Feb 16 2012
HSUS: Token Help for Pet Shelters?
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is not affiliated with local humane societies, but it raises money like it is one by showing misleading ads full of dogs and cats. In reality, a minor fraction of HSUS’s efforts involve pets, and HSUS only gives 1 percent of the money is raises to hands-on pet shelters.
HSUS retorts that it provides services to shelters besides grant money. Sure—at a cost. But what does HSUS do for free?
We have noticed that HSUS is involved with the Shelter Pet Project, a series of PSAs encouraging adopting from shelters—a good thing. The project is a collaborative effort between HSUS, the Ad Council, Maddie’s Fund, and a firm called Draftfcb.
But how much of the effort is the genesis of HSUS taking initiative for local humane societies? Not very much, it would seem. Here’s how the head of Maddie’s Fund described the origin of the campaign:
It started in Chicago in 2007 with Howard Draft, a founder of Draftfcb, one of the world’s largest communications agency networks. A longtime animal lover, Draft was a great supporter of PAWS Chicago, the city’s largest No Kill humane organization, and wondered how he could help the No Kill movement could go national. He was on the board of directors of the Ad Council, and it was his idea to get them involved. It was a little unusual; they had never taken on a project that wasn’t human focused before, but the rest of the board approved it.
PAWS Chicago didn’t have a national outreach, so they thought of Maddie’s Fund, a family foundation established in 1999 to help fund the creation of a No Kill nation. The Ad Council also wanted to have an organization that worked with a greater number of shelters, and selected HSUS as a partner because they have a huge network. With our funding and their network and the Ad Council’s expertise and Draftfcb’s creative talent, it was clear we would have a great partnership.
Just to keep this straight: This wasn’t HSUS’s idea at all, and HSUS was the last one to the party. You might not guess that from the press releases that HSUS puts out.
So what exactly has HSUS done? The ads were made by Draftfcb. The Ad Council specializes in getting donated airtime for PSAs. Maddie’s Fund refers to donating “our funding”--$1.8 million over 4 years, to be precise. (The Ad Council charges about $2.5-3 million for a three-year national campaign. Assuming that's the case here, is HSUS paying the remainder? We can't tell. But it still wouldn't equal what Maddie's Fund is chipping in.)
Maddie’s Fund says HSUS donated “their network,” apparently referring to HSUS’s knowledge of pet shelters. You’d think Petfinder could have helped out in a similar way. (In fact, Petfinder is the basis for the Shelter Pet Project’s website search engine.) Petfinder is certainly less controversial—there are plenty of good folks in the sheltering and rescue community who don’t have the highest opinion of HSUS.
Meanwhile, HSUS is saying things like “We launched the Shelter Pet Project with Maddie’s Fund and the Ad Council.” Isn’t it the other way around? They launched it, and HSUS was a bit of a “me too”?
We’ll just leave you with this quote from the late Cleveland Amory, a former HSUS board member a while back who left to found the anti-hunting Fund for Animals, where a young Wayne Pacelle cut his teeth before moving to HSUS:
“I’m not an admirer of HSUS. They’ve always been primarily a direct-mail operation, and what’s known in animal rights circles as a credit-grabber.”
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:
“HSUS donated *their network*” - really? Go back to “Here’s how the head of Maddie’s Fund described the origin of the campaign: ... The Ad Council also wanted to have an organization that worked with a greater number of shelters, and selected HSUS as a partner because they have a huge network. With our funding and their network and the Ad Council’s expertise and Draftfcb’s creative talent, it was clear we would have a great partnership.”
Read again: “The Ad Council…selected HSUS as a partner because they have a huge network.” I think the “huge network” HSUS was perceived to have is all those legitimate and mostly effective community pet shelters that have “humane society” in their names. You know, the ones HSUS cloaks itself in as part of the disguise to gull millions of donors into sending money they think will be used to take care of the suffering dogs and cats shown in the majority of HSUS’s solicitations.
HSUS had no “network” to donate, just the carefully cultivated illusion of one.
I would like to assume that by the time The Shelter Project was underway, both Maddie’s Fund and the Ad Council were aware that HSUS is not in the pet sheltering biz—but what the heck, as long as the public perceives that they are, they appear to be a plausible partner. You know, “the umbrella group that distributes our donations to the local humane societies.”
By the time The Shelter Project was formally launched, Humane Watch had begun shining its light under the bed where many of us already knew the monster lurks, so HSUS had to back-pedal in earnest with a second verse: We never claimed we operate or finance pet shelters. Technically true, of course—but tell me again what the value of a picture is?
Of course, the community shelters have become beneficiaries of The Shelter Project by virtue of the public’s increase in purchasing their pets from local non-profits. Naturally, HSUS basks in the glory and for all we know it will soon be counting those sales in its “direct care of animals” inventory. Sort of like counting the spay/neuter procedures performed where HSUS provides some flyers to promote the campaign and the local shelter performs the work. And counting the “rescue” raids where HSUS arranges the media coverage and beams for the camera (in spotless shirts), and leaves the confiscated animals for the local shelter to provide for.
As to the possibility that HSUS is actually financing part of the cost of The Shelter Project: we know you’ll be on the lookout for that grant when their next 990 is available, and you’ll be sure to let us know.