Best Friends Animal Society named 2019 Animal Welfare Nonprofit Brand of the Year
By Barbara Williamson
Best Friends Animal Society, the only national animal welfare organization based in Utah, has been named a Brand of the Year in the 2019 Harris Poll EquiTrend study. Measuring brands’ health over time, the EquiTrend Brand Equity Index comprises three factors — familiarity, quality, and purchase consideration — that result in a brand equity rating for each brand. Brands ranking highest in equity receive the Harris Poll EquiTrend “Brand of the Year” award for their respective categories.
“This is an extraordinary time in the animal welfare movement,” said Greta Palmer, chief brand and communications officer for Best Friends Animal Society. “For the first time on record, the total number of dogs and cats killed in America’s shelters for a given year has dropped below the one million mark — to about 800,000 for the 2017 calendar year and the national save rate rose from 70 percent to 77 percent. To once again be honored, to be named the animal welfare nonprofit most trusted/loved brand based on the 2019 Harris Poll EquiTrend Study, is especially meaningful.”
Established in 1984, Best Friends Animal Society has been leading efforts to end the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters. Best Friends has launched an initiative with rescue and shelter leaders from across the country to end the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters by 2025.
The goal is to save the nearly 2,200 dogs and cats who are killed in shelters every day just because they don’t have safe homes.
The initiative is founded on the principle that collaboration within animal welfare and is essential on the community level to achieving no-kill across the country. It challenges communities across the country to pursue policies and strategies that increase the number of animals adopted from shelters and decrease the number of animals entering shelters.
To reduce the number of animals killed in shelters, Best Friends advocates nationally to keep community cats safe, fight breed discrimination of pit-bull-terrier-like dogs, and end puppy mills while working to build and connect collaborative, community-based no-kill programs around the country.
In Utah, Best Friends has created a statewide coalition of animal rescue and shelter partners who together have already made Utah a no-kill state for dogs and are on the verge of doing the same for cats. In Los Angeles, Best Friends is leading No-Kill Los Angeles, a citywide initiative aimed at transforming the nation’s second largest and most diverse city into a no-kill community. In New York, Best Friends has established critical partnerships with local animal shelters and rescue organizations to help them pave the way for a no-kill community in New York City. In Atlanta, Best Friends has joined with dedicated local partners to help the metropolitan area reach and sustain no-kill. In Houston Best Friends is working collaboratively with city shelters, local animal welfare organizations and passionate individuals to save the lives of pets in shelters. In addition to regional programs in L.A., Utah, Atlanta, and New York, Best Friends maintains lifesaving partnerships with thousands of animal rescue organizations and animal shelters throughout the country — all of them working to help homeless pets and create no-kill communities where they live.
Network partners receive opportunities to participate in fundraising and adoption events, marketing help, expert resources, and more from Best Friends to help reduce the number of animals killed in their local shelters. Best Friends has more than 2,600 network partners in all 50 states. For more information, visit bestfriends.org.
