Animal lovers have many choices when it comes to donating their money. Finding a worthy humane group to donate to can be tricky. Donors want to be sure their money is going to worthy shelters that spend their money helping needy animals, not executive salaries and overhead costs. That is why Help Pet Shelters was founded. Help Pet Shelters is dedicated to supporting local pet shelters and educating donors on the bad apples: national groups with bloated overhead, such as the Humane Society of the United States.
Based on the name alone, donors may confuse the Humane Society of the United States with their local shelters. This large national group does not run a single pet shelter and gives only around 1% of the money it raises to local shelters. The summer 2020 rating report from CharityWatch gave the HSUS an unsatisfactory “D” grade. According to CharityWatch HSUS spends as much as 48% of its budget on overhead. For reference, most highly efficient charities are able to spend 25% or less on overhead. The ASPCA wasn’t much better, earning a “C” grade.
Help Pet Shelters is dedicated to a 95% promise, meaning 95% of all donations we receive go directly to shelters and animals in need. Since launching in 2019, Help Pet Shelters has donated over $30,000, 95% of what we’ve collected, to local shelters around the U.S. A group like HSUS might have to collect $3,000,000–and waste a lot of that on overhead–for local shelters to raise a similar amount.
These days, it’s important that money is well spent. And if you can’t make a monetary donation, you can also offer supplies or volunteer time to your local shelter.