BOOKS: Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organizations & Humane University

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organizations
Edited by Julie Miller Dowling

Humane University (c/o Humane Society of the U.S., 2100 L St. NW,
Washington, DC 20037), 2005. 184 pages, paperback. $44.95.

Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organizations is the second in a
Humane University how-to series that began with Volunteer Management
for Animal Care Organizations, by Betsy McFarland. Much of
Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organizations overlaps and closely
parallels the fundraising information included in the ANIMAL PEOPLE
handbook Fundraising & Accountability for Animal Protection
Charities, available in PDF format free for downloading at
<www.animalpeoplenews.com>, under “important materials.”
Thus in reviewing Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organizations
for the ANIMAL PEOPLE audience, the $44.95 question is whether the
HSUS take on the topic offers enough additional information to be
worth the cost.
The answer is probably yes for U.S.-based organizations that
already raise more than $100,000 per year, but no for smaller
organizations and those based abroad.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE handbook, albeit shorter, includes more
information about simple, basic approaches to fundraising that any
organization, anywhere, can use right away.

Both handbooks include approximately the same advice about
accountability and ethics, but the ANIMAL PEOPLE handbook describes
accountability procedures in terms applicable to any charity in any
nation. The advice in Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organizations
is contrastingly geared to the specific requirements of the U.S.
Internal Revenue Service.
Fund-Raising for Animal Care Organiz-ations does include much
more about finding, cultivating, and collecting contributions from
high donors. Some of this may be of potential value to foreign
charities, but much of it, for example a section about how to
establish a charitable remainder trust, is closely dependent upon
the quirks of U.S. tax law. Charitable remainder trusts and several
other longterm arrangements discussed in Fund-Raising for Animal Care
Organizations are not a big part of fundraising abroad because the
legislation that enables such relationships rarely has an equivalent
in other nations.
Chapter contributors to Fund-Raising for Animal Care
Organizations include Judith Calhoun of the Denver Dumb Friends
League, Vincent Connelly of Connelly & Associates Fund-raising LLC,
Caryn Ginsberg of the Priority Ventures Group, Christie Smith of the
Potter League for Animals, Alice Tracy of the Humane Society of the
U.S., and Karen Medicus, who formerly headed the Austin/Travis
County SPCA, and before that, the Humane Society of Greater Miami.
Her current project, Imagine Humane, is jointly sponsored by the
American SPCA and PetSmart Charities.