They say that hindsight is always 20/20.
But sometimes, so is foresight.

When American Humane was founded in 1877 as the country’s first national humane organization, our vision was to build a better and kinder world for all. During the next 143 years, American Humane led the way in pioneering virtually every one of the humane protections we now take for granted. We created the first independently verifiable standards and programs to safeguard animals wherever and whenever they are in need. Still, there is much more to do.

Ten years ago, with a new administration, we undertook a Humane 2020 Visioning Project. More than 300 internal and external stakeholders participated in a deep-dive conversation about the future goals of American Humane and where we hoped to be in the year 2020. We developed a transformative agenda, focusing on pushing the frontiers of the humane movement and further extending our historic leadership where we could have the greatest impact.

I am pleased to report that as a result of this vision and agenda, American Humane’s reach has skyrocketed by 2,000 percent in just the past decade so that we now directly touch the lives of some one billion animals each year through our programs – more than any other humane group. We not only help twenty times as many animals as we did ten years ago but we developed new protections for millions more around the globe.

In the past year alone, American Humane was able to:

• Rescue, shelter, feed and care for 500,325 animals in disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, the Oklahoma floods and the Australian wildfires.
• Protect nearly 100,000 animal actors during 3,555 production days on film and television sets through our No Animals Were Harmed® program.
• Help ensure the welfare and humane treatment of nearly 400,000 remarkable and endangered species living in the world’s zoos, aquariums and conservation centers.
• Save the lives of veterans and animals by finding dogs in need of forever homes and training them as life-saving service dogs for veterans struggling to cope with Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury.
• Help ensure that nearly a billion farm animals have enough space, proper food, water, heating, cooling, lighting and other humane protections.

American Humane also has a long history of doing the most with the hard-earned charitable dollars with which we are entrusted. More than 91 cents
of every dollar spent goes directly into our lifechanging, life-saving programs to help the most vulnerable among us.

I think you will enjoy the heartwarming stories of caring, compassion and hope in our Impact Report. Thank you for making our 2020 vision of a better world come into ever sharper focus so we can fulfill the promise of helping even more animals in the years ahead.

With best wishes,

Robin R. Ganzert, Ph.D.
President and CEO
American Humane