The $72 Million ASHA Money Machine

Dr. Jeanette Benigas, SLP, Preston Lewis, MS/SLP, and Elizabeth Nielsen, MA/SLP, dig into ASHA’s revenue streams, breaking down key categories such as member dues, convention profits, and special interest groups while highlighting the ongoing lack of financial transparency. A powerful minivan meltdown story illustrates the importance of knowing your worth and standing firm against unfair opportunities. The team also celebrates a significant win for the Fix SLP community: ASHA restoring membership benefits for those opting out for 2025, thanks to collective advocacy. They round out the discussion with actionable strategies for redirecting CEU spending toward state conventions and small businesses, empowering clinicians to make meaningful changes in the field.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP

Host of Fix SLP

Host

Preston Lewis, MS, SLP

Co-host of Fix SLP

Guest

Elizabeth Nielsen, MA/SLP

What is Fix SLP?

Fix SLP is grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech-language pathology by driving real change—from insurance regulations to removing barriers to full autonomy like the CCC. This podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of SLP. We don’t wait for change, we make it. So let’s fix SLP!
Hosted by Jeanette Benigas, PhD, SLP

Preston Lewis 0:00
Bring on the KoolAid Man. Maybe he'll call. "Oh yeah!!!"

Jeanette Benigas 0:02
Hey, fixers. I'm Dr Jeanette Benigas, the owner of fix SLP, a grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech language pathology by driving real change from insurance regulations to removing barriers that prevent full autonomy, like the CCC, this podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of speech language pathology. We don't wait for change. We make it so let's fix SLP!

Hey everybody, welcome back. It's Jeanette. I have Preston with me, and again this week, Elizabeth Nielsen, our content coordinator, and the person on the team who takes on Asha finances for us, we are digging into ashes revenue this week. It's gonna be good. We just had, we just had a little pow wow to kind of figure out what we were gonna highlight for you before we jump in Gator grad oh nine said we are a must listen for SLPs. So this is a review from Apple like Jeanette said recently, not all SLPs are on social media. That's me. I'm grateful that she impressed in drop a new episode every week to talk about the fixed SLP movement and share true information about the changes that are happening and so needed in our profession. Thanks. So I've been mentioning that keep sharing us. Keep sharing this podcast, keep rating and reviewing. We have to reach the people who are not on socials. It's one of the remaining ways that we need to grow. And we can't afford a mail campaign like pro liability or Asha that's pretty, pretty expensive. We don't have that kind of money because you're sending all your money to Asha. So we'll tell you how we know that in a few minutes when we talk about revenue. How are you guys this week?

Elizabeth Nielsen 2:11
Good. How are you?

Preston Lewis 2:13
Oh, and by the way, I'm here. When I said I have Preston with you. May have I I'm just messing with you. Sometimes you forget. And I always forget. I really enjoy the times that you forget. It's fun, and then when you actually do remember, it's still fun to make you think that you forgot. So hi, because

Jeanette Benigas 2:29
I have the short term memory of a pea, literally, No, all right, one more thing I wanted to do, Preston, I've got another mini man meltdown for you, right? Elizabeth and Preston. Have not heard the meltdown. I screened it and it's, oh, this week, it actually is kind of a meltdown. It's, it's a sad one. So we're going to join this person, and I have a few things to say after.

Minivan Meltdown 2:45
I just want to take a quick moment to spread light on my cry in my car. Moment since the beginning of my career, I have been reaching and idolizing and fantasizing that the dream role for me would be in higher ed academia. I've worked my butt off. I've worked four plus jobs at once, put my life on hold because I thought it would help me be more competitive to when there would one day be that opportunity in academia, and this week after the opportunity finally presented itself, after 10 years of trying for it, I ultimately had to resign or decline the offer because of just unfair salary, unfair job requirements, unfair just it still breaks my heart. So I sat in my car and I cried at lunch after I gave that formal decline of my dream position, I just wanted to thank fix SLP for helping me to acknowledge for the first time in my 10 plus year career as a speech language pathologist, to know my worth, to know that my body of work as a clinician has value to help me understand a little bit better the beast of Asha, in regards to advocating for my fellow co workers and are What we've worked so hard for so thank you.

Preston Lewis 4:45
Pretty sorry.

Jeanette Benigas 4:46
Things to say about this one.

Preston Lewis 4:48
Yeah. I, you know, speaking to her right now, I just want to say your patients, they are the ones that you. They could all collectively be here, would say thank you. And I have felt that fear, especially coming out of the pandemic, when you start taking a good look around and you're looking for something else, and I applaud, I applaud her for going after something that she wanted and dreamed of and but sometimes those doors close, and sometimes you have to take a cold, sober look back at you know, what you've built toward, but you just have to hold on to the fact that you have touched people's lives in a positive way, and you still can do that, and it's hard because the work is not what it once was in terms of its value to compensation or how rehab companies look at us, and we need to fight for that change. This is part of what this movement is about, but it's also to give people like you, a voice and we see you. We hear you. I've worked with these people. I've somewhat been in that position. I didn't want to go to academia, but it's, it's very difficult. And I Well, we create this line. We kind of mini man minivan, a meltdown. And it's, it's there for positive stories, it's there for sad stories, for funny ones. And my heart does go out to this. SLP, and your patients have felt you I can guarantee.

Jeanette Benigas 6:29
Yeah, you know, I've it was hard, first of all, to kind of for sure know what she was talking about. But my interpretation was that she is a clinician, master's level clinician, working hard in the field, wanting someday to teach at the university level, either adjunct or maybe as a lecturer or clinic supervisor, something in that capacity where master's level clinicians are normally used. And most of our listeners probably know I am a PhD working clinician who left academia in February after 10 years. So it started my PhD in 2009 graduated in 2013 shortly thereafter, got my first full time position. Moved around a bit. Our family has lived in several different states. Sometimes we move for a job. For me, sometimes we move for family reasons. So I've worked in several places. I've also worked as adjunct in a lot of places, because COVID really opened up that door for me to do that. And I think that this isn't necessarily an SLP thing. I think this is a world that we live in, thing that PhDs and academia sometimes are glamorized in our head. And I think the perception is that people in academia make a lot of money, and while that can be true for people who have been there a long time, who have moved up the ranks, who sell products on the side, who have groundbreaking research, those things are true for sure. You know, there are people in our field, in those positions who make a lot of money, there is a specific research scientist who is very well known in this field that I worked with, wonderful guy, great mentor to me. And he Island hops every Christmas, you know. And I asked him, you know, how do I do that someday? And he told me how. And it's, you know, that's the less than 1% of the 1% that can achieve that. The truth is, in speech pathology, you make less money as a full time college professor than you do as a working class clinician. And I'm going to share some numbers, because I think it's important for us to talk about compensation. The year that I graduated with my PhD, I was working a solid 70 hours a week while I was doing my dissertation. So I included dissertation work in in those hours, I was getting up very early in the morning, four or five o'clock. Sometimes I wasn't getting home until 910, o'clock at night, because I was collecting data an hour away, and also working just as far. And that year, I cleared $112,000 doing PRN only for four different companies, but I was working my butt off when I left that job to take my first. Job, I was offered $42,000 that was the offer, $42,000 to Philadelphia, where the cost of living is higher. Now I didn't accept that. I negotiated way up and was very successful at it. But I'm good at negotiating. Not everybody is I had a colleague who was hired at the same time as me, and she was making the 42 after we moved from that job and I came to Ohio when I started adjuncting The year I before I went back to full time at one university, I was doing adjunct at four different universities. I on my W twos, I was teaching 27 credit hours that year. So between January and December, I taught 27 credit hours of graduate level courses. And graduate level courses are paid out higher, typically for adjuncts, than they are undergrad courses, 27 hours, including graduate coordinator of an online program where I was also doing externship placements. I made $30,000 everyone needs to keep in mind that academia is not the end all be all. And if you want to do it, you're doing it for the love of teaching, not for the love of money. And are we undervalued? Abso freaking lutely? Absolutely freaking lutely. But if you want to work in academia, you will get a lower offer, and we all need to be very aware of that. It does not mean that we don't deserve it. I I'm not on the camp that we should be taking less offers, but that's that is the reality of the world that we live in. That's where we're at. These universities are making big bucks, and the professors are not the ones getting paid. Where does the money go? I don't know. Probably seems type of situation as Asha, I'd love to see a catering bill at some of the universities I worked for, and it breaks my heart, because I think people have the expectation or the dream that I'm going to make it when I make it to academia, and that is not true, because then once you get there, if you're full time, Part of your contract is service, and that's a fancy word for working for free. You're put on committees. You're supervising nysla. You're doing community service. You know, for me, it was like doing groups at other places. You're showing up to be on the parade float with the students. It is a full time job, and then some, if you are a full time employee, and if you're pursuing tenure, that service is counted, you can't get out of it. So not only do they underpay you, but then they have you do service too, as the word for free work. That's how this sometimes gets tied into Asha in our field, because being Asha president can count as service. Being the president of your state board can count as service because it's service at the university level, the local level and the organizational level. It's not just like you know, service in one place you're doing it all. So that is why, that gives you a picture too, of why sometimes these PhDs value Asha so much because they're giving their lives to Asha too, as a way to get tenure and promotion in their academic setting. That's how they move up the ranks. And when you get tenured, you get a raise. When you get promoted, you get a raise. There are three promotions in academia. You come in as an assistant professor, you work up to associate, and then you're full. Typically, tenure comes with that first promotion. Now I never got tenured because I never stayed anywhere long enough, but I was able to move up to full by the time I left in February. So I saw, I saw those bumps in pay, but they're not even that big. So that very long rant, but I want people to understand that those are the numbers in academia. Very realistically. I did a deep dive about a year and a half, two years ago at this point, with a colleague of mine, where we were looking at, looking at national averages of adjunct pay for academia and speech pathology, and it is really low. I think it's like, on average, $1,000 per credit per semester. So if you're teaching a three hour graduate course over 16 weeks, you're getting 3000 bucks before taxes, and by the way, typically you're not making enough for them to hold federal taxes, and you don't even know. So then you get screwed at tax time because you didn't know your university wasn't withholding taxes, and you owe an arm and a leg. So you know, it's not a glamorous situation, but I'm. Really proud of her for knowing her value, and I imagine that's what it to me. It sounded like she finally got that job offer. They were probably demanding more of her than she was willing to give. She was probably also working as a clinician, and so to me, in my head, she either had to resign as a clinician to take the job or take the job at the university and not make as much that she wasn't going to be able to do both that, that was my perception of it, and I could have been wrong, but it is not the place where you're going to be paid your value, and it's not okay, but it is the reality we sit in right now.

Preston Lewis 15:35
We are projecting some here, but I also got the sense that it wasn't so much about finding a higher compensation job, at least, I think, for a lot of medical SLPs coming out of the pandemic, it sometimes was about just finding safe harbor, yeah, to get away from, you know, the sorry, the bullshit rehab companies that are out there that will, you know, call you in because you clocked out two minutes late, and it puts your productivity off by one point. Or, you know, having no case load choices, you know, those, those are the kind of things I think a lot of clinicians are just looking for a place to land. And for some of them, academia may be it, and that's great. I think you bring a wealth of information and experience, which is something I didn't always have when I was in grad school, and that's a welcome thing. So perhaps it was just a case of wanting to make a transition.

Jeanette Benigas 16:29
Yeah, money in academia really gets me fired up, because you put in all those years to get that degree that you know, just like us making master's degrees, not making enough, not making our value for the degree level that we have, and you do not get paid more with a terminal degree, you get an slpd, you which is not a terminal degree either. We see this as a lot online, if you want to work in academia, an slpd is not a terminal degree. In our field, and our programs need terminal degrees. Those are Edd and PhDs. And when, you know, when I go out and work as a clinician, my PhD does not mean a darn thing. Doesn't mean a darn thing. I make the same as everybody else. So anyway, speaking of making money, Elizabeth, let's talk revenue. Let's do it. What do we got this week?

Elizabeth Nielsen 17:19
All right, so last week we talked about expenses. So if you haven't listened to that episode, go take a quick listen to some of the numbers that I was rambling on about. So hopefully I won't bore you guys too much with all these numbers this week, either. So so total revenue, so this is all coming from the financial statement that Asha posts, that you can access it very easily if you just even Google Azure 2023, financial report. I'll come up with this PDF file for you. So this week, we're talking revenue. The first big one, of course, that comes with revenue is the member dues. So member dues, that's the CCC holder with the membership holder.

Jeanette Benigas 18:03
That is the $225 that we were paying last year, not the $250 that everyone is paying now. So just keep that in mind as you're you're thinking through these numbers. This is the $225 year that we're talking about.

Elizabeth Nielsen 18:19
Yeah. So with that, that brings about 48 point 6 million to Asha. That's a number we're going to be kind of looking at for next year as well as so they also separate the member dues from non member certification. So again, non member certification is just the CCC. You're not a membership. You're not getting any of the benefits. You can't get lifetime membership if you aren't consecutive member. This is just the CCC. The price at $199 that it was last year. So that was bringing us to nine over 900,000 for the non member certification fees for 2023, and these are, again, these two numbers we're going to be looking at for next year. We're seeing more and more people of where we don't need to be a member of this association to do billing, to work in a school to do all these things we need, you know, some of these instances need that CCC, and we've already seen some increase in the non member certification fees category. So we were just looking at the 2022 financial report. So fix SLP started in September of 2023 so only a few months of knowledge for some of these, for the SLPs that were able to possibly drop to non member. So between 2022 and 2023 there was. 720 more SLPs that dropped down to the non member certification.

Preston Lewis 20:07
So this is steady growth. You know, from 2021 you have 3456 SLPs up until 2023 at 4690 and so you had to jump one year of 513 the next, it's 720 additional SLPs. This shows growth. I think this number will go way up. Oh yeah, yeah, everybody decides to join the Preston Lewis club because that was 2021 when I said, Peace, it's been real. And believe me, I have no regrets, and may even go further.

Jeanette Benigas 20:44
Unless, unless that 90 minute infomercial by the person who benefits most from the sale of the product and the membership, unless she's very convincing and people jump in there in those last two weeks. Because, again, nothing Asha does is a mistake. There is a reason. They are now widely advertising. You can pay until January 31, of 2024, and they scheduled that thing mid January. You know, after you've gotten through your holiday spending and you've sobered up a little bit and got off a few lbs, and you're feeling good now we're going to talk to you about sending us your money. They're not dumb. They know what they're doing.

Preston Lewis 21:26
Let me tell you something short of the Kool Aid man jumping through the image of Vicky Williams and saying, Oh yeah, there is no chance in hell that I'm going back.

Jeanette Benigas 21:38
I can't wait to leave. How many lawyers are going to tell me, don't drop it, don't drop anything, sure if you sue them.

Preston Lewis 21:47
Oh, well, that's on you. I come, go as I please.

Jeanette Benigas 21:54
I have 18,000 screens open, and we just got an email from someone using our contact form on our website that said, I just renewed my dues. I know, I know Asha is now going green and not automatically sending out a paper copy of the membership card. Do they need our money for paper or not? They got away from the single use plastic at the convention, and now they're not sending out paper. But also how much of that is going green, used as a PR move just to pocket more money, because, again, they raised dues. They raised due so the cost of paper's going up...

Preston Lewis 22:36
Point of order. Point of order, Madam Chairman, I just want to point out also that kind of like that line from Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. And so let's keep in mind that the chosen ones on the executives and everybody they got the little plastic plan, uh huh, saw the photos that, yeah, they got the big badge of the plastic thing. So apparently, only some people deserve plastic.

Jeanette Benigas 23:09
But now, now that you're sending your money to Asha at an increased rate to pay for the paper that they said, We didn't make that up. They said that was, like the only example given in one of the live chats was, why are rates going up? Well, the cost of everything's going up. Like paper. That was it paraphrased, but that's what was said. We'd play it back for you, but no recordings allowed. Yeah, that's what they said. But now you can send more money to Asha and use your own paper to go ahead and print that card if you're someone who still keeps it on your desk or your bulletin board. Okay, so we did, what did we say? You gave us the revenue to watch. You know, we're looking at those member fees, certified non member fees. What else? What else talk to us about convention?

Elizabeth Nielsen 23:59
Yeah, so the convention for 2023 brought in a little over 6 million. This is where it gets a little tricky, because on their expenses section, they really don't give a breakdown of expenses for the convention. So we really only see the revenue, because there's other areas too, that there's a meeting and convention and conferences section that talks about expenses, but that can be anything, not just the convention, it can be any other meeting that they're expending on. So with the convention alone, it's bringing over 6 million and that was with 15,000 attendees at the convention in Boston. So that's a significant number, big money. I know a lot of people were talking about not going this year and boycotting going next year. Yep, we need to see these numbers go down. They need their pockets to be hurting for us, if for them to listen to us of what we're asking for, if you would just listen to us in the first place we would, we'd support the transparency.

Jeanette Benigas 25:15
So that's one way you can start thinking about bringing down that six mil number. What are you doing next year, maybe you're holding on to your C's, but you're still listening to this podcast. You're still following the movement. You do agree with some or all of what we think and say, which we we can still love you if you disagree, but maybe you you do want to help make an impact here. Start thinking about your CEUs for next year. Where are you going to get those continuing education or professional development hours. Maybe you're not headed to DC, where Asha is next year. Maybe you're headed to your state convention. Maybe you're going to direct your money to a small business owner who puts out really solid continuing educations. If you are in a state that allows PDH and you also have your CCCS or not you don't have to do as approved CEUs. Maybe you're going to a dental conference or an ENT conference, or an education conference, or, you know, a physio conference, or something that's going to help you learn the things that you are not learning at our Asha approved CEU, start thinking about how you want to learn in 2025 and where can you direct your money elsewhere? Where can that money go? So, yo, if you're a business and you're paying for a booth at ASHA, maybe you loved it, but heard from quite a few vendors that they were not happy. Where can you spend your advertising dollars? And said, Hey, I got an idea. We could do some fix SLP, ads on this podcast. We are headed in that direction, but that's a way that we're going to creatively try to pay this team. So, hey, send us your money. We'll, we'll put it out there. We got some high numbers, yeah. So start thinking about, how can you make a difference in bringing down this number for 2025 that's a place where you could cut.

Preston Lewis 27:10
I'm sure there are plenty of state associations that would appreciate to have that money as well. For sure, absolutely.

Elizabeth Nielsen 27:17
Yep. Okay, speaking of education, so we have there's two categories on the revenue. There's education programs and products, again, not very specific, but we can only guess what some of those are, and then continuing education. So both of those combined brings in about ten million so that's talking about your the learning pass the ASHA connect, the CE registry, which we have talked about multiple times, that we do not need the CE registry. We don't have to submit our hours to Asha. If you get audited, make sure you have your certificates. Make sure you keep track of your hours against speech therapy. PD has a free tracker use that.

Preston Lewis 28:08
Have either of you ever been audited?

Elizabeth Nielsen 28:10
No, I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more this year. I was how is that process? It's just submitting your hours. Like, yeah, I feel like people are scared of it, like they're they hear audit, and they're like, oh gosh...

Preston Lewis 28:22
No. it was, it was very that would have been, like, around 2000 and maybe 14 somewhere in there, and it or 15, it was fine. It was couple emails, send us your certificates. And, you know, couple little synopsis is, wasn't that?

Elizabeth Nielsen 28:38
Yeah. I mean, I do that with my EI certificate every three years. I have to keep track of it all. You just you just send it all in like it's not a big deal.

Jeanette Benigas 28:46
Yeah, and this Speech Therapy, PD tracker, you can keep the thumbnails of your certificates in there. So if you're in a state where you have to provide those, because I've heard some states want that, you can print them with the thumbnail of the certificate. And again this we've seen people saying, oh, Speech pathology.com does that. Medbridge does that. Yes, they do, but only for their hours. So we want to be clear, this speech therapy. PD, one tracks anything you want it to, you have to load it in, but at least it's a place to keep the thumbnail and the information, and it's open to everyone for free. You do not have to subscribe to their continuing ed to get the tracker. And this isn't a trick. They're not trying to pull you in. It's truly something that they made as a response. You know, I talked to them and I said, we could really I think fixers could use this as a solution, and they they did it big. So they did also give us a coupon code. It's FixSLP58 for $20 off any subscription at Speech Therapy PD, Fix SLP will get some money too. You have other options.

Elizabeth Nielsen 29:53
Yeah, like, with the learning pass. Like, don't pay for that learning pass. Do these other options? Let's see these numbers drop. Up ten million for all this stuff that they're making from us.

Jeanette Benigas 30:05
I just learned this through our people engaging on our content. But someone from Australia had asked, what else does Asha offer besides the convention? And I said, Oh, they have Asha Connect, which used to be another convention that they had typically smaller, and I I never went as an attendee, but I have gone as an invited speaker, and it was like a mini Asha. It was just less people. They don't do that anymore. The some of our fixers said they still have it, but it's online now, and the cost didn't go down. They charged the same for when it was in person, and now it's just online. Interesting, yeah, so they have the ASHA connect still. I've been an invited speaker a couple times, and you guys have this all prefix. SLP, there is a whole story there about how I stopped talking for Asha. I've done a couple mini conferences, almost for dysphasia, where it's a bunch of speakers all doing different topics over a week, and then there's Q and A's you can attend. I've also done almost like live chats on certain topics. I've done some of those live chats and not been paid a dime, but if they're charging you to be there, it's all they're pocketing all that money. Yeah, all that money. Mm, hmm, when you and when you do those live things, like when I did the live conference and then showed up for those Q and A's, you know, I got a very small amount of money, and this was years ago, and they're still selling it in the learning pass, yeah, support the smaller businesses pocketed revenue over and over and over and over again, pocketed revenue.

Elizabeth Nielsen 31:43
And we've seen where they're going, where all a lot of these, the expenses of where it's going. We posted it this week with their employees.

Jeanette Benigas 31:53
So they're continuing ed, again, we don't know how that's being broken up. For sure, the learning pass, for sure, the tracker another way. We said, drop the tracker. Track a different way. What else?

Elizabeth Nielsen 32:08
Ah, so we also have the special interest groups that's bringing in almost 1.4 million alone. Again, something that is something you can take off that they like to uncheck that pre check. They like to check it right away for you. Here you go.

Jeanette Benigas 32:29
And so what do you get with those SIGs? They have special publications. You used to be able to get some continuing education through that by reading the articles and whatnot. I'm not sure if that's still even a thing. And then there are the almost like chat rooms, where you can go and have conversations through your Asha website, on different boards with people, but these are the same kinds of conversations happening on social media. So do you really need that? Probably....

Preston Lewis 33:00
Seems... that seems a bit dated now, and you yeah about it, it's, it's more of a badge of honor. I know other I think ot has, like, nine groups they do with AOTA for their special interests. That's great if you feel like it, you know, adds something to you. But remember more of those little boxes you've checked before? It may be checked on your invoice.

Jeanette Benigas 33:21
I'll tell you one. You know, I'm not, even though I have to keep my CCC in membership. I'm not renewing the tracker. There are years I have been in three SIGs. I am not doing any SIGs this year.

Elizabeth Nielsen 33:35
What's the cost of the SIGs gonna be? I'm trying to look that up.

Jeanette Benigas 33:38
I think it went up to 45

Elizabeth Nielsen 33:40
and what was it at?

Jeanette Benigas 33:42
Before?

Elizabeth Nielsen 33:43
Yeah.

Jeanette Benigas 33:45
30? 35? 15? I don't know. I think it's 15 for students, or 10. 15 for students. It was 30 ish, I think it's 45 now.

Elizabeth Nielsen 33:56
Okay

Jeanette Benigas 33:58
mm hmm

Elizabeth Nielsen 33:59
let's see that number go down

Jeanette Benigas 34:01
because also, who runs the SIGs? Volunteers,. They don't get paid. SIG volunteers don't get paid. Free labor. service quote.

Elizabeth Nielsen 34:10
So what are the expenses for the SIGs?

Jeanette Benigas 34:13
Service!!!!!! Gotta run those chat rooms.

Elizabeth Nielsen 34:19
using AOL. Dial up,

Jeanette Benigas 34:21
Hey, I'm the AOL generation

Elizabeth Nielsen 34:24
Those chat rooms, man. Another big, well, not big, but generating revenue is the CAA. So the Council on academic accreditation, that is an affiliation of Asha. They accredit universities. They use ashes resources, and so they pay Asha to use those resources.

Jeanette Benigas 34:46
Even though they're a part of Asha.

Elizabeth Nielsen 34:47
Yes, they pay them.

Jeanette Benigas 34:49
That's just like, I don't know what, it's probably not listed on there, but that's just like the CFCC, which is the council that controls the CCC, and the requirement. For the CCC. And this is that web that's all tangled up. The CFCC makes the requirements for the CCC, the CAA makes the requirements for programs, and Asha owns them all.

Elizabeth Nielsen 35:14
So a little bit conflict of interest there, possibly?

Jeanette Benigas 35:17
Just a little bit. Just a little

Elizabeth Nielsen 35:19
and again, maybe that's where there's the fear with academia, because

Jeanette Benigas 35:23
It's interesting too, because the university I've left have been watching them spiral the drain, and they are now with no zero terminal degrees on faculty. And I was thinking, Well, someone could file a complaint to the CAA on that right? Because So a colleague of mine, where we were looking that up on filing a complaint to the CAA, there's an anonymity waiver, so your complaint is to the CAA against an accredited program, is not anonymous and anyone, anyone can complain. But who do you think is best served to make those complaints? Students. Do you think students are going to file a CAA complaint against their institution that they're having a problem with or that they see something wrong with hell no, they're not, because they're not anonymous and retaliation is real. Let me tell you about retaliation. We will make that into a whole podcast episode someday. So the CAA, as Preston likes to say, the pointy headed academic elites protecting the pointy head academic elites. So now we have programs because my colleague said, Well, there's another program not far from that one, that doesn't have any terminal degrees. What? How's that even possible? Because the CAA just keeps taking money and taking money and taking money. There aren't even enough terminal degrees to staff these programs. That's okay. They'll still take your money. They'll take the accreditation fees, they'll take the RE accreditation fees. They don't stop. You know, occupational therapy has stopped at the institution that I left, they had planned on opening an OT program, because that area is in desperate need of OTs, great solution. They can't get a program. It's going to be like, eight years before they can even be considered for a program, because OTS their accreditation found, oh, we're flooding the system. Maybe we should stop doing this. Why isn't Asha doing that. Why follow the money? Follow the revenue. Money, money, money, money, money. Every time, every year you want to be accredited bill, but like free it's free income again. Why? Because those accreditors are volunteers, the people who come and do your site visit. Those are volunteers, although I do imagine their hotel and travel is probably paid as it should be, but they're still making a profit. Yeah, that's revenue. We're talking about.

Elizabeth Nielsen 38:14
Big revenue that we can't change, but it's definitely

Jeanette Benigas 38:17
Also, you guys. There is no competitor. Asha doesn't own the market. There's no competitor. There can be. Audiology has more than one accrediting body.

Elizabeth Nielsen 38:28
The rental revenue comes from people leasing out the ASHA building. So I think there's two floors right now that are available for lease. Who knows how much of that building right now that is being rented? So that's, you know, half of a million dollars right near there that they're getting for rental revenue on something that they were from home a lot this empty building. We'll talk more about that building next week, but, yeah, just some of that revenue.

Jeanette Benigas 38:58
I wish I would have written down everything that I wrote, because it will be impossible with the amount of engagement that's been happening lately, for me to go back and find but there was a fixer who asked on one of our platforms what what streams of income does Asha have? And we ought to put a post up about this again, especially if we can find it. Because I posted and then I kept thinking of things, rental conferences, learning pass CE registry, sponsorship, corporate sponsorship, businesses doing booths at conventions, NSHLA fees. NSLHA was big business too, is that listed separately on the 990?

Elizabeth Nielsen 39:44
No um, there

Jeanette Benigas 39:57
The noms, the ASHA noms, you have to register to. Use it. Journal articles behind pay walls, SIGs, publications that they sell. There are so many things that ashes sells to us, and ultimately, we're the product. People can circle back, we have two posts from like the fall, late, late summer, early fall, where you can protect your privacy and shut them down from selling your data because they're selling you too. We've been getting a few emails about people whose information has clearly been sold post post Asha convention because they're getting an influx of calls and emails. Well, you have to tell them not to do that, because Asha vendors do have an option of getting your information. I don't know if it's included, or if it's included with like, a certain level of payment, or if they have to pay for it extra, but there are vendors from Asha who have access to your information simply because you are there. And I don't know if you opt out of that when you register, or if it's part of the privacy and data stuff that you have to turn off that we've posted about might be separate. Might be something when you register, you have to tell them not to do.

Elizabeth Nielsen 41:27
I think that's it for the big revenue generating things for Asha that, again, we can make some impact with some of these numbers. I'm really excited to see what 2024 numbers are going to look like.

Jeanette Benigas 41:38
Give us that number one more time overall. What was the 2023 revenue for Asha overall?

Elizabeth Nielsen 41:47
Total Revenue, 72 million dollars.

Jeanette Benigas 41:51
72 million dollars. And I can already see the comments, aren't they a 501 c3? Well, they're 501 c4, non profit. That doesn't mean anything.

Elizabeth Nielsen 42:02
Nope.

Preston Lewis 42:03
It also has investment holdings.

Jeanette Benigas 42:05
Yeah, oh,

Elizabeth Nielsen 42:06
Yeah. We can talk bbout that next week

Jeanette Benigas 42:07
Elizabeth's all about the investment holdings.

Preston Lewis 42:10
Aside from high dollar catering, it's another fun thing you can do is, let's go, let's go take your money and throw it in.

Elizabeth Nielsen 42:18
Let's gamble with your money.

Preston Lewis 42:19
A little little ROI here.

Jeanette Benigas 42:21
yeah

Elizabeth Nielsen 42:21
And we kind of posted that couple months ago about they were able to get about 5 million from that investing in our money, yeah, but there's been losses in previous years.

Jeanette Benigas 42:32
Yeah. I want to just cover one thing fix. SLP, is here for a lot of reasons. There are so many things we want to do. Our focus right now is getting autonomy for SLPs. Through that effort to gain that autonomy, we're educating all of you with information, because information is power, and a lot of people have said, in response to last week and in response to some of our posts, well, these are 990 forms. You can't really tell what's going on with the 990 form. And you know, there is some level of truth to that. But here's the thing, and here's my response to that, we have asked Asha for financial transparency. We've done it more than once. We did it through letters to the board as our very first call to action. We did it in the fall through a petition to change the bylaws for financial transparency and fair pricing for the CCC and the membership. We followed the rules. We have played the game more than once, and they have refused, to the point where we have now hired a lawyer on your behalf and on our behalf, to force the issue. And so if they're not going to be transparent, all they've left us with is the 990 form. What else can we use? This is all we have to speculate on, and we're sure probably some of our speculations are wrong. People brought up the catering post. Okay, there could have been multiple uses for that catering convention, feeding politicians, whatever, but no matter what it was used for, the fact of the matter is, they still spent that money. That's still how they're spending Asha money. Why not talk about it? If they're going to leave us to speculate that we're going to speculate, if they want us to have the correct information, they can just be transparent. That's not our fault. We're doing the best with what we have. And sure, again, our speculations could be wrong, but we just want to be clear about that. Our job right now is to expose this information, put it out there. You can make your own assumptions. You can make your own decisions. You interpret the numbers different ways, but at least we're getting it out there, because this is the first time anyone's ever done this. No one has challenged Asha on behalf of speech pathologists before, and that's not true. There was a. Lawsuit in the 70s, and that was successful. That's when they untied the CCC, and the membership, you had to be a member to get the CCC, they untied and inflict it. And then that's when they raised the cost of the CCC, because they knew everybody had to have it. But that really was that lawsuit wasn't on behalf of clinicians. That was a private clinician suing Asha. So you know, audiologists have taken this on in a time before social media was what it was. This has never happened before. We're going to get the information out there. We're going to get the information out there as accurate as we can. If we make a mistake, hey, we'll say so mistake. We said you didn't need the CCC to be licensed in Delaware. You do for the initial license. We fixed the map. Elizabeth and I are playing with the map the other day. So

Elizabeth Nielsen 45:54
many have to play with

Jeanette Benigas 45:57
Yeah. So, yeah, here we are. So just know the 990 is all we've got, because they're not giving us anything else. We've asked multiple ways, multiple times, and so have you. So if you've got other suggestions, let us know. Preston just said earlier, before we started recording, Has anyone asked them? Yes, Preston, we have asked them for many things.

Preston Lewis 46:15
You know, that's the thing is that, you know, you write the ash of Action Center, and it's, it's like having a conversation with a Martian with, you know, that speaks AI and so no, I mean, I, and I encourage all of our fellow fixers to, don't be afraid to ask your own questions too. I mean, we will ask some for you. But sometimes there's strength in numbers. Just, you know, pepper the hell out of them send them something, you know. Ask them what was on the menu this year at the convention, you know. And that'd be nice to know. Or you know, what did they serve in Chicago? You know? Was there, was there, Fauci was, you know, their their lobster, Thermidor. I really want to get some recipes for next year, and perhaps I should attend my first inaugural convention to find out what the hell they're eating. That cost $1.3 million.

Jeanette Benigas 47:08
Speaking of power in numbers, we did put out a post back on Thursday that we had a pretty big win. Pretty big win. I think Asha started cutting off membership benefits for folks when they called to drop their membership and or their CCC, and instantly, at first, they were doing it without telling anyone. Then it became a well, this is going to happen. Then it became an email with very strong words and read text. This will happen immediately. Do you want to proceed? And so we put it out there. Hey, this isn't legal. In some states, they can't do this. You've paid for these benefits through 2024 unless they're giving you a refund, you need to complain to your attorney general. So people did. People started doing that, people started pushing back. And guess what? This week, Asher restored benefits to everyone who has dropped their membership for 2025 so if you didn't get the email, make sure you're calling about it. We've got a post. You can look for that post. It went up December 12. It's like a glittery gold and black post where we talk about what happened and just celebrate it a little bit because we did that, you guys, not we as an Elizabeth me Preston and our team, we all did that. Fact, none of us on this team did it. None of us lost our benefits. No one. Some of our clinicians are still waiting with changes in their states to see if they can move forward with changing membership and sees. And you know, we're all in this same position you are. But none of us have gotten to that point yet. It was you guys who started pushing back to the Action Center. It was you guys who started calling and writing your attorney general. It was you guys who said, Enough is enough, and we are over it, and it worked. So, good job, you guys. Good job.

Elizabeth Nielsen 49:00
We're getting our voices back.

Jeanette Benigas 49:02
Love that. All right. Let's end right there. You guys, next week, we're talking about investments. Come on back. Have your calculator ready and thanks for fixing it.

Preston Lewis 49:19
That's why we have the minivan meltdown line. Don't go around in this cloak and dagger meeting and tell everybody now don't record this. No, no one make an audio or video recording of this, but we're gonna piss all over fix. SLP, we have a phone number. Call us, yeah, let us know what we're bitching on about it. That's what it's there for.

Jeanette Benigas 49:37
You want Tena to bitch and moan to our minivan?

Elizabeth Nielsen 49:40
Yes, I would love that.

Preston Lewis 49:41
We do not discriminate with our minivan. Meltdown line that number is open for anybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai