Christian Revival Crusade National Council: charity review

This is a review^[1] in the series ‘Members of Missions Interlink’, Missions Interlink being ‘the Australian network for global mission^[2]’ (and a means for a Member to get income tax exemption when it might not otherwise be available^[3]). ‘CRC Missions International’ is one such Member.

Covid-19 – no information on the website

The name in the membership list links to a website in the same name. ‘CRC Missions International’ is still “currently in the process of enabling online donations”.

Donors

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 ‘CRC Missions International’, with #5 supplemented by the essentials of the ACNC’s What should I consider when deciding which charity to support?^[4].

1.  A search on the name leads to this registered^[5] charity: Christian Revival Crusade National Council. This is because that charity has CRC Missions International recorded on the Register as one of the names that it is ‘also known as’.

CRC Missions International is still not registered as a business name.

Christian Revival Crusade National Council is the wrong name. It was superseded in August 2017 by CRC Churches International Australia Inc. (CRC Churches). CRC Churches still haven’t updated the Register.

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2. It would be unlikely, and there is no evidence on the website, that CRC Churches uses door-to-door or street fundraisers.

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3. The CRC Churches website for CRC Missions International does not have an online invitation to give (see above). Its own website does though. That website is secure (padlock symbol at the beginning of the address), but security is not mentioned on the online giving page.

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4.  CRC Church’s ABN record says that donors are not entitled to a tax deduction. There is nothing on either their website or that of CRC Missions International that says otherwise.

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5.  The use of your donations

As context, here’s what CRC Churches, on the ACNC Register, says it does:

Which of course leads to the question, ‘What do each of these three entities do?

• CRC Churches has, as we have seen, its own website, with a description of what the entity does.
• As we have seen above, CRC Missions International, is not an entity separate to CRC Churches, but an unregistered name that CRC Churches uses. Here, from the website, is what this part of CRC Churches does.
• CRC College of Ministry is also not an entity separate to CRC Churches. Again, it is an unregistered name that CRC Churches uses. Although it doesn’t have a website, they say they own this one, CRC Training. This is another unregistered name. The courses offered can be seen on the left hand side here.

The ACNC Register says that CRC Churches operates all over Australia. If this means that they are conducting business interstate, they need an ARBN. They don’t have one.

The use of your donations

The audited account of how the donations are used is the Financial Report on the ACNC Register.

Within this report, it is a good idea to look at two areas first: (1) the ‘Basis of preparation’ in the Notes to the accounts, and (2) the audit report.

We can’t do this for CRC Churches because their Financial Report 2019 has no Notes.

This is far from the only deficiency with their reporting:

1. Two of the four required financial statements are missing^[6].
2. The profit and loss statement and balance sheet have been combined, the statement has no heading, and both deviate from what is required by the Accounting Standards.
3. There is no audit report.
4. There is no responsible persons’ declaration.
5. The disclosure is confused by the inclusion, each with its own (deficient) audit report, of one or more financial statements for each of CRC Missions International, CRC College of Ministry, and CRC Churches excluding the other two.

Because of the state of the Financial Report 2019, we cannot reliably say where donations went.

Directors

There is no Directors’ (or similar) Report – it is not compulsory – so we don’t know who was on the Committee when the Financial Report 2019 was approved, but it was likely most of the current committee members:

Bruce Sharman

Christopher Carmody

Danny Parker

Joseph Habermehl

Philip Cayzer

Trevor Murphy

Vasilis Vasilakis^[7]

The ACNC have known since 2015 of the parlous state of this charity’s compliance with its laws, but it continues^[8].

Charity response

Both Members and Associates have to accept a set of standards, the introduction to which includes this statement:

CRC Churches holds to ‘the highest possible standard of [financial] ethics:

We sent CRC Churches a draft of this review on 27 April 2020. They received the email but chose not to respond.

1. See here for the previous review. ↑
2. https://missionsinterlink.org.au/about/ ↑
3. ↑
4. A section in the article, Donating and Volunteering:
   1. Focus on the nature of the charity’s work, its beneficiaries and the impact the charity is having in the community.
   2. Is it clear what the charity is trying to achieve and how its activities work towards its objectives?
   3. Would you like to spend your money, or time if volunteering, to support these objectives?
   4. Is the charity being transparent about its activities?

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5. The ACNC implies, therefore, that it is a ‘legitimate’ charity. But this is not correct – as the ACNC itself points out, registration is voluntary. ↑
6. The heading of the ‘Consolidated Financials Report’ says that Christian Revival Crusade National Council exists, and that CRC Churches is the name under which the Council trades. Both are incorrect – see above. ↑
7. The committee members are responsible to the members of the association. There were 57 of those in Victoria/Tasmania ‘branch’ alone at the time of the Financial Report 2019. ↑
8. We submitted a complaint after the first review. ↑