American Humane Society Case Study

American Humane Society

1. What is the organization or group's website? www.americanhumane.org/ 2. What are the issues your organization or group is concerned with?

Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention
Fatherhood Initiative
Farm Animal Welfare
Stop Animal Abuse

3. What actions does your group take to try to influence policy and the public agenda?

The American Hunan Society hold a lot of fund raiser to provides help to battered children and animals and during these fund raisers they protest against all abuse towards children animals. Now in 2014 they even take it a step further, where they get the help from broadcasting stations. They get with the broadcasting stations and they put together episodes of some of the most watch television shows to demonstrate the importance of the cause.

4. Assess your group: What are its strengths and weaknesses? Back up what you say with specific examples demonstrating their effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness). Remember to find weaknesses of the group, you will likely need to research beyond the group’s main website.
Well after a lot of research I found that the biggest weakness of this organization is that it does not sponsor any of the local shelters, I was also surprised to learn that with all the money that they collect for different campaigns only a small percent of that money goes towards animal preventions and the rest is used for the overhead of the organization.
It seems kind of untrustworthy to me. So I can’t see how they are effectively benefiting the cause. This society use to also focus on the well-being of children, so since when is animal abuse more important than child abuse. As for their strengths, I really don’t support this organization, so the only strengths I see are their campaign tactics. They use a lot of TV broadcasting to play on the sympathy of the
public

5. Summarize two recent news articles from the organization or group in a paragraph. Be sure to look for news other than that on the group’s website, such as news articles in newspapers online.

June 14, 2014
American Humane Association, which for 137 years has been dedicated to the protection of the nation’s children and animals, has been named a “Top-Rated Charity” by the American Institute of Philanthropy’s Charity Watch, joining only a select few of the more than 600 charities monitored by the service.
July 11, 2014
American Humane Association applauds the United States Congress for its bipartisan passage of the Veterinary Medicine Mobility Act and urges President Barack Obama to sign this important bill into law. If made law, the bill would give America’s millions of pet owners even more choices in the veterinary care they provide for their animals by expanding the services and procedures that mobile veterinary clinics can provide.
Refer to: http://www.americanhumane.org/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/

Well taking a look at these two articles me point has been proven once again. The group was named Top-Rated Charity for its hard work for standing up against child and animal abuse. Yet, every campaign or article I run across only talks about what they’re doing for animals. Which I really find pointless, seeing as animals will attack people vs. a child who is defenseless. They feel like it was such an accomplishment to have a bill passed for more medical help for animals, that same effort could be used to fight for more health care assistants for children. There are a lot of parents out here that can’t afford health insurance for their children, and yet still don’t qualify for government assistants.