Donating a dollar "to help homeless pets" at Petco: Am I a fool?
shanabana said:
(Title shoudl read PETSMART< not PETCO...how do I change it?)
Go to the main forum listing and find your thread. There should be an "edit" link there (and on any threads you have started ... at least recently.) You can click that to make updates.
(No idea re the worthiness of the charity, but I tend to make donations directly to charities with which I am familiar (Furry Hearts is on my list in this regard) rather than via checkout at non-charity businesses.)
Well... I suppose it's obvious that 1 dollar won't save 1 pet's life for 1 extra day.
This isn't NJ but possibly a good example to draw from: http://www.hawaiianhumane.org/faq.htmland http://www.hawaiianhumane.org/sites/default/files/AwarenesstoHelpAnimals3.pdf
On a couple islands, the Hawaii Humane Society costs ~$7.5 million per year to do what they do.
They take in maybe ~500 new animals per week. In the PDF I linked, with extreme effort, they can pull off around 8,000 adoptions in a year. That works out to 18,000 animals put down every year in Hawaii, or about 350 euthanizations per week state-wide, more than 50 per day.
Keep in mind this is all in Hawaii.
Assuming 100% of your donation goes into a humane society's yearly budget, your $1 will split roughly 30/70 to help save 8,000 pets' lives that year, and end 18,000.
Depends. They have very low overhead since most of their fundraising effort is "can you donate a dollar?"
Then again, they sell pets, many of which end up in shelters. I guess you have to pick your battles.
The only time I donate to a cause through a separate business entity is when they are offering matching funds. If that's not the case, I prefer to donate directly to the charity.
I usually check GuideStar and Charity Navigator to find out whether a charity has a good record of helping. Here's info on Petsmart Charities. Seems legit. There are complaints, of course, but aren't there always. http://www.guidestar.org/profile/93-1140967
RobB said:
Depends. They have very low overhead since most of their fundraising effort is "can you donate a dollar?"
Then again, they sell pets, many of which end up in shelters. I guess you have to pick your battles.
Are you sure Petco/PetSmart sell pets? I've been in stores that have cats, but I believe that part of the store is operated by rescue groups and only contains rescue cats for adoption. I and anyone else involved in animal rescue would never knowingly shop at a store that sold pets for profit.
I see hamsters, gerbils, fish, and other varmints there for sale. Are those from breeders?
FilmCarp said:
I see hamsters, gerbils, fish, and other varmints there for sale. Are those from breeders?
That's true, but they rarely end up in shelters.
Sweetsnuggles said:
The only time I donate to a cause through a separate business entity is when they are offering matching funds. If that's not the case, I prefer to donate directly to the charity.
Sometimes I give.
But you have a point and made me think. Why should I give through a separate business entity if they don't match it? If they really care, shouldn't they match to some degree?
No more.
Last year we received an email from PetSmart stating the amount we donated that year which we then noted as a charitable deduction in our tax return.
kthnry said:
RobB said:
Depends. They have very low overhead since most of their fundraising effort is "can you donate a dollar?"
Then again, they sell pets, many of which end up in shelters. I guess you have to pick your battles.
Are you sure Petco/PetSmart sell pets? I've been in stores that have cats, but I believe that part of the store is operated by rescue groups and only contains rescue cats for adoption. I and anyone else involved in animal rescue would never knowingly shop at a store that sold pets for profit.
I have a contract with Petco to do cat adoptions there and the application was very thorough. Essay style questions about feeding, health care and adoption process. We have to be 501C3 to even be considered and they do not take a penny. As a matter of fact they periodically donate extra supplies. They also allow rescues to house a few cats on site.
At West Orange where I have been doing adoptions for years, they are very flexible and allow me to schedule extra adoption events last minute. They often help rescues from towns where no shelter exists, so we truly depend on them. 2 or 3 other groups go there and we try to schedule so that we do not compete with one another.
Petsmart has a stipulation that all cats or kittens must be spayed or neutered and that poses one problem for those of us who do not do infant spay. If we wait for them to be 5 lbs. or 5 months, it is much harder for us to get them homes. Many rescues are doing them at 21/2 lbs or months. I have rescue friends who are happy with that. The idea is to ensure that people will not forget to spay or postpone to the point that the cat gets pregnant.
That said, I hate the fact that they sell live animals.
Elle_Cee said:
I usually check GuideStar and Charity Navigator to find out whether a charity has a good record of helping. Here's info on Petsmart Charities. Seems legit. There are complaints, of course, but aren't there always. http://www.guidestar.org/profile/93-1140967
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=petsmart+charities&Submit2=Search&bay=search.results
Yes, I figured it's legit, to a degree. After I posted this thread I did find that site, and saw they are highly rated. However, this is likely because their overhead is shared with their for profit overhead, so whatever is extra goes mainly into the charity.
Will try again but when I clicked edit before it only came up as a message body edit box.
sac said:
shanabana said:
(Title shoudl read PETSMART< not PETCO...how do I change it?)
Go to the main forum listing and find your thread. There should be an "edit" link there (and on any threads you have started ... at least recently.) You can click that to make updates.
(No idea re the worthiness of the charity, but I tend to make donations directly to charities with which I am familiar (Furry Hearts is on my list in this regard) rather than via checkout at non-charity businesses.)
(Title shoudl read PETSMART< not PETCO...how do I change it?)
I kick myself whenever I choose to add a dollar to my bill when checking out there, as prompted by the card machine. But something in the air there causes me to do it nearly every time. If this is a scam, it's brilliant. I feel always have a nagging feeling that I've been duped because I suspect that PetSmart's charitable effort to house the homeless animals is a charitable thing, it is already a deduction off of their their corporate taxes, probably allows for other write-offs (like maybe on payroll, and on facilities). I bet they make a fine profit off of all that pet junk.
So my question is: Am I right that the corp tax "system" makes it a negligible expense if not a benefit for them to run in the first place? OR, am I a good perso-- one who can spare a buck onece a month--with my dollars going directly into a great cause that I woudl like to support anyway?