Sep 14 2011
Sittin’ on a Two-Legged Stool
What’s one way you can be sure that HumaneWatch is having an impact in educating the public about the deception of the “Humane Society” of the United States? HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle just can’t seem to stop attacking us.
On his blog yesterday, Pacelle badmouths us for about 600 words. Don’t feel bad for us—sticks and stones, and all. It’s actually a good opportunity to show how thin the spin—and skin—is at HSUS.
What apparently set Pacelle off is a column penned by our executive director that appeared in The Daily Caller on Monday. In the piece, he details how the respected independent charity watchdog American Institute of Philanthropy recently gave HSUS (and other radical groups) poor marks based on how inefficiently they utilize donor money. HSUS got a “D” grade because AIP found that it spends as little as 49 percent of its budget on actual programs. The remainder goes toward HSUS’s massive pension plan, exorbitant fundraising costs, and so on. (And, of course, its actual program spending snubs pet shelters.)
Pacelle’s weak retort is that HSUS receives “high ratings from the best and most prominent watchdog groups in the sector, including Philanthropedia, the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, Great Nonprofits, and Charity Navigator.”
Is that the best he’s got? Let’s take a look at how frail it is.
Philanthropedia: This is nothing more than a subjective popularity contest influenced by animal rights activists. Not a credible measure.
BBB: The BBB’s 20-point checklist is very basic, so it doesn’t mean much that HSUS passes. However, it’s embarrassing that HSUS’s international arm, Humane Society International, currently fails to meet these 20 standards. Since Pacelle is a board member of HSI, he shouldn’t be so fast to crow about BBB ratings.
Charity Navigator: HSUS currently gets three stars (out of four) after Charity Navigator downgraded its rating of HSUS last year. As we wrote in April, however, Charity Navigator doesn’t do the same kind of in-depth analysis about “actual” fundraising and overhead costs that other watchdogs do. If it had better standards, we believe its rating of HSUS would actually be just two stars.
Great Nonprofits: Partnered with Charity Navigator, Great Nonprofits accepts user-generated reviews of charities. That’s not an objective measure—but regardless, HSUS doesn’t even get 3 out of 5 stars. We’ll also point out that the current top-of-the-stack review at Great Nonprofits is a 1-star rating of HSUS. We’d like to thank Pacelle for sending his readers to see this nice review.
Maybe Pacelle is so huffy because somebody dares to point out that the emperor has no clothes. We’re not worried, though—people are catching on. Our executive director’s column was the most read and most emailed piece at The Daily Caller on Monday morning. (The Daily Caller, by the way, gets 3.1 million hits a month.)
Feel free to read it for yourself and see what Pacelle is so upset about. We’ve got a lot more in store where that came from.
Comments
The BBB is a joke,there is a kennel inmy town that is a dump but she has a good rating because money talks
The skin is indeed thin over at H$US. Just last week, Mr. Pacelle published a blog titled “Special Interests and theit Brand of Snake Oil”, making this is SECOND tirade within one week. Just go see it for yourself:
http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2011/09/constrictor-snakes.html
What is perhaps the most ironic question of all to be asked, is that is the HSUS not a multi million $$ “special interest” itself? It is nothing short of hypocritical for Mr. Pacelle to be complaining of “special interests stifling
the system when his organization themselves are one. It clearly shows that Pacelle/H$US is losing ground, and cannot take the heat. Perhaps he should stay out of the kitchen. It is also ironic to note that the USARK was only formed as a result of HSUS’s lobbying activities. They as an organization are a monster of their own creation…
In the grand scheme of things, you know that when a tiny grassroots organization such as USARK, or United States Association of Reptile Keepers (which operates on only a postage stamp annual budget compared to Pacelle’s own $269,180 per year salary) is able to make the multi million $$$ org. blink multiple times, they must be making significant headway. H$US is “disturbed” and “confounded” by all of our efforts because the constrictor rulemaking has turned out NOT be the slam dunk victory for them they were hoping for. They have grossly underestimated the reptile nation, and it is now coming back to bite them!
It is evident that Wayne’s goal is to free all animals of human intervention or us. That is not a secret any longer. It is not that he cares about animals or humans either for that matter, he just thinks they should be “left alone” to exist on their own in their natural surroundings doing things natural to them. Bears in N. J. must think it is natural to go to people’s homes to eat. Remember Wayne did not want any bears hunted, now they are appearing at front doors to be fed.
Wayne Pacelle should be ashamed at how much he has cost the Untied States in jobs, livelihood and people’s lives, especially farmers, and has been the cause of many more animal deaths,in his march to a Utopian vegan world. Let’s not even talk about the ethics or moral “social science” he and his lobbying agency spin. It really has to be one of the biggest fleecings of the American public for a chairty organization - ever. Is it really a move to a “kinder world”? I think it is something much more sinister.
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I love animals and believe they should be treated humanely, but HSUS is WAY too far left for me. They aren’t using their money for the shelters just to attack agriculture @ promote veganism.