Popular Christian band MercyMe received more than $17 million for promoting child sponsorship organizations over a seven-year period, according to court filings cited in a recent article by The Roys Report.
Newsboys owner Wes Campbell is currently embroiled in a lawsuit he launched against 33 parties in light of the fallout from accusations against former Newsboys lead singer Michael Tait. Campbell says the controversy led to lost business and lasting damage to his reputation.
In the lawsuit, Campbell accuses MercyMe of seeking to dismantle his company, Thriving Children Advocates (TCA). The company describes itself as a “professional fundraising organization that assists artists, speakers, authors and all others who have a passion for helping poor and needy children by speaking on behalf of humanitarian aid organizations.”
The arrangement at the center of the dispute was straightforward. Children International wanted to increase child sponsorships and signed a deal with TCA to help make that happen. It is not publicly known how much Children International paid TCA. TCA then enlisted artists it worked with to promote the sponsorships and provided MercyMe with a $1 million advance.
In 2019, MercyMe signed an agreement with TCA to promote child sponsorship at their concerts, with the goal of converting 6% of attendees. Concertgoers could sponsor a child for $39 a month, and MercyMe in turn would receive $230 for each confirmed sponsor.
Under the deal, MercyMe would be paid $1 million a year in advance in exchange for securing 22,500 sponsorships.
At $230 per sponsor, that target would have generated $5,175,000. If MercyMe hit the full goal, they would clear more than $4 million beyond the advance under the original terms.
According to the lawsuit, MercyMe was successful in promoting the sponsorships, ultimately received a total of $17 million over the term of their contract.
That relationship later collapsed, however, after stories came out about Michael Tait’s misconduct while connected to the Newsboys.
MercyMe terminated its contract with TCA and instead signed with LiveCo/TPR, which prompted Wes Campbell and TCA to sue.
