AZA 2026 Recap: Quick Wins for Zoo and Aquarium Membership

Written by Tatiana Villate: Growth & Partnerships Representative

Last week, I was excited to represent Cuseum and be amongst the zoo and aquarium community at the AZA 2026 Annual Conference in Portland, OR. On Sep 29, 2026, I presented Fast Track to Engagement: Quick Wins for Membership Programs in Zoos & Aquariums as part of the session Membership Reimagined: Bold Ideas for Momentum and Loyalty. A year earlier, at AZA 2025 in Tampa, I presented on digital strategy with Claire Cooper of the North Carolina Aquarium. It was great to be back again!

This year, the key word was fast. I wanted to talk about changes a membership team could realistically put in place in the next few weeks, and why small steps like these can have such a positive impact.

If you weren't in the room, here is what I covered: why membership benefits need to evolve, three categories of quick wins (flexible access, automated engagement and exclusive digital perks), what "easy to implement" actually means, and three concrete moves to start right after the conference.

Give Members Reasons to Stay

My first point was simple: members are worth protecting.

The value of a membership can extend beyond the membership fee. Repeat visits can bring café and gift-shop purchases, special-event participation and donations. Members can also refer your program to someone else and become advocates for your organization.

That makes retention worth examining alongside acquisition. Look at your own renewal rates, repeat visits and spending patterns to understand what a longer member relationship means for your organization. Those figures can help you make the case for investing in the member experience.

Members Have More Competing for Their Attention

Your membership competes for attention with retailers, apps and other nonprofits, as well as other zoos and aquariums. Members have choices about where to spend their time and money.

Relevant communication can help your organization stay part of that choice. Show members what their support makes possible, and make each message useful to them. Members aren't tuning out everyone. They're tuning out whatever feels irrelevant.

Zoos and Aquariums Start With a Living Cause

This is why I'm optimistic about zoos and aquariums in particular. Unlike most loyalty programs, yours starts from a mission members already believe in. I see three advantages.

A living cause, not a loyalty program. When someone renews, they're not just buying another year of admission or a list of benefits. They're helping feed a rescued animal, maintain a habitat or move a species one step closer to safety. A coffee chain can't offer that. Over the past few years, we've heard from a lot of organizations moving to a mission-centered rather than a benefit-centered program.

Community stewardship and intergenerational spaces. Your members come as families. Grandparents, parents and kids visit together and come back with the seasons, and those visits build bridges and connect people.

A built-in content engine. Animal rescues, breeding programs and field conservation are real stories members want to follow and share with their friends. We've also heard how successful zoo and aquarium podcasts have been. Your organizations, and the work you do every day, inspire people.

So the question isn't whether you have something worth engaging around. That's where the three categories of quick wins come in.

Flexible Access: Change the Format Before the Price

The first category is flexible access: meeting members where their budget and behavior already are.

In the membership roundtables, I heard from many attendees that their programs have been dipping or stagnating. We're living through a cost-of-living crisis, and some people may not be able to keep up with a membership. So rather than discounting every membership level, I'd encourage you to rethink the format. That starts with an audit of your current levels and the cost of the benefits each one offers.

A shorter or digital-only tier. This gives people a lower-commitment entry point without discounting your core program. It's already happening in our field: many museums use this model to welcome people who might otherwise feel excluded. It can also give families the useful, trustworthy content they're looking for.

Digital membership cards. A digital membership card is issued and renewed instantly. There's no plastic to print or mail, and members can keep their cards on their phones. Most importantly, members can use their membership the moment they join. That closes one of the biggest drop-off points in onboarding: the gap between signing up and actually feeling like a member.

Mission-driven messaging. Your welcome and renewal messages should lead with impact and belonging, not just a list of perks. Take two example opening lines. "Thanks to you, our sea turtle rehab center treated 200 animals this year" lands very differently from "Your membership includes 10% off in the gift shop." One is a relationship. The other is a transaction. (We looked at mission as part of the membership offer in Beyond the Benefits.)

Automated Engagement: Let Key Dates Trigger the Outreach

The second category is automated engagement: reaching members at the moments that actually matter. The core idea is to let key dates trigger your outreach, instead of relying on someone's manual reminder.

Date-triggered messaging. Renewal notices, membership anniversaries and milestones can go out automatically from the membership record. Nobody on your team has to remember to send them. The message goes out on day one of the cycle, not whenever someone gets to it between everything else on their plate. (Our guide to renewal reminders across the membership lifecycle covers how to space them.)

Push notifications and SMS. These are timely nudges that members actually open. The goal isn't to replace email but to work alongside it. A renewal reminder sent as a text the week before expiration can give members another way to act, alongside email.

Preference-based targeting. You already know a lot about your members: their favorite exhibits, their giving history, how they like to be contacted. Use it. The member who always visits the penguins should hear about the new penguin chick. When a message feels like it was written for someone, they read it.

With automated lifecycle messaging, triggers like these can run on their own schedule across email, SMS and push notifications.

Exclusive Digital Perks: Make Membership Visible Between Visits

The third category is exclusive digital perks: value members can feel between visits, not just at the gate. Here's the reality: if membership only exists at the front gate, it's invisible the rest of the time.

Location-based alerts. With geofencing, a member who is near or inside your grounds can get a prompt at exactly the right moment: a keeper talk starting in 10 minutes, or a member discount at the café. A passive membership becomes something members notice in the moment.

Member-only digital content. Behind-the-scenes video, keeper chats and early access to announcements are things non-members simply can't see. They give members a reason to check in between visits, not just when they're planning the next one. Remember that content engine? This is where you put it to work. We know people trust zoos and aquariums, so share your knowledge and give members a quick peek behind the curtain that makes them feel part of the team.

Three Moves to Start This Month

To make all of this practical, I closed with three moves any team can start this month.

1. Audit your current tiers. Find one tier that could become shorter or digital-only this quarter. Before you build it, map out who it would actually attract.
2. Turn on one automated trigger. I'd start with renewal-date messaging. It's the highest-impact, lowest-effort automation you can enable, and it's the easiest to measure against your current renewal rate.
3. Pick one digital-only perk. Launch a single member-exclusive piece of content and measure engagement before you scale. One well-used perk beats five that nobody knows about.

Me (second from left) with my fellow presenters after Membership Reimagined: Bold Ideas for Momentum and Loyalty at AZA 2026 in Portland.

Switch On What You Already Have

When I say quick win, I mean something your team can actually achieve in weeks. If you remember one thing from my session, I hope it's this: the easiest wins aren't new programs. They're the moments your membership platform is already capable of, just switched on.

Many of you already have the tools for everything I've described here. The opportunity is turning them on. I'd encourage you to audit your current tools, learn what else they can do to help you engage your members, and really make the most of them.

Ready to Fast-Track Member Engagement?

At Cuseum, we help zoos and aquariums give members instant access with digital membership cards for Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, and stay visible on members' phones with automated renewal reminders, timely updates and exclusive content.

I'd love to hear what's working at your organization, and I'm happy to talk through any of these ideas in more detail. Request a demo to see how it works.