No-Kill or No Accountability? A Critique of Best Friends' 2024 National Impact Report

Behind the Narrative: How Best Friends' Report Raises Tough Questions About Transparency and Impact in Animal Welfare

The Best Friends Animal Society’s 2024 National Impact Report is a celebratory document marking four decades of efforts to reduce shelter euthanasia and achieve a no-kill nation by 2025. While the report highlights significant progress and ambitious initiatives, a deeper analysis reveals critical weaknesses that may have implications for donors and stakeholders.

The stakes are high: if donors and stakeholders are misled by overly optimistic narratives or diverted from supporting systemic solutions, like targeted spay/neuter initiatives, the broader no-kill movement risks stagnation. Ensuring organizations like Best Friends align their funding strategies with the long-term needs of animals and communities is not just a critique of one organization—it is a call for transparency and accountability across the entire field of animal welfare.

Reading Between the Lines: Unpacking Claims and Realities in BFAS' 2024 National Impact Report.

Key Weaknesses in the 2024 National Impact Report

Who’s Checking the Numbers?

The report’s claims of reducing euthanasia from 17 million in 1984 to 415,000 in 2023 are striking but lack independent validation, raising questions about attribution and accuracy. While this decline represents a monumental achievement for the animal welfare movement as a whole, the report provides no evidence directly linking Best Friends to this progress in a measurable or proportional way. Instead, the organization appears to have co-opted a broader societal trend driven by decades of collective efforts, particularly between 1990 and 2010, when spay/neuter programs were aggressively promoted nationwide, resulting in an 80% reduction in shelter euthanasia rates.

Notably absent from the report is any mention of spay/neuter programs—a cornerstone of sustainable no-kill efforts that contributed significantly to the dramatic decline in euthanasia during those two decades. Best Friends’ decision to deprioritize spay/neuter programs coincides with a troubling reversal of progress in recent years. By focusing primarily on adoption campaigns and transport initiatives, the organization has diverted attention from the proven solutions critical to achieving and maintaining no-kill status.

Without third-party audits or external evaluations, Best Friends’ reliance on self-reported data undermines its credibility. While the report highlights initiatives like adoption events and shelter mentoring programs, these strategies are widely implemented across the sector and are not unique to Best Friends. This lack of differentiation raises concerns that Best Friends may be overstating its role in the movement’s success.

Adoption Isn’t the Only Answer

Best Friends places overwhelming emphasis on adoption campaigns, such as the "Bring Love Home" initiative and high-volume adoption events, as the cornerstone of its strategy to achieve no-kill by 2025. While commendable, these efforts represent a narrow focus that oversimplifies the complex systemic challenges facing animal shelters.

Adoption campaigns address the symptoms of pet overpopulation but fail to tackle its root causes. The report does not discuss upstream solutions, such as spay/neuter programs, which are critical for reducing the number of animals entering shelters. Additionally, Best Friends’ reliance on adoption metrics creates a narrative that achieving no-kill is as simple as inspiring more families to adopt rather than purchase pets. While perpetuating a short-term, reactive approach may be good for fundraising, it actually exacerbates the problems faced by shelters in underfunded or rural areas.

Selective Success Stories

The report highlights transformative successes, such as the Brownsville Animal Regulation & Care Center’s save rate increase from 26% in 2022 to 90% in March 2024, presenting them as emblematic of Best Friends’ impact. However, the report does not detail the specific operational changes or resource investments that led to these outcomes, nor does it comment on this effort’s sustainability.

Furthermore, the broader systemic challenges faced by other underfunded shelters are not addressed, raising questions about whether such intensive interventions are scalable or sustainable across the country. This selective reporting creates an overly optimistic narrative that simplifies the complexities of achieving nationwide no-kill status.

While these success stories are compelling, they also serve as powerful fundraising tools. By focusing on isolated victories, the report crafts a narrative that bolsters donor confidence but sidesteps systemic challenges—such as shelter overpopulation and resource inequities—and overlooks fundamental solutions like spay/neuter programs that are essential for sustainable progress.

Ambitious Yet Unclear Timeline

The report’s goal of achieving no-kill nationwide by 2025 is ambitious but increasingly unrealistic given persistent disparities in lifesaving rates between urban and rural shelters. The report fails to provide a detailed roadmap for addressing these systemic inequities, leaving the timeline vaguely aspirational rather than actionable.

Financial Transparency Concerns

While the report mentions corporate partnerships and donor contributions, it lacks detailed financial disclosures about how funds are allocated across programs. Donors are left without a clear understanding of how their contributions translate into measurable impact. This lack of transparency raises questions about why resources are being directed toward high-visibility campaigns instead of proven solutions like spay/neuter programs.

To address these concerns and build donor trust, Best Friends should consider commissioning an independent financial audit. Such an audit would provide stakeholders with a clear, unbiased view of how funds are utilized and whether they align with the organization’s stated mission. Without this level of accountability, donors may struggle to assess whether their contributions are truly driving systemic change or simply supporting organizational overhead and marketing initiatives.

Branding Over Substance

Critics of Best Friends have long argued that the organization operates primarily as a marketing agency, with its brand serving as the primary beneficiary of its efforts. The heavy focus on promoting high-visibility campaigns and success stories appears aimed at bolstering fundraising rather than addressing systemic challenges in animal shelters. This marketing-first approach raises concerns about whether the organization’s strategies are designed for long-term impact or immediate financial gain.

Implications of the 2024 National Impact Report for Donors and Stakeholders

Best Friends’ 2024 National Impact Report exemplifies a larger challenge within the no-kill movement: balancing visibility and fundraising with meaningful, systemic change. While its narrative inspires hope and donor confidence, it does so by oversimplifying complex challenges and overemphasizing short-term strategies at the expense of proven long-term solutions like spay/neuter programs and targeted support for underfunded shelters—both essential for achieving sustainable progress.

Moreover, the report raises questions about Best Friends’ actual role in many of the successes it highlights. While the organization claims credit for transformative outcomes, such as decreased euthanasia rates nationally, it often fails to provide clear evidence of its specific contributions versus those of local shelter staff, community efforts, or other partners. This lack of clarity undermines trust and makes it difficult for donors and stakeholders to assess whether their support is driving meaningful, systemic change or simply amplifying high-visibility narratives.

Achieving a no-kill nation demands more than compelling stories and ambitious timelines—it requires transparency, collaboration, and accountability from national organizations like Best Friends and local shelters alike. Without these elements, even well-intentioned efforts risk stagnating progress and eroding trust within the animal welfare community. The promise of saving them all will remain an unfulfilled ideal unless organizations like Best Friends take accountability for their role in driving systemic change. They must ensure their funding strategies are transparently aligned with long-term solutions that address root causes and deliver sustainable outcomes.

Call to Action

Donors play a critical role in shaping the priorities of organizations like Best Friends. By leveraging our financial contributions, donors can demand transparency and accountability. Specifically, Animal Politics calls on all donors to withhold or condition their donations until these national organizations publicly explain:

1. Why they deprioritized spay/neuter programs, despite decades of evidence showing that these initiatives are the most effective and cost-efficient way to prevent shelter overcrowding and euthanasia.

2. What alternative strategies they are pursuing to address pet overpopulation and how they measure success.

3. How donor funds are being allocated, particularly in light of the growing emphasis on "access-to-care" models that often exclude direct spay/neuter services.

This call to action is not about undermining the important work these organizations do but about ensuring that their strategies align with the proven solutions needed to end pet overpopulation. Donors have the power to influence these priorities, but only if they demand answers and accountability.

By withholding donations or earmarking them specifically for spay/neuter initiatives, donors can send a clear message: prevention is non-negotiable. Without it, the dream of a no-kill nation will remain out of reach.

Ed Boks is a former Executive Director of the New York City, Los Angeles, and Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Departments, and a former Board Director of the National Animal Control Association. His work has been published in the LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Real Clear Policy, Sentient Media, and now on Animal Politics with Ed Boks.