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America has lost its favorite golden girl, but her death is creating a golden opportunity for the animal-related causes she championed.
Fans of actress and comedian Betty White, who died Dec. 31, are honoring her memory by donating money to nonprofits that help animals, White’s lifelong passion.
Monetary tributes appear to have started within hours of news of White’s death, and fans now hope to turn what would have been White’s 100th birthday into a fundraising bonanza for animal groups. A social media campaign called the Betty White Challenge is encouraging people to send $5 to a local animal rescue or shelter in White’s name on Jan. 17, when White would have turned 100.
When she wasn’t busy charming audiences on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and as St. Olaf’s own Rose Nylund on “The Golden Girls,” White was an active advocate for animals — not just cats and dogs, but sea creatures and apes, too. She was a trustee at the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, the Morris Animal Foundation and Actors and Others for Animals, and was a longtime supporter of The Marine Mammal Center, an ocean conservation nonprofit.
“Almost immediately following the press regarding her passing we started receiving donations,” said Susan Taylor, the executive director of Actors and Others for Animals, a North Hollywood, Calif., nonprofit that provides financial assistance for pet owners to spay or neuter their pets. As of Jan. 4, the group had received roughly $5,000 from more than 105 people donating in White’s name, Taylor said.
Betty White greets Sgt. Nevis, a sea lion who was a patient at The Marine Mammal Center’s hospital in Sausalito. White was a ‘loyal donor’ to the center for more than 30 years, a spokeswoman said.
The Marine Mammal Center
‘Betty always put the animals first’
At the Morris Animal Foundation, more than 850 individual donors gave close to $60,000 to the Betty White Wildlife Fund between Dec. 31 and Jan. 4, said chief marketing officer Carol Borchert. White established the fund in 2010, partly in response to the Deep Water Horizon oil spill’s harmful effects on marine life. White also sponsored more than 30 animal health studies “to improve the health of cats, dogs, horses and multiple species of wildlife, including California sea otters and mountain gorillas,” foundation officials said in a statement.
“Betty always put the animals first,” said Dr. Rob Hilsenroth, a former Morris Animal Foundation executive director and a longtime friend of White’s.
In the 1990s, White funded studies on pain management in animals, Hilsenroth said. “Today, if a veterinarian performs an elective surgery, like a spay or neuter without using pain management, she/he could face a malpractice charge. You can thank Betty White for that revolutionary change in the way we practice all phases of veterinary medicine today,” Hilsenroth said.
White “would always be there to help us when we needed to raise money for spay and neuter,” added Actors and Others for Animals president JoAnne Worley. In 2005, White allowed the group to host a celebrity roast of her as a fundraiser. “She will be missed by all who loved to laugh with her,” Worley said.
‘Anything with a leg on each corner’
White hosted a TV show called “The Pet Set” in the early 1970s, where celebrity guests would show off their pets. She wrote a book in the 1980s called “How Pets Take Care of Us,” and another book about zoos to raise money for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association.
Her love of animals originated from her family taking care of more than a dozen dogs during the Depression, she told the Associated Press, and she wrote in the zoo book that both of her parents were animal nuts who passed their love of critters on to her. White reportedly owned as many as 26 dogs herself. She loved “anything with a leg on each corner,” she told the AP.
Animal causes get the smallest share of charitable donations
Animal-related charities aren’t high on Americans’ list of charitable giving priorities, but have grown in popularity in recent years, according to Giving USA, an annual report on charitable giving. Americans gave $16.14 billion — the highest amount ever — to animal and environmental causes in 2020, the last year for which data was available.
Animal and environmental groups received an estimated 3% of all charitable donations — the smallest of the giving categories that Giving USA tracks. However, amounts going directly to animal causes are difficult to measure because Giving USA counts animal groups in the same category as environmental organizations. The top three recipients of charitable donations in the U.S. in 2020 were nonprofits related to religion, education and human services (or organizations that provide food and shelter to people in need).
See also: Greenpeace wants donors to take a cue from ‘Succession’ and embrace ‘spite philanthropy’
