Archived: Intercultural Training Australia Limited: charity review
Care: At least some of the information about this charity is no longer current. Use the ‘Search charity names’ box to see if there is a later review. If the latest review has a message like this, you are welcome to make your case for an updated review via email to ted@businessbythebook.com.au.
This is a review[1] of one of Missions Interlink’s ‘Associate Organisations’, Intercultural Training Australia Limited (ITA).
Given that Missions Interlink is ‘the Australian network for global mission’, ITA is most likely a charity.
The Australian charities regulator, the ACNC, in their Factsheet: Making sure your donation gets to where it needs to, gives “some steps to consider to help make sure your donation is going where it is intended.”
- Check the organisation’s name.
- Ask for identification from anyone seeking a donation.
- Be careful of online requests for donations.
- No tax deduction doesn’t mean the charity is not a legitimate one.
- Find out more about how the charity says it uses donations.
Here are the answers for ITA:
1. It is a registered charity.
Ministry comment: ‘not for taxation purposes, we are a registered as an Educational Institution.’
2. NA
3. Although there is no obvious request for donations on the website, a search of the site on ‘give’ results in this page that couldn’t be anything else but an invitation. However, the PayPal button leads to a message that ‘This recipient is currently unable to receive money.’
Ministry comment: ‘we don’t ever receive any donations from the public.’
4. It doesn’t offer a tax deduction, but ITA is, as we have seen, is a legitimate charity.
Ministry comment: ‘we are not a deductible gift recipient for tax purposes’
5. We could look at ITA’s accounts to find out how the charity uses its donations, but there’s a problem. The auditor, James Buckman[2], gave a qualified audit opinion because the company does not have the procedures to ensure that all donations that are received make their way into the charity’s bank account. And the board[3][iii] does not appear to be concerned about this.
Ministry comment: The board noted it but as we don’t receive any donations or other funds by cash we have asked the auditor to adjust that note/qualification for next year’
‘End of review[4].
- For the previous review, see here. ↑
- Who claims no membership of a professional accounting body.Ministry comment: ‘he is retired and has resigned his membership from all professional bodies, he does have an accounting qualification and was previously a member of CPA and has been approved by the office of fair trading in Qld to conduct our audit’ ↑
- [iii] Not shown on the website, but from the ACNC Register:Ashley HoodKim HoodRosemary Laing
Jennifer Latham
Derek McComber
Christine Neale
Kaye Oakley ↑
- I sent them a draft of this review. They sent the comments that have been included above. ↑