"9 Things You Didn't Know About HSUS" is produced by the Center for Consumer Freedom. This version was last updated in January 2012.

This is the Form 990 (tax return) filed by the Humane Society of the United States for the tax year 2010. It was filed with the IRS on September 2, 2010. At 146 pages, this tax return covers most financial aspects of HSUS, and provides accounting details unavailable anywhere else.

According to this tax return, less than 1 percent of the HSUS budget in 2010 consisted of grants to real "humane societies" and other hands-on pet shelter groups in the United States.

Here are some other highlights:

• Total revenue: $148.7 million
• Total expenses: $126.4 million
• Net assets as of December 31, 2009: $187.5 million
• Fundraising expenses: $24.3 million
• Salaries and benefits: $36.2 million
• Pension contributions: $2.6 million
• Total grants to other groups: $5.3 million
• Grants to ballot-initiative political front groups: $1.75 million
• Funds passed through to the HSUS-affiliated "Humane Society International": $1.7 million

This is a copy of an April 29, 2011 letter that Wayne Pacelle sent to Steve McNall, board member of the State Humane Association of California (and president of the Pasadena Humane Society and SPCA).

Pacelle complains about handouts that SHAC board member Madeline Bernstein and SHAC executive director Erica Hughes circulated recently in the California statehouse that stated, in part:

How is SHAC different from HSUS and the ASPCA?...

ASPCA and HSUS are not umbrella, parent or sister organizations to local humane societies and SPCAs, contrary to the conclusion many reach based on the inclusion of “United States” in HSUS’s name and “American” in ASPCA’s name.

While ASPCA and HSUS may give individual shelters funding from time to time for particular projects, ASPCA and HSUS do not regularly fund California’s shelters and are not involved in their management or operations.

(Note: The State Humane Association of California is not the same as the "SHAC" group whose leaders were convicted in 2006 on federal terrorism charges.)

This is a letter from six U.S. Congressmen to Inspector General Eric Thorson. They write: "Over the past two years, [HSUS] has conducted substantial political activities within Missouri that brought into question its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status."

The Congressmen argue that lobbying is a "substantial" part of HSUS's operations, noting that "HSUS's own Financial Operations Report for 2009, attached as Exhibit C, shows that it spent $26,264,166 for 'Advocacy and public policy,' which is over 28% of its total non-overhead expenditures."

The Congressmen signing the letter are: Don Young (R-AK), Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), Sam Graves (R-MO), and Billy Long (R-MO).

This is a point-counterpoint article that appeared in the Fall 2003 edition of No Compromise, a now-defunct publication that described itself as “the militant, direct action publication of grassroots animal liberationists and their supporters.”

The two writers are Paul Shapiro and Kevin Kjonaas. Shapiro later became a campaign manger at the Humane Society of the United States. Kjonaas was later convicted on federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism charges and received a six-year prison sentence.

While Kjonaas advocated leveraging fear and trepidation against animal-rights targets, Shapiro argued in favor of using the mainstream media to promote their common agenda—which both agreed was “animal liberation.”

Shapiro wrote (emphasis added):

Like it or not, hundreds of millions of Americans consume mainstream media every day-along with animal products, as well … These are the very people who must change their eating habits in order for animal liberation to become possible.

While it would be great to wait for the public to start consuming independent media, to force animals to wait for their liberation until such a societal shift takes place is both unfair and unethical …

The only way we can fundamentally reduce the level of animal suffering is to reduce the number of animals people eat.

We believe reproducing this material constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

This is a sample of fundraising appeals sent by the Humane Society of the United States in 2009 and 2010.

Most of the appeals use language that is dog- and cat-centric, such as:

[T]he only way we can make these critical life-saving programs work and help save the lives of puppies and kittens in peril is with the continued support of our very best members such as you.

However, HSUS doesn't run a single pet shelter, is not affiliated with any local-level "humane societies," and shared less than 1 percent of its budget with pet shelters in 2009.

We believe reproducing this material constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

 This is the Form 990 tax return that the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust filed with the IRS for fiscal year 2003.  

Total revenue: $4,109,230

Total expenses: $3,740,704

Net assets and end of year: $2,699,112

 This is the Form 990 tax return that the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust filed with the IRS for fiscal year 2002.  

Total revenue: $3,934,632

Total expenses: $3,569,430

Net assets and end of year: $2,330,586

 This is the Form 990 tax return that the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust filed with the IRS for fiscal year 2001.  

Total revenue: $3,541,995

Total expenses: $3,392,486

Net assets and end of year: $1,965,384

 This is the Form 990 tax return that the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust filed with the IRS for fiscal year 2000.  

Total revenue: $4,751,650

Total expenses: $4,625,261

Net assets and end of year: $1,815,875

 This is the Form 990 tax return that the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust filed with the IRS for fiscal year 1999.  

Total revenue: $3,216,953

Total expenses: $3,207,985

Net assets and end of year: $1,673,743

 This is the Form 990 tax return that the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust filed with the IRS for fiscal year 1998.  

Total revenue: $3,527,415

Total expenses: $3,326,811

Net assets and end of year: $1,313,819

On this page are links to the federal income tax returns filed by the Global Animal Partnership (GAP) from its inception in 2005 through the end of 2009.

GAP was originally founded by Whole Foods Market as the "Animal Compassion Foundation." After a later name-change, it added Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle to its board and hired HSUS Vice President away to be its Executive Director.

Because GAP was organized as a "private foundation," it files a tax return (Form 990-PF) that discloses where its funding comes from. Through the end of 2009, Whole Foods contributed $1.42 million to GAP, amounting to 77 percent of all reported donations. (Most of the remainder came via a $380,000 contribution in 2009 sent through a "donor-advised fund" that masked the money's source.

In 2010 Whole Foods announced that it would begin implementing a 5-tier animal welfare rating system administered by GAP.

This archive contains materials related to the Humane Society of the United States, collected in the 1980s and ’90s by Harold D. Guither, an agriculture economics professor at the University of Illinois. Guither retired in 1995, and his papers are in the University of Illinois Archive.

Some of this material informed the writing of Guither’s 1998 book Animal Rights: History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement.

Below are links to, and summaries of, the major documents within each PDF. Because the files are large, we strongly suggest you save them to your hard drive before opening them, by right-clicking and selecting “Save Link As.”

Fundraising Material | Governance, Speeches, and Interviews | HSUS Publications | HSUS Catalogs | Miscellaneous Files | Assorted Oversize Papers

For a full listing of the documents, download this spreadsheet.

Fundraising Material

This file includes an HSUS calendar, holiday appeals, membership fundraising letters, requests for money in conjunction with specific issues, promos for HSUS’s VISA card, and a promo for HSUS’s pet “registration” service.

Governance, Speeches, and Interviews

This file includes the text of a speech that then-HSUS President John Hoyt gave to the California Farm Bureau Federation in 1990, Guither’s notes from an interview with Hoyt, year-end financial statements for 1991 and 1992, HSUS correspondence with Board nominees, and proposed amendments to HSUS’s bylaws.

HSUS Publications

This set includes catalogs of HSUS’s specialty items and audio/visual material, and “Close-Up Reports” for a variety of issues(such as animal research, ivory trade, whaling, and pet overpopulation).

HSUS Catalogs

This document is a collection of HSUS gift catalogs from 1998 and 1999. Products offered by HSUS include boxer shorts with dog prints, a cat floor mat, holiday cards, address labels, Sherpa bags, and dog bowls.

Miscellaneous Files

This set includes writings from former HSUS Vice President Michael W. Fox in the early 1980s, a 1991 article from The Animals’ Agenda magazine titled “HSUS in Hot Water Again,” and reports from HSUS’s North Central Regional Office (which covered Illinois, where Guither lived).

Assorted Oversize Papers

These larger handouts include a copy of a New York Times ad co-signed by HSUS titled “A Joint Resolution,” a separate New York Times ad from Animal Rights International, and an anti-meat handout from the Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM), which later changed its name to the Farm Animal Rights Movement.

We believe reproducing this material constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

This document is a December 2, 2010 campaign contributions report from the "Misourians for the Protection of Dogs" ballot committee, as filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

Since it was submitted nearly a month after the 2010 election (in which the committee's "Proposition B" was approved by a 3-percent margin), this report is likely the final assessment of donation levels for many contributors. Amounts listed next to each donor are "aggregate" amounts.

While this report is not exhaustive, it does show contribution totals for five notable animal organizaitons: