ASPCA Commercials
 

Time and time again viewers get bombarded with the ASPCA commercials with animals freezing and sad music playing while begging for money to warm the sad animal pictures on the television ad. I am an animal lover, but the ads go beyond absurdity. The deception is major.

What is the salary of the CEO of ASPCA? By Zippia Expert - Dec. 17, 2022 The salary of the CEO of ASPCA is $852,231 per year. They are also entitled to $276,00 in bonuses and benefits in the amount of $47,859.

What bothers me most is older folks get their heart strings pulled on to donate to a CEO that makes more than they might make in their entire lifetimes. Be aware if you donate to charities, check out the administration fees and expenses.

Know which CEOs are giving BMWs to their children with bows on them for Christmas and which one’s actually work for their charities prosperity.

Hmm. You are being too generous to ASPCA. Every year they must file IRS Form 900. Anyone can google it and see their financials. From their 2021 Form 900:

Contributions: $351 million
Salaries: $114 million
Fund raising expenses: $59 million

So 49% of the contribution are going to wages and fund raising expenses.

That dog you are donating to lives in a Miami mansion and has some retired Villagers as servants.

Kinda reminds you of how government works!!!!!

Except contributions to the ASPCA are VOLUNTARY:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

OP, I am glad you opened this conversation. We are animal lovers and my husband gets very emotional when they show these miserable ads. For years I have been telling him it's a basic scam to get money out of people like him. I think these despicable people find the most neglected dogs in the worst situations and use them on their ads so that people like my husband feel guilt.

Since you are not one of those people abusing the animals, you have no reason to feel guilty.

Always check Charity Navigator when you're thinking about donating to a charity.
Charity Ratings and Donor Resources | Charity Navigator

My mom used to donate thousands to dozens of "charities" every year, because she was put on a list after donating to a single "charity". Once they got her money the first time, they knew she was good for a lot more, and her name/address was sold to listing services.

"Oh but OBB daughter-dear, look, they sent me these greeting cards that they make by hand! The money is going to benefit children at St. Joseph's Indian School!"

No mom - it isn't. St. Joseph's is a tiny 200-student Catholic boarding school that gets around $51 million PER YEAR from donations. The children depicted in the letters you get don't exist, and the crappy cards you buy are mass-produced in another state in a big print-shop on sub-standard semi-matte card stock. The dream-catchers they give you are made in China.

These "save the puppies" and "save the poor Indians" and "save the starving kids in 3rd world countries" organizations are mostly what's known as "poverty porn." It is very carefully produced and created to tug on the heart strings of well-meaning but easily-fooled people.

If you want to really help unwanted animals, go to the local shelter and volunteer, or buy some pet food and save your newspapers and bring it all over to them. They need those never-read sections of the Daily sun to line the cages.

Couldn't agree more. OMG, did I just write that? :1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl: Maybe the world is coming to an end.

[QUOTE=OrangeBlossomBaby;2177739]Always check Charity Navigator when you're thinking about donating to a charity.
Charity Ratings and Donor Resources | Charity Navigator

Great post. A while back I wanted to get rid of some old bed linens and towels, all in pretty good condition. I mentioned it to a friend who told me about a Veterinary Clinic on Wedgwood Lane that takes in items such as that for rescue organizations.

Also a neighbor of mine had waterproof bed pads etc., left when her husband passed and she took them to this Clinic.

I find those ads nauseating and despicable. They make me want to starve a dog. (JUST KIDDING!)

We turn the channel promptly.

OR you can do what we did, and we now have 2 wonderful kittens from a shelter, and they now have 2 dedicated servants (cat owners will completely understand).

We mute all begging commercials.

Reminds me of a friend’s favorite saying:
Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.

Best advice ever for helping abandoned animals!

I just went on Charity Navigator and in less than 30 seconds signage popped up, asking me to donate to Them!

Another website you can use is "Guidestar". They also rate charities. I read a lot of Form 990's which is the annual required IRS reporting form. The Form 990 rarely includes enough useful information to evaluate a charity, but it does tell you how much money they receive and how much they pay in compensation to those who manage the charity. The problem with 501c3 charities is that there are thousands of them and they are very easy to set up. And, the IRS doesn't care how inefficient a charity operates as long as they provide some assistance to the approved mission. So, a charity can raise millions of dollars, but only spend a few hundred dollars on their mission. Another problem is that when a charity becomes popular, hundreds of new charities are created with a similar name which many people mistake for the original charity.

Great article. So many people get duped by these commercials

I always wondered why the cameraman and others filming the freezing animals don’t untie them and get them to safety. :) what a scam

I am tired of seeing the pathetic commercials of the poor Jewish holocaust survivors also

$19/mt for an animal…$11/mt for a Veteran

In UK the RSPCA has been taken over by political/social activists, mainly vegans, who sole aim is to ban all meat and animal products, hunting, fishing etc.
If a few sick/injured/stray/abused animals get rescued along the way, that is a bonus, but classed as a drain on funds.
Our support and donations stopped many years ago.
We only support local rescue centers now.

Me too. But, I wonder why people are allowed to make tax deductible donations to a private charity that, apparently, only benefits people who have no connection to the U.S., are not citizens, and have never been here.

Yep. Dogs and kids. Two foolproof ways to raise money. Unfortunately though a lot of that money gets misused.

Remember back in the 70s and 80s, and those TV commercials featuring kids looking to be about five or six, standing amidst a fair bit of squalor, staring into a camera while a disembodied voice assured us that "x" amount of money donated will feed l'il Rosita for a month? Where Rosita lived was never really revealed though it was assumed it was somewhere in Central or South America. Often the disembodied voice urged regular (monthly) donations, which would assure that Rosita, or whichever kid was assigned to the donor, would supply the donor with regular letters letting the donor know how much their money was helping, updates on their lives, etc. You could even get a framed picture of the kid you were funding.

There were legitimate charities doing this kind of thing. Save The Children for example was a reputable (though annoying) charity that actually did help. But there were knockoffs that didn't. One lookalike "charity", Feed The Children, ended up being investigated for fraud. There were others as well who were adept at separating gullible people from their money but not much else.

We try to donate directly rather than going through intermediaries. That way we KNOW that the money we're giving isn't going to fund some CEO's lavish life style but rather to the people and organization actually doing the work.

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Well said, though to be fair, that Charity Navigator gives the ASPCA an 83% rating and says that 75% of what is raised goes to help animals (well, that may include education which may or may not be accurate about the mistreatment of animals), 20% to fundraising, and just under 5% to administrative costs.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews gets a rating of 85% on Charity Navigator. It is a fact that many of the survivors of the holocaust are poor and without assistance would not survive.
They are dwindling in numbers The average age of these survivors is 85 yo.

Sorry you find it pathetic!

I have trouble with even the ones that charity navigator rates as "good". Take the "International Fellowship of Christians and Jews" ... Yael Eckstein makes almost $600,000 / year as CEO. She only wants $25 for a box of food for starving Jews in Russia ... now Ukraine. How many people are not eating due to the excess salary she draws from this charity. She can't survive on $200,000? The difference ($400,000) represents 16,000 people who gave $25 for a box of food ... all of which went into her pocket. No thank you.

My wife and I make it a point to help locally and personally. 100% of what we do or donate goes to the needy party. There is no middleman. That's how I sleep.

According to their 2020 Form 990, the president received compensation of almost one million dollars, and 12 other employees received between $250K and $400K each in compensation. And, the charity paid out about $65 million to independent contractors for "donor acquisition and engagement". By contrast, the Tunnel to Towers charity pays no compensation to any of their managers, including the president.

I agree. The president of the Wounded Warriors Project is a retired military officer, but he makes more money from the charity than any military officer has ever made in history. The president of the Tunnel to Towers charity receives no compensation at all. Both charities have a mission to assist disabled veterans.

Doesn't the Salvation Army have the lowest compensation for major charities?

Thanks for your post. CBS did a report on the ASPCA a couple of years ago. The organization spends a large percentage of donor's contributions on the TV commercials, along with bloated salaries for the CEO and other top officials. Local rescue organizations get little to no support from the national organization. The ASPCA is as bad/corrupt as the American Kennel Club, who is controlled by Puppy Mills. I give donations to local rescue facilities/non-profits.

Excellent post. Thank you.
The ASPCA sometimes is soliciting in The Villages, outside of Walmart & other places. Shameful.

Silly added thought, but why are they still using X-Mas song?!!

Why did they ever use a Christmas song? Idiotic, IMHO.

Now they have Edie Falco asking us for money, with her nearly crying voice "If there ever was a time, it's now" line. I liked her better as a drug addled nurse on HBO.

When the ads come on, I mute them and turn my attention elsewhere until they are over. I agree that more goes into salaries, expenses, advertising, etc. than for the animals' well-being.

The organization raises around $130 million per year. Her salary not only helps her and her husband support themselves and their four children in Illinois, but it also provides her with the means to travel around the world during crises to determine who needs what and where, and be that "hands on" CEO. That $25 for a box of food includes the cost of the food, the cost of the box, the cost of the delivery, the cost of the marketing to make sure that there are people donating another box next month...and yes, the cost of her salary. Which is pretty modest for the CEO of a major charity.

The president of Tunnel to Towers, Frank Siller, was in real estate, property management, and an entrepreneur, and made a fortune before turning his attention to the charity he founded. He doesn't need a salary from Tunnel to Towers, and so he doesn't take one.

There's also a man who founded a non-prof that I worked for, and he took no salary at all because he was independently wealthy and didn't need money. This was a passion of his, and he was retired from his career.

Some charities need their CEOs and Presidents to be full-time, and this is their career. The CEO of the American Cancer Society gets $700,000 and change in salary, and more compensation in a package that brings his income up to well over a million bucks a year. I don't see a problem with that. It's a drop in the bucket compared to how much they bring in.

According to Google, Frank Siller has a net worth of only one million dollars. He works fulltime on the Tunnel to Towers charity. Also, none of the people who manage the charity receive any compensation.

The ASPCA & the HUMANE MOVEMENT
 

I worked at an animal shelter x 20 years. FYI Humane societies depend on the continual walk ins, drop offs, volunteers and bleeding heart stories to perpetuate $$$$. In the 70s there was a movement for the Big $$ Ones like MSPCA, ASAPCA, HSUS, etc to mandate breeding only with a license. Fees for the licenses would pay for the kill. Cities and counties pay for the slaughter at tax payers expense while the breeders keep the supply going. The "Inhumane Societies" were against it cause they depend on the walk through and surrenders to make $$$$. There is no such thing as a major no kill. The "No Kills" follow the original San Fran guidelines which has multiple kill reasons. In other words, Humane Societies, Animal Control, Animal Services etc are basically slaughterhouses. The increase slaughter began after WW II when the AKC (American Killing Club) began pushing registrations. The AKC is a $$$ making organization. The more registered, the more $$$ is makes. They do not police AKC members unless its a news story.