The HumaneWatch 50 Percent Pledge
HOW LONG HAVE WE WAITED?
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HumaneWatch has been watch-dogging the Humane Society of the United States since February 2010. Here’s just a little bit of what we’ve learned:
- HSUS shares only one percent of its budget with real “humane societies” and other hands-on pet shelters.
- Seventy-one percent of Americans believe HSUS is an umbrella group in charge of thousands of pet shelters, but that’s completely untrue.
- HSUS uses deceptive advertising to raise money from the public.
- The charity watchdog American Institute of Philanthropy gives HSUS a “D” grade.
- Six Members of Congress have called for a federal investigation of HSUS.
- If you’re in California and a telemarketer calls on behalf of HSUS, more than 88 percent of your donation will line the pockets of that professional dialing-for-dollars company.
- An Atlanta investigative news crew has reported that HSUS may have re-routed millions of “Hurricane Katrina” dollars into programs that its donors didn’t know they were supporting.
Put this all together, and it’s a story of fiscal mismanagement, financial misdirection, and duping the public.
But we believe everyone is redeemable, including HSUS. So here’s the Pledge in a nutshell: As soon as HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle commits to doing the right thing, we’ll shut this website down.
You read that right. If the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States will make a commitment to start sending just 50 percent of HSUS’s income to hands-on U.S. pet shelters, HumaneWatch will disappear for good.
That’s the challenge. That’s our pledge. And it’s non-negotiable.
The Humane Society of the United States gives less than 1 percent of Americans’ donations to underfunded pet shelters. One percent. Egad. That has to be embarrassing. If we have to put ourselves out of a job to turn it around, so be it. America’s pet shelters will reap countless millions of dollars, and our minor ad expenditures will seem like the smartest investment since Microsoft was $1 a share.
Go ahead, Wayne. Make us obsolete. We dare you. Commit to being a real humane society, just half of the time. We’ll fold up our laptops and bid HumaneWatch adieu.