Bershadker declined CBS News' request for an interview, but in response to questions posed to the nonprofit, the ASPCA's Senior Vice President of Communications Elizabeth Estroff wrote, "the ASPCA's CEO compensation is evaluated and benchmarked every year by an outside consultant." She also said it is based on policies and practices that are fully consistent with IRS regulations regarding "reasonable compensation" for nonprofits. That's more than the CEO's of Feeding America and the American Red Cross, charities that have a budget 10 times the size of the ASPCA. In 2019, the ASPCA's CEO Matt Bershadker made more than $840,000. The remainder, about 75 cents, was spent on management. Another $3.65 went toward membership development and other kinds of fundraising. This includes things that include appeals for donations like telemarketing and direct mailings. CBS News decided to look at how each $19 donation is being spent.Īccording to information from the organization's 2019 tax forms, $7.75 of each $19 donation went toward hands-on help with animals across the country, and $6.88 went toward public education, communication, policy, response and engagement.
In its commercials, the ASPCA says a $19 monthly gift could mean the difference between life and death for animals in danger. "If we just look at how much of the spending goes toward shelter and veterinary services, and toward grants to local humane societies, it's hovering around 40%." "The devil is in the details when one looks at spending," said Brian Mittendorf, the Fisher designated professor of accounting at The Ohio State University and a nonprofit tax expert. The nonprofit told CBS News it spends 77 cents of every dollar on its mission to rescue, protect and care for animals in need, which, in addition to hands-on services, includes expenditures on mission-related public education and engagement. "I don't know how they can put their head on a pillow at night," Rogers said, "knowing that there are so many animals out here that that money could be used for, for other things."Īccording to the nonprofit's tax returns, the ASPCA took in nearly $280 million in 2019. Over $150 million of that went to Eagle-Com Inc, a Canadian media production company, to produce and place ASPCA's ads. But during that same time period it spent nearly three times that, at least $421 million, on fundraising. In that time, it has spent $146 million, or about 7% of the total money raised, in grants to local animal welfare groups. Since 2008, the ASPCA has raised more than $2 billion for animal welfare. Most, like in Nassau County and Houston, had gotten nothing. A few had received grants worth a few thousand dollars from the ASPCA, which they had applied for. "I would challenge the fact that 84% of people know the difference when the fundraising tactics would lead you to believe that money given to the ASPCA trickles down into local organizations," said Patti Mercer, president and CEO of the Houston SPCA.ĬBS News spoke to more than two dozen local SPCA's across the country. What that survey did not ask was whether donors knew the difference between giving to the ASPCA and giving to other local SPCAs nationwide. According to its own 2017 survey, ASPCA said 84% of its donors also donated to a local animal charity. The ASPCA is not an umbrella organization for local organizations with SPCA in their names - a fact the ASPCA says donors know. "The major problems that most SPCAs have is that the ASPCA does not fund these agencies," Rogers told CBS News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod. About 40 miles away from the ASPCA's headquarters in Manhattan, Gary Rogers is the president of the Nassau County SPCA, a local charity that fosters animals, investigates abuse and rescues animals in danger. The ASPCA was established in 1866 by diplomat and animal welfare activist Henry Bergh in New York, where the organization still has its headquarters and offers the majority of its hands-on animal services, including sheltering, assisting with abuse investigations and spay/neuter surgeries. "We need our donors and the people in our community to know where their money is going." "It is frustrating on this side of the table to realize that a bulk of our time and our staff time is spent trying to explain the difference between national and local," Sullivan said.
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