Jun 18 2010
Did You See Us on the NYT Front Page?
Try as they might, the Humane Society of the United States laid a big egg this morning. HSUS’s well-paid spin doctors pitched a story to a New York Times reporter a few months ago, trying to convince her that there was something evil afoot with HumaneWatch. But at the end of the day, despite their best efforts (and a raft of reporting errors), the story was a great big nothing.
Not only that, but HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle is oozing sanctimony on his blog today. Haven’t seen it? You’re not alone. Because—guess what?—HumaneWatch has been consistently attracting more traffic than Pacelle’s blog for a few months now.
The bottom line is that Pacelle—whose HSUS has a horrible 1-star rating for organizational efficiency from the respected Charity Navigator organization—apparently doesn’t understand how to run an organization that actually gets meaningful things done. Witness HSUS’s anemic response to the Gulf oil spill. Or the group’s embarrassing habit of diverting more than 99 percent of its income away from pet shelters. Or the millions it wastes every year paying a company just to count its Scrooge McDuck-like fundraising windfalls.
Apparently, the worst thing Pacelle (and theTimes) can say about the Center for Consumer Freedom is that it efficiently reimburses its management company for a lot of expenses. Billboards in Times Square and full-page ads in big national newspapers aren’t cheap. But a management firm can negotiate better rates than a tiny charity. It can save nonprofit groups loads of dough by pooling resources with other nonprofits. Think of it like Costco: There’s great savings in numbers. That sure doesn’t mean the company that manages the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (which owns HumaneWatch) is raking in the dough.
Pacelle has been reduced to a punchline, a hatchet-man who can’t think of anything better to do than lash out at organizations that are far more effective with far, far less money. Keep in mind that CCF operates on less than 3 percent of HSUS’s budget. (We spend less on everything we do than HSUS puts in its wealthy executive pension plan.) In this David vs. Goliath story, we’re holding the pea-shooter.
None of this, of course, will distract us from the sham that HSUS has become. Wayne Pacelle can’t run from his own record of waste, fraud, and abuse. And since when was a little sunlight a bad thing, anyway?
Related People
Related Organizations
Posted on 06/18/2010 at 04:23 PM by the HumaneWatch Team
Announcements • News Summaries • (3) CommentsComments
For kicks everyone click on the link to Waynes blog from this website. I am sure that Wayne LOVES to see referrals from humanewatch.org 
I see what Wayne is doing, trying to make his vast and rich organization somehow look like David and make CCF the big bad Goliath. Like you pointed out, being a client of a wealthy organization and being wealthy yourself is two different things. Even with Bermans help, the CCF’s coffers are piddling compared to good ‘ole millionaire Wayne and his vast HSUS network.
And why is it when left-wing groups work together it’s “people joining together to achieve a common noble goal” but when others work together it’s somehow “a massive and corrupt devious plot?”
Comments are moderated, and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. Extremely lengthy comments and those that contain obscenities may be edited before they are posted.
Add a comment:
I’m thinking you have alumnae from The Onion on your staff. Nicely done NY Times first page…except it’s a little different from mine. Piece on CCF on the inside pages, though.