Malyon College (Queensland Baptists)

This is a review^[1] in the series ‘Members of Missions Interlink’, Missions Interlink being the Australian Evangelical Alliance Inc‘s ‘network for global mission‘. We review these charities because their membership means that they must sign up to a set of standards, and this, at least on paper, makes them a better bet for your donations (or other involvement).

‘Malyon College’ is one such member. It seeks donations on the website linked from Missions Interlink.

COVID-19 There’s nothing specifically about COVID-19 on the website.

Donors

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, and
5. Find out more about how the charity says it uses donations.

Here’s the results for ‘Malyon College’, 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 ‘Malyon College’ on the ACNC Register gives no result. Dropping ‘College’ makes no difference:

From what it does, ‘Malyon College’ appears to be a charity. Perhaps it just hasn’t registered as one. An ABN search shows otherwise: Malyon doesn’t have an ABN but is a trading name of The Baptist Union of Queensland (BUQ). This is a registered charity^[3].

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2.  There is nothing to indicate that Malyon uses either door-to-door or street collectors.

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3.  The web address begins with a closed padlock symbol, so the website is secure [the ACNC article above^[4]]. But there is nothing on the donation page about the security of your information.

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4.  Malyon offers a tax deduction for your donation:

The explanation for how this is possible when Malyon is not even a separate organisation has to be inferred from the information at the bottom of the page:

The Trustee for the Malyon Foundation is a registered charity, not a department of BUQ. It is a public ancillary fund, with three individuals as the ‘trustee’. BUQ, trading as Malyon Theological College, is collecting money for a charity separate to BUQ. By law, the Foundation can only give gifts to an organization that has deductible gift recipient status. Neither Malyon nor BUQ have this, so Malyon can’t keep the money. Confusing.

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5.  The use of your donations

The audited account of how a charity uses donations is the Financial Report on the ACNC Register. For Malyon we turn to The Baptist Union of Queensland’s Register entry. Unfortunately, the reports for 2019 have been overdue since 1 February 2020. (Last year they were lodged seven months late.)

If the Union continues its practice of previous years, the accounts will be seriously compromised in usefulness.

Directors have a choice between two kinds of reports, special purpose or general purpose. The requirements of the former are less onerous than the latter. The former are only appropriate if you, and all the other stakeholders, can command the preparation of financial reports tailored to your needs. This is highly unlikely with an organisation of the size ($111.33 million revenue [AIS 2018]) and diversity (eight separate operations [Financial Report 2018]) of the Union, yet this is what the directors effectively said was possible^[5].

Who’s responsible?

From the ACNC Register, these are the directors responsible for the website and overdue reports:

Alistair Macpherson

Anstey Matthew (sic)

Geoffrey Yeomans

Greenbury Philip (sic)

John Sweetman

Klose Ann (sic)

Lorraine Pfeffer

Mark Hodgson

Peter Sweetman

Phillip McCallum

Richard Cathie

Stephen Hendrick

Stewart Pieper

Impact

There is nothing on the Malyon website about the impact of past donations.

Charity response

The introduction to the Mission Interlink standards (see above) includes this statement:

We sent the member a draft of this review. They received the email, but chose not to respond.

End of review.

1. See here for the previous review. ↑
2. A section in the article, Donating and Volunteering:
   • • 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?

   ↑

3. The absence of an ABN is OK so long as Malyon operates under the same ‘business structure’ as The Baptist Union of Queensland: ↑
4. The ACNC’s information (in its article above) is not correct for the Chrome browser; it does not have ‘https’. ↑
5. This is what his professional body, Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand, has to say about the choice between the two types of reports: ↑