2022/2023, we continued to provide a range of inspiring, engaging and unique Members-onlyactivities both onsite and online.

Our focus was to encourage our Members to visit us here at the Museum to make the most of their onsite benefits. We strengthened our family offer to keep the record number of family members that joined the previous year engaged. This included a series of onsite trails, morning views of our exhibition Dippy: The Nation’s Favourite Dinosaur, workshops and regular Family Mornings.

Our exclusive events and private views of our Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition connected our Members who are passionate about breathtaking photography with the fascinating stories behind the photos.

Evolve and WildWorld - our fantastic Membership magazines - continued to connect Members with ourscience. In October 2022, we reached the major milestone of printing the fiftieth edition of Evolve.

Throughout the year, our Online Members Events Programme continued to connect thousands of our Members across the globe with our world-leading scientists.

Patrons

We’re delighted to extend our gratitude to our Patrons for their continued support throughout 2022-2023. As a community of like-minded individuals with varied and diverse interests, our Patrons are among our closest and most passionate group of supporters. Their generosity helps us to continue important research, protect our invaluable collections and inspire the next generation of advocates for the planet.

Our Patrons Programme has continued with a calendar of exciting events over the past 12 months. Last September our Patrons joined us to welcome Dippy back to the Museum and in October, as always, we were delighted to celebrate the launch of our Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition with them.

Other highlights include our Hidden Gems event in July where Patrons had the opportunity to see behind the scenes of our Minerology Collection and an offsite visit to Tring in November where they got to discover more about our extensive Bird Collection. Most recently, our illuminating In Conversation event in February allowed our Patrons to hear from our scientists and early career researchers from our Centre for Human Evolutionary Research.

Find out more about the Patrons Circle

Supporter engagement

We launched the public phase of our Urban Nature Project Appeal in July 2022, following on from the successful launch of our Loyal Appeal in February 2022. Donors have welcomed the chance to add their name to our gardens through an engraving on a bench or railing. Over the financial year, our public and loyal appeals combined raised more than £255,000 from 743 donors, with almost £50,000 of additional income expected from Gift Aid.

The appeal has shown that the public want to support us in memory and in celebration of their loved ones, with 12% of donations made in memory and 33% made in celebration.

Philanthropy

We’ve continued to receive generous donations from philanthropic individuals, trusts and foundations this year.

Our exhibition programme in particular has benefitted from philanthropic support. Jerwood Foundation is funding a new programme of contemporary art exhibitions, including the recently shown exhibition The Lost Rhino by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. Huo Family Foundation is generously enabling a forthcoming exhibition in 2024.

Outside of exhibitions, fundraising for refurbishing our existing galleries is ongoing, with our Mammals Gallery the most recent to receive philanthropic support. This would not be possible without funding from DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund.

We thank all our supporters in 2022/2023 for their generosity.

See our full list of supporters.

Corporate partnerships

Working with corporate partners who share our commitment to creating advocates for the planet strengthens our reach, influence and impact.

In October 2022 we were delighted to announce our multi-year partnership with cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services (AWS). Not only are they the lead sponsor of our Urban Nature Project, but we are also working with them to transform and accelerate our scientific research through the creation of a Data Ecosystem. This platform will bring together a range of UK environmental and biodiversity data types for the first time, helping us to build on our scientific understanding, encourage more integrated, cross-disciplinary research programmes and drive science-led nature recovery in the UK's urban spaces.

Now streaming globally on Apple TV+, Prehistoric Planet is a ground-breaking series that transports viewers 66 million years in the past to when majestic dinosaurs and extraordinary creatures roamed the lands, seas, and skies. By aligning our titanosaur exhibition with Prehistoric Planet, we hope to encourage the public to foster an interest in discovering more about these awe-inspiring creatures and inspire people to connect with the wonder of nature. The cargo division of International Airlines Group, IAG Cargo, is our Exhibition Logistics Partner of Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur. IAG Cargo transported the cast of Patagotitan mayorum and other specimens from Argentina to Europe for the first time.

Property Management and Building Consultancy firm Workman LLP continued to support our Urban Nature Project, using it as a platform to communicate the importance of urban biodiversity and encouraging action to protect it.

Global green energy company Ørsted continued its support for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition for the ninth year running.

This year we were delighted to welcome Artemis Investment Management LLP, De Beers Group, Dell Technologies, Sidley Austin LLP and Van Cleef & Arpels, who join Bloomberg, BMW Group UK, BNP Paribas, GSK and Rio Tinto, as part of our Corporate Membership Programme.

See our full list of Corporate Partners and Members.