Who is Rich Avanzino?

Cruel pigeon spikes, the kind the SPCA use to lobby
against at municipal buildings and shopping centers,
now adorn its own entrance on 16th Street.
 

Late in 2009, I contacted the San Francisco SPCA’s Chairman of the Board, Catherine Brown, and requested a meeting with the Board of Directors to discuss the future of the organization in the wake of its downward spiral over the past decade. I was invited to speak to two Board members at a meeting on January 12, 2010. I accepted. The meeting was held at the San Francisco SPCA’s Pet Adoption Center.

Sadly, when I arrived at the San Francisco SPCA, I found no evidence of the pride the organization once had so clearly on display. Near the former 16th Street entrance were cruel pigeon spikes, the kind we used to lobby against as an organization. Ironically, the shopping center we pressured near the SPCA had replaced their spikes with coils. One of my last campaigns at the San Francisco SPCA back in 2000 was demanding that the center replace the spikes after a pigeon impaled herself, struggled to extricate herself, and impaled herself even more in front of horrified patrons. Maddie’s Pet Adoption Center included a broken men’s bathroom door which has been “repaired” in a haphazard manner with lots of tape, and had the overwhelming smell of urine in that bathroom, as well as significant splatter on the floor. The dog areas looked little better. While there is no denying that the “dog apartments” are well beyond the kennels of traditional shelters thanks to Richard Avanzino’s innovative design in the late 1990s, the floor throughout the dog rooms does not appear to have been re-surfaced or polished in years. Gone were the couches and home-like environments of the doggy apartments, replaced with traditional dog crates. The second floor, which was once used to rehabilitate and find homes for cats with behavior impediments, was empty.

Two days later, I delivered the following letter to Ms. Brown requesting a meeting with the full Board of Directors. When I did not receive a reply, I contacted Ms. Brown again on February 2. A day later, I received an e-mail declining the request.

In her February 3 email, Ms. Brown thanked me for my time, assured me they were as committed as ever to caring for animals, but telling me that they were too busy to meet with me. Because of my comments about Maddie’s Pet Adoption Center in the letter below, she also indicated that it was the morning and cleaning crews were still working. Having worked at, with, and consulted with the most successful shelters in the country including the San Francisco SPCA itself, I clearly understand the difference between daily cleaning and long-term neglect. In fact, having served in a variety of leadership capacities at the San Francisco SPCA, including the Director of Operations, the state of uncleanliness and disrepair would not have been tolerated at any time of the day.

I expressed my disappointment, but will leave the offer to meet with them open, indefinitely.

As a former executive level staff member of the San Francisco SPCA, I would like to thank you for giving me the courtesy of meeting to discuss the current problems at the agency, including abandonment of the No Kill mission, loss of public goodwill, inefficient operations, irrelevancy in the national No Kill movement, and financial hemorrhaging.

As I indicated in our meeting, I also appreciated the opportunity to be straightforward, as there was much to discuss, and little time: the 30 minutes required me not only to get to the point quickly, but to focus on major themes. The purpose of this letter is three-fold: to ensure that my concerns were clear, to flesh out the issues a little more deeply than the time allowed, and to make an additional request. I will start with the third.

I was asked only two questions after my presentation, both of which betrayed a lack of understanding both of the SPCA’s history and of the No Kill movement in general:

1. Who is Rich Avanzino?
2. How do you define No Kill?

Since these came from a member of the Board of Directors (BOD), I am appealing to you to allow me to address the entire BOD with a multi-media PowerPoint presentation on the No Kill movement in general, but more importantly, the San Francisco SPCA’s rich and significant history in that movement. I believe an understanding of the history of the SPCA is needed in order to place the concerns of the SPCA’s critics into appropriate context; and in order to make the most informed decisions about the organization’s future.

As I informed the small group who greeted me (two board members, one staff member, and the current President and Vice-President), I apologize for starting with a cliché, but one that is no less true because of it: The San Francisco SPCA is at crossroads. If the organization is going to fulfill its mission of saving animals from being killed in the City shelter, if it is going to recapture the public and media goodwill it has lost over the last several years, if it is going to rationalize operations, increase efficiencies in staff, reclaim a place in the national movement, bring in the needed donor dollars, and the most challenging, bring the hospital to profitability, it cannot continue on the path it has been under a series of disastrous leadership: Ed Sayres, Daniel Crain and Jan Smith.

To succeed in these crucial areas, the San Francisco SPCA needs to recapture its roots, rebuild a relationship with the rescue groups, volunteers, media and donors. As you know, I used to attend board meetings, first with Rich Avanzino and then with Ed Sayres. Ten years ago, I stood before the entire BOD and suggested that the BOD faced an important choice. At the time, thanks to San Francisco SPCA leadership under Avanzino, the City was the first and only municipality in the entire nation saving all healthy, homeless dogs and cats. I told the BOD that this would change, that the No Kill movement San Francisco sparked by that achievement would result in other communities achieving similar success, and in fact, we were actively involved in assisting other communities to do just that.

And while we encouraged that, and were working to make it happen, I also suggested both as a moral imperative (we owed it to the neediest homeless animals of San Francisco) and to retain our place as the leader of the No Kill movement, San Francisco needed to push ahead and make the same lifesaving guarantee to all sick, injured and traumatized animals who were medically and behaviorally treatable, as well as to all feral cats. I asked the BOD to embrace San Francisco becoming the first No Kill community in U.S. history.

I also suggested that while I agreed that the then-animal hospital on 16th Street needed significant capitalization, the pending plan to build a large specialty hospital would put a severe financial strain on the agency, and put pressure on existing programs, and that was a mistake. I also informed the BOD that using the MSPCA’s Angell Memorial Hospital as a model was also a mistake because that hospital had never been profitable. In fact, the MSPCA has been trying to sell it for many years, predictably with no buyers.

The BOD sided with Sayres. And the rest, to borrow another cliché, is history. I am sorry to say that I was right. For the animals, I wish it were otherwise. But the message I bring to you is not, “I told you so.” It is a plea not to make the same mistake again: to broaden the information at your disposal so that you can make good decisions based on all the facts. And, as evidenced by the questions posed to me by the representative of the BOD, the one area where the BOD currently lacks sufficient knowledge to act as responsible stewards and which the BOD owes it to all San Franciscans to properly educate itself, is in just how remarkable the last decade has been for the No Kill movement. It has truly been a decade of unparalleled and profound success. It is an awareness of this success in other communities by San Francisco animal lovers who were once the San Francisco SPCA’s strongest supporters and are now the agency’s harshest critics which motivates them. They see the big picture. And they know that the success of the No Kill movement nationally is a result of the San Francisco SPCA and what it once stood for. So, once again, permit me to share some history.

There was another time in the SPCA’s history, in the early to mid-1970s, when it was killing animals, had a poor relationship with the community including hostile media relations, and was in a financial free fall. It was a time the agency was referred to as a “bloodbath” for killing animals, and not surprisingly, it had a poor public image and was on the edge of declaring bankruptcy.

To save the agency, the BOD hired Richard Avanzino, hoping his lobbying history and business acumen would allow him to more successfully negotiate with the City over funding for animal control, which the SPCA operated under contract. While Avanzino was no more successful at that than his predecessors, Avanzino’s real gift was a passion for saving lives. And as Avanzino innovated, and pioneered a series of programs and services at the San Francisco SPCA, he had unparalleled success. In the end, that success sparked the national No Kill movement which has now taken the nation by storm. (The full history is described in my book, Redemption, a copy of which I provided attendees at our meeting and which all Board members should read.)

For over 20 years, Avanzino led the organization. For over 20 years under his leadership, the San Francisco SPCA was a beacon of hope because it was uncompromising in its embrace of the No Kill philosophy. During the 1990s, it was the crown jewel of the No Kill movement, beloved by San Franciscans, and supported widely. At one time, the organization had more members in surrounding communities than the local humane societies there did. This support manifested itself in tremendous financial support by donors. Or, as I described it in Redemption, “The pet loving public … supported the effort enthusiastically with hearts, homes, and wallets.”

Every year, the agency finished with revenue in excess of expenses. That is what makes Sayres and now Smith’s claim that the economy is to blame for revenue losses so facile. Avanzino achieved financial success even during times of economic downturn. Today, the most successful humane societies are increasing donations precisely because they have embraced No Kill and have the results to show for it. When humane societies speak the language of lifesaving and lead the charge in the community for No Kill, it inspires the public, which rewards such efforts with donor dollars. The loss of donor support at the San Francisco SPCA is due to the specific policies of SPCA leadership, not external economic factors.

I first met Avanzino when I was a law student at Stanford University. I went to work for him. During his tenure, I worked in various capacities: volunteer, consultant, intern, and staff member. I became part of his inner circle. After I left to pursue a legal career, and after he left to found and run Maddie’s Fund, I was hired by his successor, at Avanzino’s request, also in various capacities. I started as the Director of Law & Advocacy. But over time, Ed Sayres put me in charge of other departments (finance, human resources, hospital administration, community veterinary services, construction, and adoptions, among others) and gave me a succession of titles to go with it, culminating in both Vice-President and Director of Operations.

When Sayres took over, the SPCA was at the height of its success: it had the best rate of lifesaving in the country, it had roughly $40 million dollars in the bank, and it had programs that were the envy of the nation. Sadly, for the two years I worked under Sayres, I watched as he destroyed those successes, while I tried in vain to prevent the evisceration of programs and public good will that marked Sayres’ tenure. I watched the agency go from profitability to deficit spending, from visionary to traditional and regressive. And I watched it become enveloped in a series of scandals he forbade me from curtailing. When it became clear that I was fighting a losing battle, when my appeal to the BOD failed, I was left with no choice but to leave.

Following my tenure in San Francisco, I was hired as the Executive Director of the Tompkins County SPCA in upstate New York, an open admission animal control facility. I brought with me the programs and services pioneered in San Francisco, which I have since come to collectively call the “No Kill Equation.” And virtually overnight, I created the nation’s first No Kill community. That achievement should have been the San Francisco SPCA’s. It was low hanging fruit, the agency just had to reach out and take it. But Sayres and the BOD chose not to, lulled into a financial boondoggle by the siren song of Angel Memorial Hospital.

Since my tenure in New York, I have helped create No Kill communities across the country: From Reno, Nevada to Charlottesville, Virginia. In fact, No Kill communities now dot the American landscape, in Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Utah, and elsewhere. And so while the No Kill movement has achieved great success, things have gotten worse at the San Francisco SPCA. It rejected the movement it founded. And it has moved away from the programs which not only made it immensely popular and beloved, but made it one of the richest humane societies in the United States.

Tragically, the San Francisco SPCA’s biggest supporters—the volunteers, the rescue groups, the feral cat caretakers, and the media—are now the agency’s most vociferous critics. Their frustration is compounded by the knowledge that other communities have surpassed San Francisco, despite the 13-year head start. And they are angry that the SPCA has been reduced to fighting progressive legislation which would force it to do what shelters in other cities have done willingly, using the very model the San Francisco SPCA created.

The San Francisco SPCA has fallen behind, become irrelevant to the movement it sparked, is attacked in the media, enveloped in a financial tailspin of its own creation, and despised by those who should be the organization’s biggest cheerleaders. But all is not lost. While the honor of being the first No Kill community is taken, the San Francisco SPCA can still be the first major municipality to achieve No Kill. It can still lead. It can once again be great. The choice is yours.

The No Kill movement will continue to spread and become more successful. It is the future of sheltering in the U.S., the only legitimate and ethical standard by which every community and every shelter within those communities will be judged. Groups like the Humane Society of the United States, which once attacked San Francisco, are now using the language of No Kill and are being forced to embrace the philosophy pioneered in San Francisco.

I requested to meet this week to ask you to reclaim that leadership position. San Franciscans believed in what the San Francisco SPCA once was. And it is to the SPCA’s credit that they were taught not to accept less than what is possible and what the animals and they deserve. The San Francisco SPCA taught them to expect greatness. Deliver it again, and they will love you again. And you can reclaim your national stature, your local support, and financial profitability. But most of all, the animals dependant on you for their very lives will be saved. You can empty the City shelters of animals they have scheduled to be killed, as progressive No Kill shelters throughout the nation now do.

To do that, you must recruit someone with a passion for No Kill. You cannot hire another President like the last three. Don’t make the same mistake again. Your critics will not stop their fight for a No Kill San Francisco until you achieve it. The embrace and achievement of a No Kill nation is where the entire movement is headed. The public will accept nothing else, and you will never cease to be at odds with the San Francisco public until you embrace the inevitable. If you don’t find leadership that wants San Francisco to achieve No Kill and does achieve it, you are in for more trouble, not less. You will continue toward increasing financial turmoil and may be forced to sell off your assets, if you can find a buyer. Unequivocally and enthusiastically commit the San Francisco SPCA to achieve No Kill, hire a director who wants to make it a reality and you’ll save the animals; you’ll recapture media and public goodwill; you’ll rationalize operations; and, you’ll bring in more dollars.

If you do, and the President is allowed to bring in a team of equally dedicated, passionate, and capable managers, the sheltering operations will rationalize themselves and run efficiently. And then the President, with a hospital administrator, can focus on the hospital for two purposes: to bring it philosophically in line with the San Francisco SPCA’s larger No Kill mission; and to bring it to profitability.

For the time being, I am going to avoid full discussion of how disappointed I was visiting Maddie’s Pet Adoption Center after ten years and finding it dirty and in a state of disrepair. To delve into those issues would brand me as perpetually unsatisfied. But if you walked through and really looked for yourself, you would no doubt agree. Instead, let me close with the following.

Catherine, after my meeting, I thanked you for the opportunity to meet. You replied that, “We are always happy to hear from our critics.” You should know that I came as a friend of the organization. It is painful for me to watch what the San Francisco SPCA has become, rightfully described in a local magazine expose as “a shell of its former self.” It can be great again. For the animals and the animal loving people of San Francisco, I hope that it does so. And you will find me front and center, not as a critic, but as what I once was: its biggest cheerleader.  Recapture your No Kill roots now, because you won’t likely have such a clear opportunity like this again.

[Minor grammatical corrections were made from the original letter.]

Subscribe to articles from Nathan J. Winograd: If you would like to receive an e-mail when new articles are available from Nathan Winograd, click on the "subscribe" button at the top of the page.

If you like Nathan's articles, you'll love his books. Redemption is the most acclaimed book on animal shelters ever written and the winner of five national book awards. His new book, Irreconcilable Differences, is a collection of essays on animals, animal lovers, and the No Kill revolution.

Visit his bookstore by clicking here.

Comments must adhere to the terms and conditions of the comments policy.