The Humane Society of the United States isn’t affiliated with local humane societies, doesn’t run any pet shelters, and only gives 1% of the money it raises to local pet shelters to help them care for animals, according to its tax returns. We’ve seen many local humane societies try to clear up this confusion—but they don’t have a marketing budget of $50 million like HSUS, so it’s a tall task. Just look at one incident in Oklahoma last week—a state where the attorney general has clashed with HSUS.
According to Fox25, solicitors were going door to door raising money under false pretenses, a situation that prompted the Central Oklahoma Humane Society to speak out:
There’s a warning about door-to-door solicitors. A person or people claiming to be with the Humane Society are collecting money under false pretenses, the Central Oklahoma Humane Society told FOX 25. […]
Solicitors said they were collecting money for a behavioral program to help make dogs and cats more adoptable.
A number of concerned citizens called the Central Oklahoma Humane Society—which is no surprise, since many people assume that it would be related to HSUS. It isn’t, but HSUS is happy to collect money from an unknowing public.
At the time of the original report, HSUS denied involvement. But its tune changed in a follow-up story, and a spokeswoman tried to blame improper training of the solicitors.
What’s troubling is that—once again—HSUS goes to the well by raising money with cats and dogs, even though HSUS is ultimately more concerned with a PETA-like agenda to stop the use of animals for food. It’s unclear what “behavioral program” the HSUS solicitors were claiming the money would support; HSUS doesn’t run a single pet shelter. We suspect a lot of money collected would simply go to paying the solicitors.
An increased amount of training won’t change the underlying problems with HSUS: Deceptive fundraising that preys on name confusion between HSUS and local humane societies that do good work.
