Home / Charity Reviews /

Lake Gwelup Christian Church Inc.: 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Care:  At least some of the information about this charity is no longer current.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 in the series ‘Members of Missions Interlink’, Missions Interlink being ‘the Australian network for global mission[1]’. ‘Lake Gwelup Christian Church’ is one such member.

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

http://tedsherwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/word-image-20.png

I sent a draft of this review to the charity on 17 May 2109. They did not respond.

The charities’ regulator, 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.
  5. Find out more about how the charity says it uses donations.

Here are the results for ‘Lake Gwelup Christian Church’, with #5 supplemented by the essentials of the ACNC’s What should I consider when deciding which charity to support?[2].

  1. A search on the ACNC Register of charities gives a charity with the name Lake Gwelup Christian Church Inc. (LGCC). The website address given on the Register entry for that charity shows that it is the same organisation[3].
  2. As a church, it is unlikely that LGCC uses third party fundraisers. There is no mention of them on the website.
  3. The web address does not begin with ‘https’ and there is not “a closed padlock symbol next to the web address in the address bar”, so the website is not secure [the ACNC article above]. However, as there is no online giving facility, this is not a concern.
  4. The Australian Business Register (linked from LGCC’s ACNC Register record), says that the charity is not entitled to receive tax deductible gifts. It is, however, a legitimate charity.
  5. Objectives / Mission

Nothing on the website.

From the Constitution (Governing document, ACNC Register):

Does this cover a joint venture with an aged-care provider?

Activities

Other than via some of the blog posts, nothing on the website.

From the AIS 2018 (although this is not particularly about 2018):

Sharing the Gospel[4]?

Yes

Locations

LGCC operates in Australia, per the ACNC Register, only in Western Australia.

The overseas country countries to which LGCC sent the $59K are not shown on the Register.

How it says it uses donations

The audited account of how donations are used is the Financial Report 2018 on the ACNC Register.

But this matters not, for if you are reading here to get financial information about the LGCC, then you are in the wrong place:  the directors have effectively said [Note 1 to the accounts] that you can ring the office and ask them to prepare a report to answer your questions[5].

Here’s the expenses that made double figures in what they submitted for the purposes of their enabling legislation and the ACNC Act (Note 1]:

Depreciation                                        124,011

Salaries                                                102,651

Reach Global Partner Support        55,342

Sensory Garden Expenses                13,845

Insurances                                           12,375

          Interest on Betahanie (sic) Loan     11,693

The destination of the ‘Partner Support’ is not given.

Outcomes / impact

Nothing found.

 

 

  1. https://missionsinterlink.org.au/about/ ↑
  2. 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? [A section in the article, Donating and Volunteering]. ↑
  3. As associations may either be incorporated or unincorporated, LGCC must, unless it has a business name registered, use its full name. It has no business name registered. The website does not use the full name. ↑
  4. “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. ↑
  5. This is by virtue of the fact that they have said that LGCC is not a ‘reporting entity’, that is, there are no users who need a regulator to ensure that they get the information they need in order to make decisions about LGCC. With a church congregation that gives $261K [Financial Report 2018], 25 volunteers [AIS 2018], and aged care residents whose facility is partly owned by LGCC, this is very doubtful. ↑

 

Share

BY: Ted Sherwood IN : , , ,
SAVE PDF