The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a collective of non-profit animal rights and welfare charities that attempts to fight animal abuse, protect animal rights, find safe homes for rescue animals, in addition to a variety of other different things. Pretty much any sane person can get behind what they fight and campaign for because we all love our pets and animals. There are many different branches of the SPCA at local, national, and international levels and they are probably the largest animal rights charity in the entire world with the SPCA International being the U.S. branch. Their various organizations and chapters are often backed and promoted by various politicians, celebrities, and VIP’s, and they argue that they fight the good fight for animals across the world. Well, at least that is what they say. Now they definitely do fight for animals and help animal shelters around the world, but the extent of which they do that might surprise you. The best way to find out how proactive a charity is, is to look at how they spend their money. In 2012, that is exactly what CNN and other reporters did, and their findings were very alarming.
Given the very nature of being a non-profit organization, it’s often very difficult to raise money to fund various programs and pay employees. SPCA International and other charities primarily rely on fundraising events and donors to raise money for their organizations. Pretty much every charity also uses a certain percentage of their donations to promote, market, and raise awareness for their organization, but the SPCA International went a little too far. In CNN’s 2012 investigations of the organization, they found that the SPCA International raised around $27 million dollars from fundraising events and donors. That’s a lot of cash, and surely that would be plenty of money to help many animals and shelters around the world right? However as it turns out, SPCA International used the vast majority of that money to pay for fundraising events, marketing campaigns, and to cover their costs of a direct-mail awareness campaign. Only a small fraction of that $27 million actually went to helping animals/fighting animal abuse. But the money trail and concerns didn’t stop there.
In 2010 it was found that the SPCA International owed around $8.4 million dollars to Quadriga Art LLC and their child-company Brickmill Marketing Services for various marketing efforts. Their IRS records again indicated that they spent the vast majority of their funds and donations on marketing campaigns. That’s a big issue, especially when you consider that they raised $14 million dollars that same year. That means that in 2010 alone, 60% of their funds were tied up to pay for marketing campaigns. It also gets even more troubling. Investigators also found that in 2010, only 0.5% (around $60,000 dollars) of their total funds were actually donated to animal shelters in the United States.
SPCA International was also found to misrepresent one of their programs called “Baghdad Pups”. This particular program set out to help U.S. troops bring back their war dogs or dogs that they owned during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The SPCA International propped this program up, however investigators found that only 3% ($450,000 dollars) of their funds raised in 2010 went towards this program. Unfortunately it just seems to get worse. The charity even admitted that of the 500 or so dogs that were rescued from Iraq and Afghanistan under that program that year, only 26 were actually service dogs. The rest were just random stray dogs that they plucked out of the streets.
These findings then raised questions about the managers of the SPCA International. Terri Crisp was brought onboard as a manager that oversaw the “Baghdad Pups” program, however her past is very troubling. Many questions and concerns were raised prior to her involvement with the SPCA International regarding her managerial skills and other issues. She used to head a California animal charity called Noah’s Wish, which was brought under scrutiny by the state of California in an investigation that looked into how their funds were being used. Again it turned out that this charity spent the majority of their funds to cover events and marketing campaigns, rather than being used to help animals in need. She would eventually reach a settlement with the state of California in 2007 and agreed to “not serve as an officer, director, or a manager for any non-profit organization for five years”. Yet just three years later she broke that agreement when the SPCA International brought her on board.
So as it would seem, the SPCA International is not all that it seems to be. From misappropriation of funds to having a shady team of managers, they certainly have quite a deal of issues on their hands. This should raise a lot of concerns over their organization and what they set out to do, and this isn’t a fringe case. Just look into the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer, as they also have very similar issues for example. We need more transparency and better managers in these major non-profit organizations, as it would seem that many of them abuse their power and often deceive the general public.
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