Via Americans for Medical Progress comes word on Animal People‘s annual roundup of animal rights groups finances, which were down somewhat this year.
Of special interest is Animal People‘s focus on the The Foundation to Support Animal Protection which is little more than a front group set up to hide the financial ties between People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Physicians Committe for Responsible Medicine.
According to Animal People (emphasis added),
The Foundation to Support Animal Protection board consists of PETA cofounder and president Ingrid Newkirk PCRM founder and president Neal Barnard, MD, and Nadine Edles. The sole function of FASP, according to IRS Form 990 is to ‘Provide support to various charitable, educational and scientific organizations specified in the Corporation’s Certificate of Incorporation,’ identified as PETA, and four PETA subsidiaries, plus PCRM and the Washington (DC) Humane Society, which was granted $5,000 in 1999 but nothing since. In fiscal 2001 FSAP apparently continued as in past years to pay the mortgage on the PETA headquarters and lease the site to PETA; did mailings in the names of the beneficiaries; and granted $160,000 to PCRM, 55% of the total PCRM budget. The major purpose of FSAP appears to be to enable PETA and PCRM to evade public recognition of their relationship, the real extent of their direct mail expenditures, and the real extent and nature of their assets. If FSAP, PETA and PCRM were seen as a joint fundraising unit, as the existence and activities of FSAP indicate they should be, their total spending came to $18,846,016; their declared overhead was $5,194,418, 28% of budget. Their total assets were $10,471,309, 55% held by FSAP, including 58% of the cash and securities. The combined FSAP, PETA and PCRM payroll was $4.64 million, of which FSAP paid $1.3 million: 28%.
PETA and PCRM — dishonest, through and through.
Source:
AMP News Service Special Report: AR Finances. November 26, 2002.