Cabrini Outreach: charity review

This is a review in the series ‘Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Members’. ACFID ‘is the peak body for Australian non government organisations (NGOs) involved in international development and humanitarian action.’ It requires Members to adhere to a Code of Conduct. ‘Cabrini Outreach’ is one such Member.

Donors

The website linked from the ACFID membership list seeks donations from the public.

The ACNC, in their article, Donating to Legitimate Charities, gives “some things to consider to help you make sure your donation is going where it is intended”:

1. Check the charity’s name.
2. Ask for identification from anyone seeking a donation.
3. Be careful of online requests for donations.
4. No tax deduction doesn’t mean the charity is not a legitimate one, and
5. Find out more about how the charity says it uses donations.

Here’s the results for ‘Cabrini Outreach’, with #5 supplemented by the essentials of the ACNC’s What should I consider when deciding which charity to support?^[1]

 1.  There’s a charity registered in the name ‘Cabrini Outreach Limited’ (Cabrini).

Cabrini has registered the business name Cabrini Outreach, so can drop ‘Ltd’/‘Limited’ from its name.

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2.  There is no indication on the website that Cabrini seeks donations door-to-door or in public places.

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3.  The web address begins with a closed padlock symbol, so the website is secure [the ACNC article above^[2]].

Next to where you put your credit card information there is the statement ‘Your information is secure’, but it is not linked to anything.

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4.  Cabrini’s ABN record says that, as a public benevolent institution, it is entitled to receive tax-deductible gifts. But the ‘Donate Now’ button takes one, without explanation, via this page on the programs, to the giving page for a different name, Cabrini Foundation. A search of the Australian Business Register shows that this is a registered business name belonging to another charity, Cabrini Health Limited.

So why are donations to Cabrini going to another charity?

The governing document on the ACNC Register shows that Cabrini is a fully-owned subsidiary of a third charity, Cabrini Australia Limited. This charity is a member of the Cabrini_ACNC Group, a group that includes the charity receiving Cabrini donations, Cabrini Health Limited (see above). So, there’s the reason.

This means that the group is missing a member, Cabrini.

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5.  The use of your donations

The audited account of how donations are used by a charity is its Financial Report on the ACNC Register. But because Cabrini was only registered as a charity in 2019 (with an ABN from 18 December 2019), no Report has been required yet.

Cabrini was operating as one of the ‘service arms’ of Cabrini Health Ltd before this^[3], with its first full year being the year ended 30 June 2019. Its reporting for that year does not comply with Accounting Standards, there only being an audited Statement of Income and Expenditure^[4], and therefore also does not comply with the ACFID’s Code of Conduct.

The Statement above shows the following ‘expenditure’:

No further information is given^[5]. So, we don’t know (a) which organisations received the money, and (b) how Cabrini ensures that the money reaches the overseas organisation and that it is used for the purposes given.

Directors

These are the people responsible for directing Cabrini:

Anthony Rice

Jeffrey Gleeson

Joseph Caddy

Lisa Harker

Paul Holyoake

Peter Black

Robyn O’Hehir

Sharon Casey

Simeon Goldenberg

Sylvia Falzon

Impact

Apart from two stories in the Annual Report, nothing systematic on impact found.

It is, however, a class of information (Class 7) that Cabrini is, upon request, willing to share.

Charity response

Cabrini encourages feedback. I sent a draft of this review, to both the ACNC Register address and the feedback address, on 23 March 2020. At the time of publishing the review, 17 April, they had not responded.

1. A section in the article, Donating and Volunteering:

   • Focus on the nature of the charity’s work, its beneficiaries and the impact the charity is having in the community.
   • Is it clear what the charity is trying to achieve and how its activities work towards its objectives?
   • Would you like to spend your money, or time if volunteering, to support these objectives?
   • Is the charity being transparent about its activities?

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2. The ACNC’s information (in its article above) is out-of-date. ↑

3. Annual Report 2018-19, page 38, ACNC Register. ↑

4. There is no claim that this Statement complies with the Australian Accounting Standards; rather its claim that ‘it has been prepared in accordance with the presentation and disclosure requirements set out in the ACFID Code of Conduct’. It appears that this just means that the ACFID format has been followed; because of the absence of the Notes normally associated with such a Statement, it means that the value of the information is greatly reduced. ↑

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