Posted: 04.07.2010

Charity Navigator, probably the best-known nonprofit watchdog, grades organizations on how well they spend their money. Tuesday Charity Navigator downgraded HSUS’s rating from "four stars" to just three.

Previously, HSUS had a score of 62.61. It's now just 51.57, a decline of 17 percent. And there's more.

The updated ratings show that HSUS’s “fundraising efficiency”—got significantly worse in 2008. While Charity Navigator shows that HSUS spent 13 cents to raise every dollar in 2007, that number more than doubled in 2008 to 27 cents.

Additionally, Charity Navigator writes that the percentage of money HSUS spends on fundraising (as an overall percentage of its budget) nearly doubled between 2007 and 2008, from 12.7 percent to 24.2 percent. In contrast, the percentage that HSUS spends on its programs also decreased by 11 percentage points.

Charity Navigator also downgraded the rating of Humane Society International (HSUS's global arm) from 3 stars (see the Google cache) to just 1 star this morning.

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