Is this ethical behavior by Teen Mania?
If all of the required “donations” that an intern raised went specifically to their housing, food and other associated program costs, I believe Teen Mania might be justified in dismissing their interns. After all, somebody has to foot the bill for the dorms, the electric bills, the cafeteria food, etc. The reason I say that Teen Mania might be justified is that the intern also works around 30 hours per week (and sometimes more) for FREE. If that were not the case, I think it would be clear that Teen Mania is well within its rights to dismiss an unpaying intern.
HOWEVER…
A recent director level Teen Mania employee publicly stated that:
“42% of the intern tuition is “net excess” (basically meaning that 42% of their tuition amount was profit that can be diverted to other parts of the ministry).”
He went on to explain:
“And, about that 42% net excess figure that I threw out, keep in mind that the amount of $ TMM spends on it’s interns per meal is less than the Texas penitentiary system spends on it’s inmates per meal. So, that puts into perspective of how valuable an intern is to the bottom line and function of the organization.”
Given the fact that 42% of the money that interns are REQUIRED to “donate” is pure profit to the ministry, I think it is wrong that they would financially dismiss any intern.
Teen Mania profits twice on every intern: on their free labor and on their “donations.” This is especially sad considering that many interns do not come from wealthy families and are not allowed to hold outside jobs. In fact, many interns barely scrape by – they wash their clothes in the sink because they don’t have quarters for laundry, they literally go door to door to beg for money so they can stay at the internship, etc.
I would also like to remind you that in the past Teen Mania has failed to provide soap and toilet paper in the dorm bathrooms – and when questioned about it, Dave Hasz told the interns to buy their own.
So, just to recap: Interns are not allowed to hold outside jobs, many of them end up essentially begging for money, their “tuition” payments fail to cover essentials like toilet paper, soap and healthy, nutritious food all while Teen Mania diverts 42% of their payments to other areas of the organization. I would imagine that those “other areas” sometime include staff salaries…
Meanwhile, Dave Hasz goes home each night to his $400,000 home (in East Texas that is basically a mansion) and Ron Luce has enjoyed a six figure income for over a decade.
47 comments:
Parents, in case you don’t have time to do the math that means $3428 of your money, or the donations are going to somewhere outside of taking care of your kids.
IMO this is one of the big inherent flaws… In theory, probably few would begrudge the idea that some administrative costs are covered with interns’ “tuition”. However, in practice this creates a system that uses & abuses. The machine has to keep running, so they need more interns….
We as humans are far too frail to keep our motives 100% pure in situations like this. Whether we “intend” to or not, we end up doing things like preaching that everyone should come to the HA, and pressure hurting and broke interns to stay. Easy to say it’s for their own good but the $$ truly is the issue, whether that’s acknowledged or not.
…btw I did mean “broke” as in financially broke, but it sounds like I meant “broken”and just had really bad grammar….. Haha…. I guess both are applicable.
“42% of the intern tuition is “net excess” (basically meaning that 42% of their tuition amount was profit that can be diverted to other parts of the ministry).”
So, the interns are paying salaries as well. If DH or RL or KL wants to get paid a certain amount for that year, those interns have to deliver the money. The interns do most of the work. I’ve never seen KL or RL digging a trench or working the phones. Maybe in the earlier days, but it sure has paid off for them now.
I think it is unethical to require kids to pay for your ministry and then kick them out when they have paid almost 2 times more than what they should pay. If food, lodging, and necessities are taken care of in the 68% already paid, why does an intern have to pay the 42% more? If RL or DH or KL want more money in the bank, they should go get a job. There are tons of ministers who can’t make it on the tithes of their congregation, so they go to work somewhere else while doing ministry. Doing ministry is a privilege not a money making scheme.
RL reminds me of Pharoah. He has all sorts of little workers to make him tons of money. He works them to the bone and gives them little to slim of what they need. All the while flying all over the world reaping the benefits of their hard labor.
I would also like to add that IT IS NOT ETHICAL to make anyone feel like a failure (they do) because they haven’t paid enough to your ministry while giving a year of their life that they can’t get back. A year of their life that is spent working themselves emotionally and physcially to the bone to try to make your ministry succesful.
It is not ethical because the donations are not appreciated but instead, they are required. The driven attitude behind TM to collect the funds from the interns is robotic and machine like. I would argue that, Interns are seen as numbers or a bottom line in many ways.
one would think that, if there are indeed so many happy & healthy alumni who are now in the workforce & still embracing TM’s teaching that you should either go or give till it hurts, it should be that TM is practically 100% fully funded by joyful and generous alumni contributions.
Where are all these thousands of happy alumni?
Wanderer if there are many happy alumni I suspect you will find them not so much with money. The alumni I know that are even remotely positive about their experience are barely making it (or not at all) because they don’t have a degree or they have gotten lots more debt from being stuck in lower end jobs or getting married early and then not having the same opportunities as others.
WOW! That is horrible! Okay, once again, I go to a secular university. Funded by many alumni (most ticket sales for games go to alumni season passes), and I can also account for everywhere my money is going. And it’s not even my money, because unlike the HA I go to a REAL school that can be funded by government grants. And a degree from my school will get me a real job. Thank you!
Oh and if you want, I’ll tell you about the time HS tried to bully me when I made a post on the HA blog.
So True, That Redheaded One. I don’t know of any alumni that are rolling in the dough, unless they are working for prosperity teaching church in leadership or ministry (which, to me, is the same concept as TMM). And I really agree with you about the getting married early part, Especially the girls.
S – I’d like to hear about your experience with Heath…but I don’t want this thread to go that far off topic. Can you take it to a Heath thread (look at the leadership tab above), come to the RA facebook page or send me an email?
I guess I always knew part of the tuition cost was “profit,” but i didn’t realize it was such a high percentage. That’s really shocking…and yet, somehow it isn’t shocking at all.
This really irritates me that as an “alumni” I get all kinds of the “send us $ as an alumni and help a teen come to the HA”. How many “happy” alumni are sending money to them, and where does it go? It just adds to the 42% extra profit……
Not that I had any money, or cared to come up with extra money to send them. I barely know how I made it through the year without having to go on one of the infamous “fundraising” trips home. And my parents barely made it themselves.
And on another note, I’m not sure about the toilet paper and soap issue while I was there, but since my parents were low income, and I certainly couldnt get money in other ways, I have no idea how I made it to get toiletries and laundry done. So you basically have to raise money to stay there, you have to hope someone sends you money so you can be clean, and “pretty” for the standards.
I was on the K-Crew while an Intern, thankfully, because I didnt have to wear “office attire” to work, my parents wouldnt have been able to afford to get me a new wardrobe to fit into their standards. I probably would have been one of the ones to have “a talk” about not being pretty enough – since I already had insecurities about myself already.
Anyway, getting off topic – this is really my first time posting, so this obviously got me burned up!!!!
Obligatory Bible verses:
“Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless–not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.” Titus 1:7
[An elder must be] “not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.” 1 Timothy 3:3
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Matthew 6:24
“It is written,” [Jesus] said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.'” Luke 19:46
“If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion–how can God’s love be in that person?” 1 John 3:17
“Follow the money.” –All the President’s Men
(OK, just had to throw that last one in there.)
Last Anon – I can relate. I have no idea where I got the money for laundry and shampoo. I can’t remember (blocked it out?).
I do remember (to my absolute shame) that I went on a fundraising trip home and my dad sold his catamaran (a boat) so that I could pay to go back. To this day, I’m still so sad about that. Stupid HA. My dad loved that boat. Now, to find out that part of the $ for it was profit really, really makes me angry.
Wow. At first glance the whole thing is so unrecognizable. It’s so hard to define. It’s difficult to even find language for what is happening.
So- I paid $7800 for my internship.
They told me to just give $2500 at first, even if I didn’t have the money I should go because ‘God would provide.’ (to which my dad later responded- ‘when did me or your mom become God?’…)
Very irresponsible in the first place. Unethical too- if they are going to kick you out so readily why do they want you there do badly?
We stressed, freaked, panicked over where our next check was gonna come from… Not ever thinking- ‘how is this going towards me? If it’s late why can’t they cover for me, since I’m working my but off for them anyways?’
Wow. Only to find out half of my money wasn’t even spent on me.
All to call it what EVERYONE told me before I went- a scam.
I was fooled. Stupidly, ignorently blindly lead astray.
I’m just REALLY glad I believe in Matthew 18.
I was just young and stupid. But still have hope that I will continually be made a better person and I’m SO thankfull I don’t get my kicks from manipulating and stealing from kids. What a very sad life.
I was there the year that they took away the soap.. but they didnt take away the toilet paper- they took away the paper towel. Lets correct this so that we are speaking accurate information.
Anonymous – Actually, that must have happened more than once because the toilet paper has also been taken away at least once in the past 3 years.
If you want to be exact this is the same thing colleges do? I am currently going to college live in the dorms and I am almost paying triple.. Our community bathroom has stopped toilet paper and soap for weeks and mind you not that this is an Ivy league school.
Anon, I don’t know where you go but the state university that I teach at really does supply soap and tp for their students in their dorm areas. Yes it costs more to go to a true college where your credits count for something besides paying several thousand dollars to sit and pray for a year (which is how employers see the HA). Where I work charges double what the HA does for students who live in the dorms but that pays for well payed professors, research facilities that are top rating, multiple tracts of education within any given major, competent people who are paid to do pretty much any job from cleaning to managing the school. Our RAs get free room and board as well as a small stipend for their work each semester as they work with the kids on a daily basis while the HA makes CAs pay more money for the same level of work. While some times your dorm may have stopped a service for a particular reason (like you were suppose to clean the toilets or not stop them up and were irresponsible) most colleges charge as much as they do for their services for professional people to do the work that interns do only half as well. When I found out that last year a Graduate Intern who was paying to be there was also teaching the class “Great Papers” that speaks to the lack of professionalism at the Honor academy and lack of really trained staff.
Another point of order is that many college students have found ministries on or off campus that do teach the bible and really help kids to seek after good while at college and many take these ministries seriously. I I am sorry you had the experience of a badly kept dorm but perhaps you should look at the reasons why your dorm stopped providing something instead of saying it’s the same when it might not be.
Anonymous @8:41, comparing TM to your “ivy league” school favorably just because they both shit on you isn’t a good reason for permitting Teen Mania to get a pass on their greed. It sounds like you are at the wrong “ivy league” skool my friend.
Mouse
“If you want to be exact this is the same thing colleges do? I am currently going to college live in the dorms and I am almost paying triple.. Our community bathroom has stopped toilet paper and soap for weeks and mind you not that this is an Ivy league school.”
jfk;xlfaksd!!!
THE HONOR ACADEMY IS NOT A SCHOOL! STOP IT.
Mouse, I believe you misread Anon’s post. He or she was stating that their school is NOT Ivy League.
That said, the issue really isn’t comparable, as universities follow different tax guidelines from 501(c)(3) organizations.
Interesting information about the percentile breakdown of interns’ tuition. When I attended the HA, I specifically remember Dave Hasz insisting to the internship that the amount each paid would not cover room and board; interns, therefore, should feel “lucky” that they were not being required to pay the full amount. This was also a reason Hasz flaunted as a method to convince interns that working for “free” was their way of helping to support the ministry that so graciously helped support them during their intern year by charging less than what they were supposedly owed.
I am an ex-staffer and it always broke my heart to see kids struggling over the money issues- I was always finding oddd jobs around the house so I could pay them to do something- of course it usually meant hanging out and sitting in real chairs too. Very sad situation.
Now I am a parent to multiple college age kids and I have never seen anything close to the abuse at TM, their dorms are kept clean, supervised and of course, college cafeterias are not the greatest but it has been better than what was offerred at TM.
Anon 2:26,
Dave outright lied to your faces to manipulate you into being grateful slaves?
So so heartbreaking what this place does…..i feel shocked over & over at the depths to which they stoop.
@Shiloh,
“They told me to just give $2500 at first, even if I didn’t have the money I should go because ‘God would provide.'”
This would be an example of magical thinking.
Does anyone know if Ron Luce has ever responded to questions about why he makes so much money? I’ve seen tax statements and stuff posted online before, so I know he makes 6 figures, and Katie also takes a salary from TM. I seriously cannot see how they could justify that….
I too, remember being told by David Hasz that they were being generous because our tuition cost did not even cover the price of our room and board. My only conversation with Heath Stoner, ever, was sitting in his office being threatened with a fundraising trip and I said, “My parents are already paying my tuition because even though I am believing God for my support, there ARE NO SUPPORTERS! So, there is no way i can afford to get home and back. If you sent me on a fundraising trip, I would be staying home. I already said once before that I wanted to leave and you guys talked me into staying.” He told me he’d give it a couple more weeks. I quit about a month after that.
I also remember the HA (though I can’t specifically say it was DH… it was too long ago) acting as though we were paying the absolute minimum to keep a roof over our heads and feed us. I had the distinct impression that they were cutting us an enormous deal in our tuition (maybe they were at the time? this was 10 years ago) and had to pull $ from other parts of the ministry to cover their loses for the internship overhead. This always made me feel so guilty about being behind in my tuition, like I was reaching into God’s pocket for his last quarter. Again, it may have actually been the case at the time. Still, it concerns me that the HA would place any blame on current interns for their financial issues, considering the interns are free labor and they (the HA) set the price of tuition.
Layne I remember that too! i think at one point they even “broke down” the costs of the internship. It definitely wasn’t the numbers reflected here, I remember that much…..
But remember we only paid $450 a month in 2001. As a GI it was $350.
I think I paying fore than 450 a month in 2002. I can’t remember exactly how much it was though.
Esther, you only paid 450 wow we needed 750 a month my year
But remember we only paid $450 a month in 2001. As a GI it was $350.
$450(TUITION/”donation”) numbers from 12 years ago…
if there were 500 interns…
500 X $450 = $225,000 per month… is that right?
$225,000 X 12 months = $2,700,000
hmmm…
Ron Luce has written or coauthored like 2 dozen books and not to mention all of the youth group material he has released. Trust me, he doesn’t make 6 figures from Teen Mania. If I remember correctly, he makes a salary of around $65K a year from Teen Mania. I personally wouldn’t say that’s too excessive. Of course, his wife makes about $40K from Teen Mania, and I still haven’t figured out what she does.
Anonymous – According to the last decade of TM tax returns, your numbers are not correct.
It is crazy the amount of money that is spent to go to the HA. The listed cost of over $8,000 is more than a year of tuition at the college that I attend and the interns get nothing in return. Sick.
ReplyBe careful with this statement… You could have offended alot of people here. Let me state this there are happy alumni and very successful alumni… I have had alot of emotional and physical damage from my experience but I and many others like me pushed past that. I went on to join the military and work hard and have am amount of success and I am going to college please be careful with statents that say alumni are all lesser people now because of tgere experience… its very insulting
Ashley, I’m not sure what statement you are referring to. Did someone call an alumnus lesser because of their experiences? I don’t think so, at least not out of this community. We are a support group, not a place for tearing-down or calling each other “lesser” because of our experiences. Further, because we identify as “recovering alumni”, please don’t assume that we are not happy or successful human beings. If you think that is what we are saying, I suggest further reading/study of this site. Thank you.
RepyAshley– In fact, I think you’ll find that this website is in full agreement with your observation: “I have had alot of emotional and physical damage from my experience but I and many others like me pushed past that.” This blog simply points out the two facts that (a) Teen Mania is physically and emotionally (and spiritually) damaging and (b) it’s possible to recover from that by realizing that the damage wasn’t your fault.
Also, no insult intended at all, but wouldn’t it be fair to say that if you had an emotionally and physically damaging experience in the past, and you’re now happy and successful, you’re successful in spite of that, not necessarily because of it?
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