Feb 01 2011
The HSUS Thesaurus: “Member,” “Supporter,” or “Constituent”?
Even if Jimmy Carter was president the last time you made a contribution to the Humane Society of the United States, you may be surprised to learn that the animal rights group probably counts you among its vaunted “11 million members and constituents.”
Most organizations measure actual membership the way a health club or college alumni association would do it: If you’ve paid dues or donated money in the past 12 months, you’re a “member.” By that math, HSUS’s total membership number is barely 450,000.
But the animal rights group has a few creative accounting methods that inflate these numbers—by as much as 2,400 percent! This can be helpful when Wayne Pacelle, Mike Markarian, or other HSUS lobbyists try to persuade lawmakers to do their bidding. (More members translates to more "clout," even if it's manufactured with weasel words.)
Here’s a quick guide to HSUS “constituency” jargon and how the group hides how few Americans it actually represents.
We’ve published several articles to date about how HSUS artificially boosts its membership figures:
- February 2010: HSUS’s 2008 federal tax return showed that it only printed 420,000 copies of each issue of its “membership” magazine.
- July 2010: In a fundraising letter, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle writes that HSUS has “1,200,000” members, not 11 million.
- July 2010: Humane Society International, which survives largely on grants from HSUS, fictitiously claims to have “11 million supporters globally.”
- October 2010: An HSUS spokesperson tells a Missouri newspaper that the organization “has 300,000 members in the United States.” This is later edited online (with no notice of a correction) to reflect a ridiculous claim: that HSUS “has 300,000 members in the state.”
- October 2010: HSUS’s 2009 tax return shows that its membership magazine went to “more than 450,000” people.
- November 2010: HSUS’s Paul Shapiro claims (presumably with fingers crossed) that HSUS’s “11 million supporters across the U.S. ... are supporters that donate to the organization.”
- December 2010: Wayne Pacelle claims in a radio interview that his organization has “11 million members and active supporters”
We need a real HSUS expert to make sense of this and separate truth from fiction, right? Thankfully, HSUS has one on staff and he’s pretty open about what’s real and what’s not.
Geoff Handy is HSUS’s Vice President of Media and Online Communications. He’s a fundraising wizard, to put it mildly, which is why The Resource Alliance (a UK-based organization for professional fundraisers) invited him to deliver a keynote speech during its 2010 online Virtual Expo.
Here’s how Handy was billed on the program (emphasis added):
Beyond the myth of integrated fundraising: how we combine email, social media and telephones with our 1.3 million supporters
Handy’s "1.3 million" figure is a lot closer to Pacelle’s “1,200,000” number than to any of HSUS’s other propaganda. And he’s in a position to see the real numbers staring back at him from his laptop every morning.
Presuming Handy is right, what the heck is a “supporter” anyway? If HSUS had 1.3 million “members”—people who contribute annually—he would just say so.
We recently took note of a Chronicle of Philanthropy article (not available online, sadly) from 2007 in which a reporter described HSUS “supporters” as “people who have made at least one donation in the past three years.” If that’s HSUS’s working definition, the whole picture begins to make more sense.
Here’s what we think all the seemingly interchangeable membership vocabulary actually means:
- An HSUS member is someone who gave money in the most recent fiscal year. HSUS’s most recent tax return, which was signed under penalty of perjury, shows that there were about 450,000 of these in 2009.
- An HSUS supporter is someone who gave some money during the last three fiscal years. HSUS VP Geoff Handy says there are about 1.3 million of those. That probably means there’s a “base” of about 350,000 people who contribute enough annually ($25) to get the magazine, plus a larger group of people who are one-time or occasional donors of somewhere around $5 or $10. Perhaps they see one of HSUS’s many misleading ads and think this money goes to their local pet shelters.
- An HSUS constituent is anyone who has ever made a cash donation, signed an online petition, or interacted with the HSUS universe in any way that would add him or her to a mailing list. HSUS claims to have 11 million of these. We presume they’re all actually still alive, although it’s hard to imagine that HSUS has the means to completely scrub the deceased from its lists.
We’re left to wonder what the public would think if the National Association of Realtors claimed to have 180 million “members and constituents,” including everyone who’s ever used a realtor to buy or sell a home. Or if the National Education Association (a teachers union) used similar “constituent” language to suggest that it represents everyone in America who ever went to school.
Sound shady? Most Americans would heap scorn on anyone engaging in such shameless self-aggrandizement.
Ideally, Wayne Pacelle should just come clean and start promoting HSUS with a real, honest, and auditable total of the Americans his group actually represents on a year-to-year basis. Anything less is plainly dishonest.
But HSUS is already willing to divert 50 percent of the public’s contributions into more fundraising, and another 49 percent into something other than the pet shelters its donors think they’re supporting. Somehow, we’re not holding our breath on this one.
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Posted on 02/01/2011 at 11:57 AM by the HumaneWatch Team
The Best of HumaneWatch • Fundraising & Money • Gov't, Lobbying, Politics • (11) CommentsComments
hsus is offering a pet photo contest - send your cute photo in, then have people vote for it - which costs them a dollar per vote. I wonder if that would go towards being a “member” ? I got on hsus e-mail list by using their page to make a comment - I wonder if I am a member, gave no money tho.
Anna, I’m wondering the same thing. I attended the HSUS town hall meeting in Lincoln to monitor it and now I get HSUS spam email all the time!
Well, they can count one “member” less next year. I found out my 83 year old grandmother, who is a HUGE animal lover and living on a fixed income now, has been donating $10 a month to this group. I told her that they are actively working to bring down the reptile industry and make it illegal to own reptiles of all sorts in this nation. I also told her that they do NOT support pet shelters enough to be worth donating to—which is what she thought they did.
Grandma is now donating to the Humane Society of Baltimore County. A real group that does actual, valid work for animals in our community. It saddens me to know that HSUS will be crowing about her contributions, but I’m glad they will no longer be preying on her.
Earlier, I was a “winner” in a Humane Watch contest which selected postings would win a $100 donation made to the animal shelter of his/her choice.
I selected a local shelter known as “_________ County Humane Society.”
I have not heard from H$U$.
I am the luckiest person in the world. I should buy a Powerball ticket.
I wish legislators everywhere would ask HSUS representatives where the 11 million “membership” numbers come from, if for no other reason than to hear the answers.
How is that there is not some government regulation to address the “membership” numbers that non-profits most likely inflate when they refer to the supposed support they receive from the public? Maybe an enterprising citizen can start that legislative process to bring accountability and honesty to these declarations of participation so that the donating public and our government leaders can get a true sense of the “support” these organizations truly receive versus the inflated numbers they are undoubtedly proclaiming.
American Airlines has written a one-sided, poorly-researched article on Humane Society’s Wayne Pacelle. Did they not bother to check what Pacelle is truly about?
http://www.americanwaymag.com/wayne-pacelle-humane-society-of-the-united-states-leading-lobbyist-for-animal-welfare
It’s a shame, too, that the music and movie stars who do the commercials that sucker people into supporting HSUS either don’t know or don’t care that they are causing the caring American public to pour their hard earned money into the pockets of Wayne Pacelle and those of his ilk rather than actually helping animals as they thought they were. I stopped supporting them when I read on their own site that they were working on projects with PETA. Apparently they were used to receiving indignant phone calls cancelling memberships because the woman I talked didn’t seem too surprised. Her attempt to explain it away met on deaf ears.
Ilive in missouri and i own a kennel.we are the most restricted and regularated industry in any business.we are usda licensed,state licensed,we have a licensed vet (other than our regular vet that inspects us at least once a year sometime more they pull a surprise inspection.we have t keep shot records of every shot,we hav eto have regular vet checks,we have to pay for our regesteration papers,our kennels are cleaned everyday,fresh food everyday and fresh water at all times.our dogs are bathed each time before going to the vet,long haired dogs are sheared as needed,they have heat in winter and air cond” in summer.they have indoor runs and outdoor runs.out
also have a roof over them so that they are free to go out no matter the weather.it is a 365 day a year job,no vacations, no out of town family gatherings,me and my husband take care of the dogs alone,i am75 years old and this is the only way we can stay in our home,with having ins,on the house carand truck ,electric,gas bills,and food.we have to buuy insurance for our health coverage.we are on a fixed income and this is the only way we can survive.now we have added expenses
after prop b passed in are state by hsus.they have already put a lot of kennels out of business.
they called us “puppy mills"saying the dogs wasn’t being treated right.we have had this kennel for ten or twelve years and have only had two puppies die,that is because we take any of our dogs or puppies to the vet if there is anything wrong at all.this is not counting the regular vet visits.and the unlicensed dog breeders go right on doing what they have always done ,raise and sell dogs,doesan;t seem fair. rennie
Rennie, it’s really unfortunate that the good breeders, like you, are the ones that are being harrassed, and many forced to close after the passage of this bill. It does NOTHING to deal with the real problem, which is the unlicensed puppy mills. Now HSUS is back at it because the MO legislature voted to repeal parts of that bill.
They sure do know how to paint a pathetic picture so that those who know nothing of what the existing bill was all about and who trust that anything HSUS puts on the internet and on TV commercials, is true. Thankfully our state politicians did act to amend that law. The rest of our legislators need to do their homework and view anything HSUS, PETA or any of the other “animal rights” groups with a LOT of suspicion. They should be forced to ceasea their false advertising that bilks hundreds of thousands of animal loving people every year. And certainly the IRS should be doing a huge investigation on them. It’s amazing how slick Willies like Wayne Pacelle can get the people to believe that they are the only hope for these poor animals when they are essentially doing NOTHING to help the local animal welfare groups.
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I wonder if now that HSUS has my email address from signing up for their meeting in Nebraska, I am counted among one of the lucky 11 million “constituents”?