By now nearly everyone has seen poor emaciated dogs and other starving animals on ASPCA commercials.  Touches your heart don’t they? If you are like me you have an urge to grab your credit card and contribute what ever you can.  What If I told you that would be a mistake?  What if I told you that your money probably won’t go to feeding those starving animals.

CharityWatch, one of the most well respected charity watchdogs downgraded its grade of the ASPCA,  CharityWatch now gives the ASPCA a C minis grade. (By the way, the humane Society earned an even worst grade from CharityWatch – a D.)

Why? In part because either of those organizations give much of your hard earned contributions to fix the problems they claim they want to solve on their commercials. You may not realize that the national ASPCA is not associated with the local SPCA organizations that run local animal shelters. Worse yet, the ASPCA’s 2024 tax returns shows that only 2% of the ASPCA’s budget consisted of grants to animal shelters. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of pets are euthanized every year in shelters because they don’t have the resources to care for them until they are adopted.

So where do your contributions to the ASPCA go? More than half of the ASPCA’s budget goes to overhead and soliciting for contributions. A sizable amount is invested or collecting interest. ASPCA CEO Matt Bershadker makes $1.1 million a year in salary. More than 250 ASPCA employees made over $100,000 a year in compensation. While animals continue to suffer, the ASPCA has $500 million in assets, including $80 million in cash and savings and $330 million in investments, including $10.3 million in offshore accounts in the Caribbean.

Where does the rest of your ASPACA contribution go? The ASPCA has departed from its early history of solely focusing on the ethical treatment of animals. Now, it has joined the ranks of more fringe movements calling for animals to receive more rights and legal protection – including freeing them from ownership, disrupting agricultural supply chains, and keeping meat off peoples’ dinner plates.

In my opinion when the ASPCA runs commercials begging you to send them money to feed hungry animals they are committing the worst kind of fraud. If you haven yet contributed, I suggest that you don’t in the future. If you are already a monthly contributor, I suggest that you cancel.and ask for a refund. Take that money and give it instead to a local animal shelter where it will do the most good.

Cajun (Rick Guilbeau)