Archived: Emmanuel Relief & Rehabilitation International, charity review

This is a charity review, a review for those with an interest in the Australian charity Emmanuel Relief & Rehabilitation International (ERR).

It is structured according to the charity’s entry on the ACNC[i]Register, and its purpose is to supply some information extra to what is there, information that may be helpful in your decision about ERR.

It is up to you to decide whether any or all of the information presented here is what you need in order to make that decision, and whether you should seek any other information, either from the charity itself or from other sources.

Ministry response

Prior to publishing this review, I sent my observations to the charity, on 24 March 2016, and invited them to comment. They did not respond.

Organisation of this review

• The review is organised according to the headings in the Register entry.
  1. For each heading in the register entry, first read the information under that heading.
  2. Then check if that heading is included below. (Headings for which there is no comment are not included.)

Sources

• ACNC Register (including links)
• Google search on the charity’s name.
• No website.
• Not on FaceBook or LinkedIn.
• State government fundraising licence registers.
• No reviews yet on Glassdoor.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Entity Subtype

• A subtype consistent with sharing the Gospel.
• The object in the constitution supports this:
  • To propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Australia and abroad in accordance with the Great Commission…

CHARITY DETAILS

Legal Name

• ERR is an unincorporated association.

Other Name(s)

• These two names are trading names, carrying no right to operate under them. A business name is required for that.

Charity ABN

• Tax deductibility: Your donation to ERR will not attract a tax deduction.

Charity Address for Service

• I have no reason to believe that this doesn’t work.

Charity Street Address

• No postal address found.

Email

• I have no reason to believe that this doesn’t work.
• Alternative address, from the Emmanuel International website: australia@e-i.org

Phone

• Not in www.whitepages.com.au
• But a director, Allison Chapple, is: 08 9381 9036

Website

• No website found. Confirmed by the listing on Emmanuel International’s site.

ANNUAL REPORTING

• AIS 2015
  • This is ERR ’s compulsory Annual Information Statement 2015 (AIS 2015).
  • It was lodged one day before the expiry of the (generous) seven months allowed by the ACNC.
  • It contains basic financial information:
    • Income ($68K) was entirely from ‘Donations and bequests’.
    • The lack of employee payments matches the declaration of no employees elsewhere in the AIS.
    • ERR reported that its accounting method was ‘Cash’, a method that doesn’t generate assets (or liabilities); therefore they had to record assets ($28K ) outside the double entry system.
    • Almost 100% of the payments, $69K, were for overseas grants and donations. A good portion probably went for this purchase
• Financial Report 2015
  • As a ‘Small’ charity, ERR doesn’t have to submit a Financial Report.
  • Although AO is a member of Missions Interlink[ii], and one of their requirements is that members ‘have available for its members and supporters a clear and appropriate financial statement which has been approved by its auditor’ [Standards Statement, 4.1], they
    • did not choose to lodge one with the ACNC voluntarily, and
    • did not respond to my request for a copy of this ‘statement’.
  • I have therefore been unable to review the latest report.

ABOUT THE CHARITY

• Statement of Faith
  • None found.

 Date Established

• No history found.

Who the Charity Benefits

• Vision and Mission
  • No website to check.
• Activities (What did ERR do?)
  • From the AIS 2015, very little disclosed and not necessarily specific to 2015:
    • distributing (sic) funds to community development projects, raising awareness in Australia by regular meetings, praying for the needy.
• Outcomes (What did ERR deliver?)
  • ERR did not respond to the request in the AIS 2015 for a description of its outcomes.
  • No website to check.
• Impact (How were people’s lives improved?)
  • No website to check.

Size of Charity

• If there was a size smaller than ‘Small’, ERR would no doubt qualify.

Financial Year End

• Before the due date for the next report, the financial information on the Register will be up to 18 months (19 if the ACNC gives its usual extension) out-of-date.
  • You may therefore need to ask for more up-to-date information.

Basic Religious Charity

• Although it’s not taken advantage of it, ERR is an unincorporated body with the subtype Advancing Religion, so is likely to qualify as one of these special cases.

WHERE THE CHARITY OPERATES

Operating State(s)[ii]

• ERR does not have a fundraising licence in this state.
  • Nor in any of the other six that have a licensing regime.

Operates in (Countries)

• Given the information on grants and donations made overseas, it seems unlikely that this list applies to ERR, but to Emmanuel International.

CHARITY’S DOCUMENT (SIC)

• An Annual Report/Review could be lodged here.
• No website to check for one there.

RESPONSIBLE PERSONS

                                    No. of Australian ‘responsible person’ positions[iii]

Heather Ellis             This function was not working at the time of writing

Babu Simon

 Mary Roskams

 Allison Chapple

• Is Allison Chapple this one?
• No other source of information to which to compare this list.

(End of review)

[i] Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, Australia’s national regulator of charities.

[ii] This is how the ACNC explains ‘operating locations’ in their application guide: ‘You need to give details about where in Australia your organisation conducts (or plans to conduct) its activities.’

[iii] Because of the possibility of two (or more) directors having the same name on the register of responsible persons, it is not possible to be definitive about the number of directorships held.