Our generous supporters 2023-2024
A full list of our philanthropic supporters, ambassadors, corporate partners and members, NHM Development Trust Trustees, research partners, Patrons and gifts in wills.
Our supporters
A family programme in action, delivered as part of our partnership with the LEGO Group's Build the Change programme, August 2023.
Patrons
We are so grateful for the continued support of our Patrons throughout 2023-24. As a community of generous donors, we are thankful for their loyalty and commitment to our mission to create advocates for the planet. This support is invaluable and enables us to fulfil our charitable objectives to preserve our collections, enhance our public spaces and continue pioneering research.
As ever, we are thrilled to have delivered another year of special events to bring our Patrons closer to our collections and our scientists. Some highlights include the Patrons Night at the Museum in the beautiful Hintze Hall showcasing some of the incredible permanent collections, the behind-the-scenes tour into our imaging and digitising labs, the Patrons exclusive architecture tour of the Waterhouse building in January and a preview of the newly refurbished Mammals Hall in March.
Membership
Our Members are incredibly important to us. Highlights in the year included welcoming over 2,000 new members, a record number of which joined in April 2023, following the launch of our sold-out exhibition Titanosaur: Life as the biggest dinosaur. We also launched our members' priority booking period for one of our most popular museum events, Dino Snores for Kids, as part of our new “members' first” initiative.
Our events programme went from strength to strength with sold out Mary Anning and Charles Darwin character themed family workshops. Over 200 members attended a lecture in August on the ground-breaking NASA OSIRIS-Rex mission to collect an asteroid same, which included Queen frontman and astrophysicist key speaker Sir Brian May.
Supporter engagement
We continued to successfully fundraise for the public phase of our Urban Nature Project appeal. Donors have welcomed the chance to add their name, or the name of a loved one, to the Museum’s gardens through an engraving on a bench or a railing.
In March 2024 we hit our public appeal fundraising target of £650k with over 1,900 donors. We thank all those that donated to support this campaign who made the Museum's first public appeal such a success.
Our new gardens offer is reopening to the public in Summer 2024, thanks to our generous supporters.
Philanthropy
We continued to gratefully welcome donations from philanthropic individuals and trusts and foundations this year, which contributed to both the Museum’s exhibition and gallery spaces, and science research.
The Cookson Charitable Trust, one of our long-term supporters of minerals, is now funding the enhancement of a popular gallery space and we have also secured a substantial new acquisition with thanks to the generosity of David and Molly Lowell Borthwick.
Our Lepidoptera team are thrilled to have generous funding from Christer Fåhraeus towards Blue Hairstreak butterfly research, whilst we are excited by a new partnership with Natural Environment Research Council towards Fixing our Broken Planet gallery and programme.
As the fundraising campaign for the Urban Nature Project ends, we would like to thank The Portal Trust for their contribution towards the gardening apprenticeship scheme and all our supporters, to the Urban Nature Project and beyond, for their generosity.
A corporate supporter enjoying a private viewing of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition
Corporate partnerships
Collaborating with corporate partners passionate about advocating for the planet means we can amplify the Museum's influence and impact through diverse support. Amazon Web Services, as Lead Sponsor of the Urban Nature Project, is helping us build a cutting-edge Data Ecosystem to accelerate urban nature recovery across the UK. Workman LLP and Accenture’s support also boosts the Urban Nature Project with their proactive participation.
Apple TV+ continued its dynamic support, transitioning from Dippy's installation to the spectacular Titanosaur exhibition, coinciding with the release of Prehistoric Planet's second season, whilst IAG Cargo contributed gift-in-kind support.
Our vibrant partnership with Priority from O2 expanded, providing exciting offers as well as prize draws on the Priority app. Our first year of partnership with the LEGO Group’s Build the Change programme inspired schools, families, and SEND audiences to explore the natural world through playful, collaborative events.
BEAR Snacks is supporting Dino Snores for Kids sleepovers for the summers of 2024 and 2025, running an ambitious associated on-pack marketing campaign and competition to win tickets. Meanwhile, Google Arts & Culture enriched our Fixing Our Broken Planet programme by helping us tell compelling stories about our planet's challenges and the inspiring efforts driving positive change.
This year we were delighted to welcome Arup, Oliver Wyman Forum, and Ørsted who joined Artemis Investment Management, Bloomberg, BMW Group UK, BNP Paribas, De Beers Group, Dell Technologies, GSK, Rio Tinto, Sidley Austin LLP and Van Cleef & Arpels as part of our Corporate Membership Programme.