Financing
Busy with her research in Africa, Fossey enlisted the help of her friends, primatologist Richard Wrangham and TV presenter David Attenborough, who approached conservation organizations located in the UK including the Fauna Preservation Society (FPS) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which declined Fossey's request in favor of supporting an approach emphasizing tourism to Rwanda. At Wrangham's request, FPS launched an appeal in response to Digit's death which the group subsequently named the Mountain Gorilla Fund for better name recognition; FPS chose to direct the funds to Rwandan park officials rather than Fossey's on-the-ground efforts. Fossey became frustrated as many international donors contributed funds in memory of Digit which were directed by international conservation organizations towards the construction of roads or the purchase of new vehicles for park conservation officials, who in many cases were bribed by poachers to look the other way from illegal activities and, according to Fossey, rarely ventured into the park at all. When payments for Fossey's articles on Digit's death were accidentally directed to the FPS Mountain Gorilla Fund rather than to her, FPS declined to redirect the money towards Fossey or her initiative. To coordinate donations to Rwandan authorities, FPS enlisted Fossey's former student and apprentice and one of her chief detractors, Sandy Harcourt.
On her first trip to the United States after the poachings of Group 4, Fossey enlisted the aid of the National Geographic Society, which pledged $5,000, as did the World Wildlife Fund, over the objections of some of its members who had heard rumors of Fossey's anti-poaching patrols and other tactics she used against poaching. Fossey asked her friend Robinson McIlvaine, the head of the nonprofit African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, to serve as secretary-treasurer of the Digit Fund until she could find a salaried executive director to assume control over the operations. McIlvaine partnered with the International Primate Protection League, the Digit Fund, and his own African Wildlife Leadership Foundation asking for funds, to be made out to the AWLF. The Digit Fund received none of the money, and McIlvaine suggested to Fossey that the Digit Fund could be folded into AWLF, which Fossey declined; McIlvaine resigned as secretary-treasurer of the Digit Fund.
Dr. Shirley McGreal, head of the IPPL, had allowed IPPL's co-sponsorship of the letter only to help the Digit Fund and blames the misunderstanding on Fossey being taken advantage of in the wake of2 her gorillas' deaths and never viewing the gorillas' deaths as a way for her to personally profit. McGreal volunteered to serve as secretary-treasurer in the wake of McIlvaine's resignation from the post. Through the seeming partnership of AWLF/Digit Fund, funds contributed to the Digit Fund by philanthropist Gordon Hanes and by students under the supervision of primatologist Geza Teleki came under the auspices of AWLF, not the Digit Fund. The US ambassador to Rwanda submitted a proposal in 1980 for Karisoke Research Center to be removed from Fossey's control and placed under a mountain gorilla consortium led by AWLF while Fossey was in America finishing her book.
While she had lost control of funds raised in Britain after Digit's death to the Fauna Preservation Society, Fossey managed to keep the control of the Digit Fund in the United States until her death. After Fossey was murdered, the Digit Fund in the USA was renamed "The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International," and the Digit Fund in the UK was renamed the "Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Europe" and later "The Gorilla Organization".
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