Compared to pet-free households, research shows that pet owners are more likely to donate to animal charities. Why? Because they already share an emotional bond with an animal and are therefore softer targets for fundraising appeals featuring distressed cats and dogs. But do the very animal nonprofits that capitalize on this dynamic follow through for homeless pets?
Short answer: It depends.
Local pet shelters are certainly bright spots. These facilities and the volunteers who staff them are the unsung heroes fighting the homeless pet crisis. Local pets shelters operate on shoestring budgets and are often bursting at the seams with abandoned animals. Despite the adversity, millions of cats and dogs are safely housed, fed, and cared for at these community safe havens every year.
And shelters have a track record of success. In the 1970s, up to an estimated 20 million cats and dogs were put down every year. Now? That number has fallen by 95%.
But further progress is hitting a wall. Using budget size as a yardstick, well-run local pet shelters are small fish in the big animal philanthropy pond. Fundraising juggernauts like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and Humane World for Animals crowd out community nonprofits and absorb a big chunk of total donations. Eight-to-nine figure fundraising budgets are difficult to compete with.
Sadly, big dollars concentrated at the top don’t necessarily translate to aiding more pets at the bottom. As animal charities scale into bloated bureaucracies, the risk of mission drift grows. In the case of the ASPCA and Humane World, homeless cats and dogs are now taking a back seat to other priorities. It’s a strange contradiction I call the pet charity paradox.
Over the past decade, the fundraising operations for the ASPCA and Humane World exploded. Their combined budgets have increased by 90% since 2014 — now collecting more than $580 million a year. Despite the windfall, support for local pet shelters seems like an afterthought. According to their latest available tax returns, the organizations only give pennies on the dollar to local pet shelters as financial grants.
And despite what many Americans mistakenly believe, neither organization operates a national network of pet shelters. The ASPCA runs a lone adoption center in New York City and is not affiliated with local SPCAs, while Humane World operates zero pet shelters.
So where is the money going? Like big corporations, these large animal charities are increasingly concerned with protecting their own institutional longevity. To that end, they are sitting on cumulative assets worth upwards of $1 billion. The reserves may ensure the nonprofits — and their staff — are around for years to come but that’s cold comfort for animals suffering now.
According to Shelter Animals Count, nearly 600,000 cats and dogs were euthanized in 2025. Considering that it takes about $1,000 a year to house a homeless pet, those lives could have been saved with the ASPCA and Humane World’s rainy day funds.
The animal nonprofit ecosystem already enjoys American generosity in spades, but too much of it flows to sprawling philanthropies that suffer from the pet charity paradox. The most effective way to help homeless cats and dogs is to support local shelters. Donations belong where the paws are.
Sayres was president and CEO of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from 2003 to 2013.