Where do PETA’s donation dollars go?

It’s common for charities to ask donors to exercise their giving spirit during the holidays. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sure does. They join several other nonprofits in asking supporters to give heavily and often as we transition from one year to another.

And…it works:

PETA’s 2010 donations totaled $33 million ($35 million if you add on merchandise sales and other revenue). So where did your money go last year? According to PETA’s 2010 annual report:

  • “A vegans make better lovers” campaign where PETA campaigners publicly made out on a bed on the streets of Nashville, TN.
  • Disruption of the Westminster dog show (Because animal lovers deserve to be targeted?)
  • A campaign comparing pregnant women to fattened sows to protest farmed meat
  • Dressing as a giant vanilla condom promote animal birth control in Beirut (Because Beirut has few other controversies to deal with currently)
  • PETA also says it has given over $843 thousand in grants to researchers looking at animal alternatives. Sounds good right? But one should do the math here. The amount is 2 percent of the money PETA spent last year. In comparison, they spent 17 percent of their money (your money) on fundraising to raise more money. In addition, research is expensive (sad but true)… An $800,000 split among several researchers as PETA has done…will not go far at all.
PETA’s questionable anti-farmed meat stunt

Other notable PETA investments in the past:

So how can you better spend your donation dollars? Why not support your local humane society so that they can directly care for animals or the ASPCA? Or of course you can keep paying for expensive and often sexist or offensive stunts …your decision

Regards

Jim

6 thoughts on “Where do PETA’s donation dollars go?”

  1. Oh come on! All these comments and no one mentioned that if PETA pulled the stunt with the naked woman in a cage in America their donations would go through the roof!

    Rather than supporting PETA who funnels tons of money to Animal Rights organizations and has that loon Ingrid Newkirk at the helm, I donate to the ASPCA who actually do on the ground work to relieve animal suffering and promote animal welfare. They don’t just talk about it and pull stupid publicity stunts.

  2. I don’t agree with all of PETA’s methods, but I really don’t see how most of their campaigns should concern ‘speaking of research’.

    ‘Speaking of research’, if this name is to be considered accurate, should have no concern with PETA’s campaigns regarding vegetarianism/veganism, and in fact, if you believe animal welfare is important, should support PETA’s sentiments on these issues (if not the methods used).

    Of course, if you feel PETA factually misrepresent areas of biomedical research, go ahead and criticise them *on these issues*. Otherwise it simply implies ‘Speaking of research’ is not a pro-animal testing campaign, but rather an anti-vegetarian campaign.

  3. PETA has been very successful in drawing attention to the ways in which industries abuse animals behind closed doors. It draws attention to the fact that the way people eat causes incalculable amounts of suffering and death.

    There’s a lot not to like about their sensationalism, but the preening over sexual objectification of women and minorities (?) is a red herring. Guerilla performance art in the tradition of the yippies is uncomfortable (the women in the rape cage (or is that just the gestation cage?) is a shocking image IT’S MEANT TO BE! That’s what we do to sows without even the slightest thought.

    Your “checks” are the standard smear campaign–what we call ad hominem arguments.(Alcohol fuelled celebrity bashes. . .. really? how many charities would survive that standard?)

    Insulting indigenous peoples by criticizing how they treat animals????? Really, I suppose we can’t criticize indigenous people’s other beliefs either.

    Killing dogs for no reason–well, yeah I’m with you on this one, and I wish PETA and HSUS etc would get on board with No Kill. But, don’t turn to local shelters to avoid the killing-they don’t just kill a few thousand animals each year, they kill in the neighborhood of 3-4 million animals. PETA and HSUS are on the wrong side of this one. But, somehow I doubt you can take the high-road on this one.

    Martosko is a corporate stooge paid by agribusiness to smear HSUS to undermine their very successful campaigns in bringing the states up to 1970’s humane husbandry standards. He’s a hack who uses half truths and misrepresentations as has been well documented on humanewatch.info.

    Stick to the issues, not the ad hominems and cheap misrepresentations.

  4. Oh, noes! You’re starting to sound like that hack Martosko over at Humanewatch. Sure you really want to take the low road here? I was under the impression you were at least trying to keep the conversation reasonable. Not like any of your readers are probably PETA contributors.

    “Disruption of the Westminster dog show (Because animal lovers deserve to be targeted?)”

    Uhhhh no, as you should have the mad research skills to be able to determine–they believe that the obsession with “purity” in our breeds, aside from being sorta creepy contributes to the overpopulation of pets and so the death of adoptable animals through euthanasia and their suffering in labs through surrender to class B dealers.

    “A campaign to urge Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to drop cow milk in favor of human milk (other than the yuck factor…. achieving what exactly?)”

    Well, pointing out that there is something “yucky” to use your technical term in drink milk from cows. Impregnating females and killing their male offspring in order to produce an unnecessary foodstuff is not particularly defensible (at least the research you’re defending here has some benefit in our society).

    Now, I’m no fan of many of PETA’s cheap campaign stunts, but they’ve done more to expose the sort of abuse that goes on behind closed doors than almost any other organization. Presumably that’s why you’ve borrowed the trashy attack tactics of Martosko. When the businesses start to feel it, they bring out the cheap attack dogs. Are you guys really going there?

    1. Once again, the irony is lost on you. This post points out the repeated examples of how PeTA uses the donations from its contributors to take the lowest road possible.

      Sexual objectification of women and minorities? Check.

      Supporting a Fred Phelps/Westboro Baptist Church style of protest, personal attack and harassment? Check.

      Killing countless dogs and cats for no purpose whatsoever? Check.

      Insulting indigenous people around the world whose cultural traditions involve raising animals for food and sustenance? Check.

      Throwing parties attended by countless celebrities who are far better known for alcohol-fueled nights in Vegas and spending immense amounts of money cavorting at the latest LA club? HUGE CHECK.

      Trying to ride as many sad examples of pop cultural mayhem (octomom?) and despair (the Holocaust, etc) as far as it will go? Sadly, also a check.

      It doesn’t matter whether you call someone a hack or not. What matters is when people stand up and call an attention-grabbing, laughable pillar of the animal rights ‘industry’ exactly what it is: a corporation that rakes in money off the backs of innocent dogs, cats, women and men who suffer while it parties the Hollywood nights away.

      So, PeTA, which is more important to you? Animal rights and welfare? Or booze, glitz and celebrities? I think that the average concerned citizen can draw their own conclusions.

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