Archived: Cosmos Healthcare Inc: charity review

This is a charity review of Cosmos Healthcare Inc (CH) an organisation that seeks donations online, and is a member of Missions Interlink. (Including the answers to the questions that the Australian charity regulator, the ACNC, suggests that you ask.)

For the previous review, see here.

Is it responsive to feedback?

• There is no invitation, on the website, to submit feedback or complaints.
• Their values include accountability, openness and transparency:

• I sent them a draft of this review. Like last, they did not respond.

Is CH registered?

• As a charity, yes.
• CH is a WA incorporated association (No. A1010684A).
• It holds no business names yet trades under the name Cosmos Healthcare.
• CH operates, per the ACNC Register, only in Western Australia. It has a fundraising licence there. But nowhere else.
  • Whether it needs one in the other five states that have a licensing regime for charities depends on whether those states think that inviting donations via the internet is ‘fundraising’.

What do they do?

• They describe themselves as, ‘an intercontinental healthcare organisation’, and ‘an international health and development organisation’. Read more here.
  • The ACNC Register confirms that they operate overseas only in Zimbabwe.
• Here’s their ‘Description of charity’s activities and outcomes’ in the AIS 2017:
  • The organization supports financially a medical centre in Zimbabwe. We also send medical teams to assist local medical staff, for treatment of local people and to train local people.
• More balanced, and detailed, is the description on GiveNow:

Do they share the Gospel^[1]?

• No
  • Which fits the absence of (a) ‘Advancing religion’ as one of the four ‘entity subtypes’ that CH have listed on the ACNC Register, and (b) Christianity in the description of its objects in the constitution.
  • But if the plan to implement Community Health Evangelism (CHE), a plan that has existed since at least the last review, comes to pass, sharing the Gospel will be integrated in their work.
    • How will this fit with the fact that the government allows their donors a tax deduction?

What impact are they having?

• Nothing systematic found.

What do they spend outside the costs directly incurred in delivering the above impact, that is, on administration?

• The expenses are not classified to allow this calculation.
  • For instance, outside ‘Donations’, what portion, if any, of the other expenses were direct to healthcare delivery in Zimbabwe?
  • There is a figure ‘Administration’ ($12K), but other administrative expenses, like ‘Property’ and ‘Insurance’ are separate items.

Do they pay their directors?

• There is nothing to prohibit this in the constitution.
• The financial disclosure doesn’t allow a check for such payments.

Can you get a tax deduction?

• Yes

Is their online giving secure?

• Security is still not mentioned on the CH giving page, and after that page redirects to GiveNow, neither do their first two pages mention it.

Where were the (net) donations sent?

• There is no information in the Financial Report.
• Presumably, from information on the website, the money is sent to this organization.
  • Despite one of their four values being ‘Accountability’, neither ‘financial statement’ nor ‘audit’ is mentioned on their website.

What choices do you have in how your donation is used?

• ‘Extended Care Patients’
  • There is a list of these patients on the second page under ‘Credit Card’.
• ‘Medicine Supply Campaign’
• ‘General Donations – 2017/18’

Is their reporting up-to-date?

• Yes (seven months after year end, again on the last day allowed).

Does their reporting comply with the regulator’s requirements?

• AIS 2017: No
  • Cosmos Healthcare is not disclosed as an ‘other name’.
  • The ‘Description of charity’s activities and outcomes’ is not particularly about 2017.
  • No outcomes are reported
  • The state in which they intend to fundraise in 2018 is not shown.
• Financial Report 2017^[2]: No
  • The directors have decided to produce special purpose financial statements, the type of statements that do not have to comply with all the Accounting Standards. Given that this type is only appropriate when the users, both current and prospective, do not need a regulator to help them get the financial information they need, this decision is questionable.
    • The directors do not say why they think that “the association is not a reporting entity” (and is thus qualified to produce the lower standard statements).
  • The Statement by the Committee of Management does not comply with the ACNC’s requirements.
  • Several of the usual Notes are missing.

What financial situation was shown in that Report?

• The deficit as a percentage of revenue was increased from 1% to 2%.
• Relatively low liabilities (all current) means that both short- and long-term financial structure are sound.

What did the auditor say about the last financial statements?

• The auditor, Robert John Campbell CA CPA, of Australia Audit Group Pty Ltd, issued a ‘clean’ opinion.
• Before you decide how much comfort to take from this result,
  • read about opinions here and here, and
  • read again under ‘Financial Report 2017’.

If a charity, is their page on the ACNC Register complete / correct?

• Not quite – the name they use, Cosmos Healthcare, is missing.
• Both the website and Facebook still have a different phone number: (08) 6168 1670.
• It is unwise to use a personal email address as a ‘Charity Address for Service’.

Who are the people controlling the organisation?

• Those listed here on the website.
• Which is quite different from the list (under ‘Responsible Persons’) on the ACNC Register:
  • Stephen Dewing
  • Jason James
  • Ian Mawson
  • Phil Sparrow
    • Is it this Phil Sparrow?
  • Paul Symons

To whom is CH accountable?

• As a charity, to the ACNC.
  • CH shows the ACNC’s ‘charity tick’ in its website header.
    • Apart from saying that CH is registered with them, the ‘tick’ also means that CH’s AIS is not overdue, and the ACNC has not taken any compliance action against it.
      • But no more than this.
• Not mentioned on the website, but they are a member of Missions Interlink.
  • For one opinion of the strength of this accountability, see the section Activities in this review.
• CH is also accountable to the Western Australian regulator of associations.

1. “Good living and social concern are important [to the cause of evangelism], but they are not uniquely Christian graces…I’ve met a lot of fine Hindus, Muslims and atheists. Just living the life is not going to bring someone to Christ. There is much more to it than that. We must help people, certainly, but we must also share with them why we are motivated to do so. We must stand against injustice, poverty and need, but we must at the same time point to the One who brings justice and who can meet the deepest need. Until they know our reasons, how can they come to know our Lord?” [Dan Armstrong, the Fifth Gospel: The Gospel According to You, Anzea Books, pp. 13-14. ↑
2. I use the Pinnacle Financial Statements, respected in the profession as providing a very sound basis for producing compliant financial reports.  To this I add an assessment of materiality (both quantitative and qualitative), where the users being considered are donors. ↑