State of The HSUS
From the look of our server logs, thousands tens of thousands of you are finding this blog for the first time as a result of the five-billboard installation we have up in Times Square.
For you folks, then, a little introduction is in order.
HumaneWatch is a project of the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom. Its mission is to “keep a watchful eye on the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), an animal rights group that raises around $100 million every year from Americans who (by and large) wrongly believe they’re donating to “humane societies” and other pet shelters in their communities.
Why pay so much attention to HSUS? Because no one else is doing it.
By definition, any organization that has a nine-figure budget and $160 million in assets needs a watchdog to keep it honest. At least that’s our belief. (Heck—our budget is only about 2 or 3 percent of HSUS’s, and some activists who don't appreciate good research have focused plenty of attention on us. Fair is fair.)
How did an organization whose goals are aligned with PETA’s manage to persuade so many Americans that it’s a pet-shelter umbrella group? Part of it is due to name confusion, and the rest is sleight-of-hand.
If you’re as interested in this subject as we are, you might want to browse our quarterly collections [ Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 ] of the most popular HumaneWatch articles from 2010. Some of this material might lead you to the HumaneWatch Document Library, where we host copies of important reports, financial documents, correspondence, and anything else in our files that serves as evidence for what we write. (Although we have no Missourians on staff, we follow a “show me, don’t tell me” philosophy.)
We also have a “Best of HumaneWatch” category that’s reserved for the most important discoveries our research team has made. It’s another good place to start.
And lastly, there are two handouts every budding HumaneWatcher should have: “7 Things You Didn’t Know About HSUS” and “Understanding HSUS.” These materials, along with reprints of all of our advertisements, are free to download and distribute. Please help us spread the word.
If you find this website interesting, please join our community on Facebook—it’s a thriving group of more than 217,000 animal lovers (and counting…) who want to make sure their charitable donations, and those of their neighbors, go where they’ll do the most good.
HumaneWatch is not a fundraising organization. (Your local pet shelter needs your money more than we do.) But if you want to contribute toward the installation of more billboards like these, here's a secure page where you can donate.
