About Best Friends Animal Society

A better world through kindness to animals

Best Friends Animal Society is guided by a simple philosophy: kindness to animals builds a better world for all of us. In the late 1980s, when Best Friends was in its early days, roughly 17 million dogs and cats were being killed in shelters every year. Despite the commitment of shelter workers to the animal in their care, the conventional belief was that little could be done to lower that terrible number.

Best Friends' No More Homeless Pets campaign created a new vision: A grassroots effort to placedogs and cats who were considered "unadoptable" into good homes, and to reduce the number of  unwanted pets through effective spay and neuter programs.  Since then, the number of dogs and cats being destroyed in shelters has fallen to approximately 5 million a year.  There has been much progress,but there is still much more to do.

The next phase of this work – bringing the number down to essentially zero – will take more work and
some bold new initiatives.  Shelters are crowded with pit bulls, dogs abandoned after being bought from pet stores, stray cats rounded up on the streets and not looking their very best when they’re brought in, and other pets abandoned or neglected.

As the flagship of a grassroots network of people and organizations that care about animals, Best Friends continues to lead the way towards this future.  And that's why our purpose remains: A better world through kindness to animals. 

Our Mission

Madisons Foundation is dedicated to improving the quality and quantity of information available to parents of children with rare, life-threatening diseases, and to facilitating effective communication among parents, physicians and medical experts.

Our Values

Our core value is that information IS support. We believe helping parents make informed decisions can alleviate some of the frustration they inevitably experience when fighting for their children's lives.

Our Accomplishments

Madisons Foundation's most influential accomplishments lie in the areas of research and program development. We donate yearly to hospitals across the country to support research into rare pediatric diseases. We also facilitated a $200,000 donation to Emerging Therapies Initiative in Pediatric Oncology at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, which provides clinical trials for children. 

Our Connecting Parents program creates a personal network of support by connecting parents whose children have the same rare disease. As of January 2007, over 1,000 parents have joined the Connecting Parents database.

Our website is a free, online community with information for parents about rare, life-threatening diseases in children, and connections to other parents fighting the same diseases. The m-Power Rare Disease Database, updated by UCLA medical professionals, contains 522 entries and grows daily. 

Our Mission Statement

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 2 million members and supporters.

PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in the clothing trade, in laboratories, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds, and other "pests" as well as cruelty to domesticated animals.

PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

All About Peta

PETA was founded in 1980 and is dedicated to establishing and defending the rights of all animals. PETA operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment. PETA educates policymakers and the public about animal abuse and promotes kind treatment of animals. PETA is an international nonprofit charitable organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, with affiliates worldwide.

PETA believes that animals have rights and deserve to have their best interests taken into consideration, regardless of whether they are useful to humans. Like you, they are capable of suffering and have an interest in leading their own lives.

The very heart of all of PETA's actions is the idea that it is the right of all beings—human and nonhuman alike—to be free from harm. Our world is plagued with many serious problems, all of which deserve our attention. Cruelty to animals is one of them. We believe that all people should try to stop animal abuse whenever and wherever they can.

Since 1980, PETA has campaigned to establish a global society in which humans consider the needs of what Henry Beston, noted American writer and naturalist of the mid-20^th century, so beautifully called "the other animal nations." We uphold the rights of individual animals to be respected. For most, that means simply leaving them alone.

PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry.

In today's world of virtually unlimited choices, animal exploitation is simply unacceptable. We can eat better, educate ourselves better, clothe ourselves better, and entertain ourselves better without torturing and killing animals.

We have the power to spare animals excruciating pain by making better choices about the food we eat, the things we buy, and the activities we support.

About Us

The International Red Cross is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, race, sex, religious beliefs, class or political opinions.

The movement consists of several distinct organizations that are legally independent from each other, but are united within the movement through common basic principles, objectives, symbols, statutes and governing organs. The movement's parts are:

• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a private humanitarian institution founded in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, by Henry Dunant. Its 25-member committee has a unique authority under international humanitarian law to protect the life and dignity of the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. The ICRC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions (in 1917, 1944 and 1963).
• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was founded in 1919 and today it coordinates activities between the 186 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies within the Movement. On an international level, the Federation leads and organizes, in close cooperation with the National Societies, relief assistance missions responding to large-scale emergencies. The International Federation Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1963, the Federation (then known as the League of Red Cross Societies) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the ICRC.
• National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies exist in nearly every country in the world. Currently 186 National Societies are recognized by the ICRC and admitted as full members of the Federation. Each entity works in its home country according to the principles of international humanitarian law and the statutes of the international Movement. Depending on their specific circumstances and capacities, National Societies can take on additional humanitarian tasks that are not directly defined by international humanitarian law or the mandates of the international Movement. In many countries, they are tightly linked to the respective national health care system by providing emergency medical services.

Who are we?

Whatever It Takes is a unique artwork campaign launched by 21st Century Leaders Foundation, charity reg. no. 1061376.

We have gathered 660 leaders: royalty, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, business leaders, actors, musicians, artists, fashion designers, sportsmen and sportswomen and writers.

Many of the world's most celebrated public figures have put their names to our projects. By becoming 21st Century Leaders, these public figures are pledging to do ‘whatever it takes’ to address issues of the 21st Century.

We work with our leaders to assist and encourage a generation of influencers to take ownership, engage in positive action, raise awareness among their communities, and champion the solutions to poverty and environmental degradation.


Whatever It Takes

We are proud to introduce you to the Whatever It Takes collection, featuring ‘symbols of hope for the 21st Century’ drawn by leaders in the worlds of fashion, film, television, music and sport.

The signed artwork donated by each Leader is his or her original work, and has been donated for the exclusive use of the Whatever It Takes campaign which has so far raised over $3,000,000 for charitable projects worldwide.

Whatever It Takes supports 21st Century Leaders Foundation in its work for key global development causes including poverty alleviation, environmental conservation and the protection of children.

If you’d like to learn more about what we do, take a look at our causes.

ABOUT

YouthAIDS is an HIV/AIDS fundraising and awareness campaign of PSI targeting young people ages 15-24. The campaign began in 2001 with a small group of partners that were willing to take a chance and make a difference. Their commitment gave YouthAIDS the platform to save lives. It is because of them - corporations, celebrities, the media and individuals – that we have leveraged the power of media, pop culture, music, theatre and sports to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

YouthAIDS grew out of a passion to make the world a better place. YouthAIDS started in 2001 with a small group of partners that were will to take a chance and make a difference. Their commitment gave YouthAIDS the platform to save lives.

It is because of our partners — corporations, celebrities, the media and individuals — that YouthAIDS is now able to reach more than 600 million young people every year with lifesaving messages. Our work in more than 60 countries all over the globe exemplifies just how far we can - and need - to reach in communicating messages of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

As we look forward, we hope we can continue to count on your partnership and friendship. With more than 33 million people infected with HIV worldwide, it is critical that we all do what we can. With your help, YouthAIDS will continue to work with its parent organization PSI (Population Services International) to provide culturally relevant, innovative and sustainable programs, as well as necessary products and services to youth worldwide.

Kate Roberts