HSUS absorbs Doris Day Animal League

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
WASHINGTON D.C.–The Humane Society of the U.S. on August 31,
2006 announced that it has absorbed the Doris Day Animal League by
merger, affirming nearly three months of speculation.
Founded in 1987 by actress Doris Day’s son Terry Melcher,
who died of cancer in November 2004, DDAL in 20 years never spent
less than half of its revenues on fundraising and administration,
cumulatively spent more than two-thirds of all the money it ever
raised on direct mail, and in the most recent fiscal year reported
on IRS Form 990 operated at a loss of more than $400,000, with
revenues of just over $2.5 million, raised from approximately
180,000 donors.
HSUS claims 9.5 million donors, with a 2006 budget of $103
million and 2005 revenues of $145 million.

But Sportsmen’s & Animal Owners Voting Alliance head Bob Kane
took the HSUS acquisition of DDAL seriously as a threat. “This
latest HSUS merger not only makes it the 1,000-pound gorilla in the
field of U.S. animal rights lobbying. It gains some very experienced
DDAL professionals,” Kane told SAOVA members on September 2.
HSUS publicist Rachel Querry credited DDAL with helping to
win “passage of bills to end the sale of videos that depict animal
cruelty such as fetish animal ‘crush’ videos, and to require the use
of alternatives to animal tests.”
DDAL “has strongly backed efforts,” Querry said, “to end
the slaughter of horses for human consumption, and to pass state
laws to regulate the sale of puppies, require counseling for animal
abusers, and add bittering agents to anti-freeze to protect children
and animals.”
DDAL executive director Holly Hazard and HSUS president Wayne
Pacelle have often worked together on projects, beginning in the
1980s.
“Hazard will become chief innovation officer at The HSUS,
where she will focus on new initiatives for HSUS’ Wild Neighbors and
Pets for Life programs and develop new business ventures,” Querry
continued. “DDAL legislative director Sara Amundson will become
executive director of the Humane Society Legislative Fund,” whose
president, Mike Markarian, was president of the Fund for Animals
before the Fund merged into HSUS in January 2005.