The stated mission of the Kindness Ranch Animal Sanctuary is “to provide a sanctuary and place of rehabilitation for animals who have been used in laboratory research while fostering compassion for all animals.” CharityWatch ultimately assigned Kindness Ranch a rating of “?,” which indicates that we have specific concerns about the charity’s financial reporting.

CharityWatch analyzed the 2023 IRS tax Form 990 of Kindness Ranch and immediately noted that the charity, which reports taking in $1.9 million in public contributions that year, did not have an audit of its financial statements conducted for its 2023 reporting year. This means that Kindness Ranch fails CharityWatch’s Transparency benchmark. The lack of an independent audit is a red flag for a few additional reasons:

*Charity tax Forms 990 are not audited. Charities that fail to have an audit of their financial statements conducted annually put the public in a position to trust that what the charity is reporting about itself in its tax filings is accurate, consistent, comparable, and complete, which is often not the case.

*It is unusual for a charity of this size to not have an audit of its finances conducted annually. Charities of this size and within this cause area are more likely to solicit donations nationally. If they do so, they are required to be registered in about 41 jurisdictions throughout the United States, with about half of these states requiring a charity to submit a copy of its audited financial statements annually as a condition of being allowed to solicit donations within those states’ borders.

*Kindness Ranch Animal Sanctuary also fails CharityWatch’s benchmarks for Governance due to not having a sufficiently large board of directors and failing to maintain written conflict of interest, whistleblower, and document destruction and retention policies. Kindness Ranch not following these best practices amplifies CharityWatch’s concerns about its lack of an independent audit.

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Financial Information

Kindness Ranch reports that it raised more than $1.9 million in donations in 2023, spending $449,084 to do so. This amount included $340,561 of “Direct Mailings [with postage].”

Given that the charity did not have an independent audit of its financial statements conducted in 2023, in the opinion of CharityWatch, it is not possible to make a reliable judgment as to whether or not Kindness Ranch is using its donations efficiently and responsibly based on its 2023 tax filing. The online aggregator website, Charity Navigator, which is not a watchdog organization and which relies only on charities’ self-reported tax filings when computing a charity’s program percentage, assigned Kindness Ranch 3 out of 4 stars, or an overall 78% rating, despite the significant concerns CharityWatch has identified and described here.

In its 2023 tax filing Kindness Ranch reports that its top three expenses consisted of “Other salaries and wages” of $529,696, all of which are reported as a program expense; “Insurance” of $245,488, all of which is reported as a program expense; and “All other expenses” of $456,463, of which $404,570 is reported as a program expense and $51,893 is reported as overhead.  The charity reported “veterinarian fees” totaling $101,961 as a program expense. Included in reported fundraising expenses is $340,561 of “Direct mailings [with postage]; and $100,811 of “projects expense.” 

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