When You Give to Us, Where Does Your Money Go?

Emily Fromm, Chief Development Officer

Once in a while someone will write to me and ask, “If I donate to you, how much of my money will go to actually helping pets?”

This is a question I’m always happy to answer, because it gives me a chance to show off the fact that the Petfinder Foundation does great work at very little administrative expense. It’s a question everyone should ask before giving to charity, and I’m going to tell you how to find the answer in our Form 990, the return we file each year with the IRS.

You can find our 990s from 2010 through 2014 on our Financials page.

On our 990 for 2014, go to p. 10, the Statement of Functional Expenses. Here’s where you can see how we spent our money in 2014. Our total expenses, at the bottom of column A, were $1,315,071. Of that total, $1,193,501, or 91%, went to program service expenses — that is, the programs that help homeless pets.

You’ll also see that we spent $51,037 (3.8%) on management and general expenses and $70,533 (5.4%) on fundraising. So …. is that good? Well, according to Charity Navigator, “the most efficient charities spend 75% or more of their budget on their programs and services and less than 25% on fundraising and administrative fees.” So with 91% of our budget going to programs and services, we are really efficient by the highest independent standards.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. We’ve been reviewed by the two major independent watchdog organizations: Charity Navigator (we have four out of four stars) and GuideStar (we have a Platinum Seal for Transparency).

One thing we don’t spend our money on: for-profit telemarketing firms. You may have read some of the recent exposés about these companies and the huge percentage of donors’ money that they keep for themselves.

If you ever receive a call from the Petfinder Foundation, I can promise you it will be from me or another member of our three-person staff. We never have, and never will, hire a telemarketing firm, nor do we purchase mailing lists.

Back to our programs and services. We give grants to the adoption groups that post their pets on Petfinder.com — i.e., the overwhelming majority of shelters and rescue groups in North America. Our grants are designed to help groups find homes for their adoptable pets, prepare for and recover from natural disasters, and become more sustainable.

An organization must apply for a grant in order to receive funds. Some of our grant programs include emergency medical, disaster recovery, vaccination, transport (moving pets from crowded shelters to regions where they are more likely to find homes) and Rescue U (volunteers renovate dilapidated or disaster-damaged shelters). We also give grants for care and feeding, spay/neuter and general operations.

But all our grants are designed with one ultimate goal in mind: preventing the euthanasia of adoptable pets. That means we do whatever it takes to help shelters and rescue groups keep the pets in their care physically and mentally healthy, and available to adopters who will give them loving forever homes.

Charitable giving is a great way to have an impact and receive a tax deduction. I hope this post has answered any questions you may have had about giving to us. If it hasn’t, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]. You can also learn more about us by exploring our website and following us on Facebook. Thank you for everything you do to help homeless pets!

Other resources:

Real Simple: What to Consider When Making Charitable Donations

Charity Navigator: Top 10 Best Practices of Savvy Donors

Charity Navigator: Evaluating Charities Not Currently Rated by Charity Navigator