Archived: Love International Ltd, charity review

This is a charity review, a review for those with an interest in the Australian charity Love International Ltd (LI)[i].

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

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 20 February 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:
  • For each heading in the register entry, first read the information under that heading.
  • 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.
• Not on FaceBook or LinkedIn.
• State government fundraising licence registers.
• www.glassdoor.com.au

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Entity Subtype

• Only the second of the three is a subtype suggestive of an organisation that is sharing the Gospel.
• The sixth and seventh (of eight) ‘principal objects’ in the Memorandum of Association (see Charity’s Document (sic), below), are about advancing the Gospel.

CHARITY DETAILS

Legal Name

• Despite recording in the AIS 2015 (see below) that it is an association, LI is a company limited by guarantee.
• LI does not have the necessary provisions in its Articles of Association to allow it to omit ‘Ltd/Limited’ at the end of its name.
  • Their website suggests that maybe they are not always complying with this.

Charity ABN

• Tax deductibility: You cannot claim a tax deduction for a donation to LI.

Charity Address for Service

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

Charity Street Address

• Postal address, from the website: PO Box 5 KENMORE QLD 4069

Email

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

Phone

• From the website: 07 3868 1161 or 0421 870 754

Website

• From an internet search: www.loveinternationalaustralia.org

ANNUAL REPORTING

• AIS 2015
  • This is LI’s compulsory Annual Information Statement 2015 (AIS 2015).
  • It gives basic financial information:
    • Total Income/Receipts $26K
    • No grants made
    • No employee expenses/payments (matching the information elsewhere in the AIS.)
    • A deficit of $20K
    • No liabilities, and equity of $50K
    • LI uses cash, rather than accrual, accounting.
  • The AIS was lodged four months after the year end.
• Financial Report 2015
  • Its small size means that LI is not required to submit a financial report to the ACNC.
  • LI declares its membership of Missions Interlink (confirmed here):
    • Love International is a member of Missions Interlink, a prominent and well respected organisation in Australia representing colleges, aid and missionary organisations.
    • This membership requires LI to ‘have available for its members and supporters a clear and appropriate financial statement which has been approved by its auditor[iii]. I asked for this statement but didn’t get a reply.

ABOUT THE CHARITY

• Statement of Faith
  • There does not appear to be one on the website. (The lack of a search function means I couldn’t confirm this.)
  • There is a section in the governing document (see Charity’s Document (sic), below) called ‘Tenets of Faith’[iv]

Who the Charity Benefits

• Vision
  • None found
• Mission
  • None found
• Activities (What did LI do?)
  • From the Activities section in the AIS 2015:
    • Providing financial assistance for the running of Love International School, Natkiri (sic), Mozambique.         Started the construction of a Medical Clinic (sic) in Natikiri, Mozambique.
      • This doesn’t fit with the fact that grants are shown as zero in the AIS 2015.
    • Our activities and outcomes help to achieve our purposes in providing education and food for the very underpriviledge (sic) and needy in Africa.
• Outcomes (What did LI deliver?)
  • LI did not respond to the request in the AIS 2015 for a description of its outcomes.
  • Nothing found on the website.
• Impact (How were people’s lives improved?)
  • Nothing found on the website.

Size of Charity

• If there were a size smaller than Small then LI would no doubt qualify.

Financial Year End

• This means that the next AIS is due by 31 December 2016. Before that the financial information on the Register will be up to 18 months out-of-date.
  • You may therefore need to request more up-to-date information.

WHERE THE CHARITY OPERATES

Operating State(s)[v]

• LI holds a fundraising licence only in Qld.
  • The extent to which, after exemptions, it is required to have one in the other six states that have a licensing regime depends on whether those states interpret LI’s request for money on its website as fundraising.

CHARITY’S DOCUMENT (SIC)

• This document consists of a Memorandum of Association and an Articles of Association, the two documents that were long ago replaced by a constitution for new companies and companies who had these documents but wanted to amend their rules.
• There is no Annual Report/Review available on the ACNC Register.
• Nor on the website.

RESPONSIBLE PERSONS

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

Donald Stewart                 This function was not available at the time of publishing

Olivia Stewart

Tracey Jones

• In their AIS 2015 (see above), LI have attested to the accuracy of this listing.
• Given that Donald and Olivia appear to be a couple, it is questionable wisdom to have a couple as two of the three members of a charity board.
• Unless the members have, under clause 34 of the Articles of Association changed the composition of the board, it is
  • Two members short, and
  • ‘Position’ should show ‘President’, ‘Vice President’, ‘Secretary’, and ‘Treasurer’ and only one ‘Director’.
• The website does not mention the board.

(End of review)

[i] And, because it is a member of Missions Interlink, those interested in the accountability provided by that organisation.

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

[iii] Standards 4.1.

[iv] Corrected by hand from ‘Tenants of Faith’, a term that is not completely inappropriate?!

[v] 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.’

[vi] 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.