1 Million Online Advocates for Animals
Our movement, historically, has been organized largely around animal rescue and shelter, with thousands of organizations grounded in communities to provide relief to animals in need. It's a necessary and critical component of the important work of animal protection.
But that diffuse structure is not the most effective way to turn around the biggest, most entrenched forms of institutionalized animal cruelty, such as factory farming, the fur trade, puppy mills, trophy hunting, animal fighting, and other large-scale abuses. These economic interests are generally committed to the status quo, and they do not easily submit to change within their industries.
Office dog Bella celebrating the Facebook news.
For that purpose, the animals need, more than anything, a big powerful group to attack the worst problems that animals face, pulling together scientists, lawyers, investigators, lobbyists, organizers, and others to drive social reform. There are billions of animals at risk from a variety of forms of large-scale or institutionalized cruelty, and we can't rescue our way out of these problems.
We need to exert collective pressure and to force change for the better for animals—whether in the realms of public policy, corporate reforms, or mass education. And we need to do so at all levels: local, regional, and national. This has been the driving vision of The HSUS since its formation.
It's our goal to organize an army of millions of members and supporters to carry on the battle for animals.
We are more than 11 million strong, in terms of members and constituents, and we are growing. In recent years, we've also invested in our social media outreach, since that's such an important platform to disseminate our message and update people in communities throughout the country. And yesterday, we celebrated a major milestone: our Facebook community has reached 1 million fans committed to animal protection. These 1 million people get updates about our work—from the rescues to the corporate campaigns to the policy work. It's a vibrant, constantly updated forum for people to comment, ask questions, sound off on our work, take action, and find more ways to get involved.
If you haven't already, please join our Facebook community by liking our page at www.facebook.com/humanesociety. The page is updated daily and is a great place to find the latest news about our victories as well as photos and stories about animals. We're celebrating our 1 million Facebook fans with a special slideshow of 1 million reasons we love our pets—you can check out the great photos submitted so far and upload your own here.
You can also follow our work on Twitter at twitter.com/HumaneSociety. Thanks for all your support and your action to help animals, whether it's through online communities like these or at your local level. The animals need a strong, powerful group to take on the biggest battles for our cause, and that’s what The HSUS aims to do every day.
