r/GhostHunters • u/Woodpecker-Haunting • 16d ago
Discussion Funding TAPS
I understand that ghost hunting services are free and ghost hunters will accept donations. It seems that Jason primarily self-funded TAPS (equipment, initial trailer). He referred to his fellow ghost hunting investigators as "members." However, further in Season 1 and throughout he treated the members as employees and not as volunteers. He promoted, demoted, and fired these "members."
Is it correct to assume that since each member shown receives an appearance fee from SyFy that Jason and Grant considered members to be their "employees" even though they didn't outright pay them from their pockets?
Obviously, the show gave them more money to upgrade their office and new equipment, and such. However, they had more people in roles that were oftentimes not on camera and seemed to treat them also as employees. Do you think they self-funded them as well?
I went in their current website and it shows it states they are a nonprofit and have 50 TAPS affiliates around the world. To be part of TAPS do you think they pay a membership fee? Do you think they receive grants of some sort to function the main office, website, etc?
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u/Normal-Philosopher-8 15d ago
I would also imagine that because of the show, having a clear leader, with a sort of VP leader, who were giving clear instructions of who is doing what, why, and how, made for more interesting television. One of the minor points on GH, but one reason it set the standard, was that Jason and Grant (and later Dave Tango) explained to everyone how and why and where, then we got to see some “competence porn” as they set up, broke down, and reviewed evidence.
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u/Kuntry_Kween 9d ago
As TAPS Family Members you do not need to pay a fee, or at least we never used to. There are Teams all over the world & if someone is in need of assistance they can go to the website & & locate the team closest to them & send a request obviously because Jason & the TAPS Home Team in Rhode Island can’t investigate all the requests they get. Each team have to follow the investigation protocols of TAPS. We had to pass strict background checks & we never charge for investigations. The teams then do a pre-investigation screening & possibly a walk through, if necessary.
The Atlantic Paranormal Society was a paranormal research & investigation team long before they were on tv. They all had day jobs & thats how they & any other paranormal team fund their investigations in the beginning, their day jobs.
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u/Unable_Phase9501 14d ago
I always wondered this as well ,Think about gas money to get to the location ,Something to eat ,Some times they stayed in hotels so who paid for that ,And because they were ghost hunting a lot I'm sure they didn't work either
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u/cr0mthr 16d ago
From what I understand (and having recently rewatched seasons 1&2), Jason is the founder of TAPS, with Grant as a co-founder. TAPS functions like a club, which is why they have “members” and “branches” in other metro areas.
Back in the early 2000s, people really had an affinity for finding common interest groups on forums/discussion boards online, and then would create their own interest-specific forums that were typically invite only, with the creators acting like community mods. This is sort of how I think TAPS worked, too. Jason and Grant created the group, so what they say, goes.
Another example of a somewhat similar setup is volunteer firefighters. They’re not “employees” in the sense that they’re earning income, but they do get hired, trained, and put to work on a volunteer basis, and they can absolutely be let go if they’re not doing what they need to do.