Archived: Missionary Ventures Inc., charity review

This is a charity review, a review for those with an interest in the Australian charity Missionary Ventures Inc. (MV).

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 MV.

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 MV observations to the charity, on 26 March 2016, and invited them to comment. They did not respond.

Organisation of this review

• The first part of this review is organised according to the headings in the Register entry. This is how to use this section of the review:
  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.)
• Then there is a section Membership of accountability organisations claimed.

Sources

• ACNC Register (including links)
• Google search on the charity’s name.
• MV website.
• Two pages on FaceBook: one in the name Missionary Ventures Australia and another in the name Missionary Ventures Australia Short Term Mission (see Other Name(s), below).
• Not on LinkedIn. (But note that the automatically generated page is in the name Missionary Ventures Australia. See Other Name(s), below.)
• State government fundraising licence registers.
• No reviews on Glassdoor yet.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Entity Subtype

• A type consistent with sharing the Gospel.
• MV’s purpose, however, is to help others to do this:

(a) To facilitate missionary outreach by the local church by training and supporting national pastors and evangelists.

(b) To recruit, equip and support short-term mission teams who are committed to serve overseas helping indigenous Christian leadership to evangelise and disciple their own people for Christ [ Statement of Purposes, the constitution.

CHARITY DETAILS

Legal Name

• MV is a Victorian incorporated association (No. A0035777A).

Other Name(s)

• This is a trading name; however, MV needs a business name in order to continue to operate under any name other than the full name.

Charity ABN

• Tax deductibility: No, you cannot claim a tax deduction for a donation to MV.

Charity Address for Service

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

Charity Street Address

• No postal address on the website.

Email

• I have no reason to believe that this doesn’t work.
• An alternative, from the website: mvateams@mvaustralia.org.

Phone

• Add a prefix of 03.

ANNUAL REPORTING

• AIS 2015
  • This is MV’s compulsory Annual Information Statement 2015 (AIS 2015).
  • It was lodged two and a half months late after year end.
  • It gives basic financial information:
    • 92% of the $188K total income came from ‘Donations and bequests’
    • The payment of $5K ‘Employee expenses/payments’ matches the declaration elsewhere in the AIS that employees consisted of one part-timer.
    • ‘Grants and donations made…’ represented 84% of the ‘Donations and bequests’ received (or 77% of total expenses).
    • They had $15K assets and no liabilities.
  • Unfortunately, this is the only financial information that you’ve got:
    • Because of its size MV doesn’t have to lodge a Financial Report.
    • Although MV 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 on the website.
  • Before accepting appointment as an office bearer, pastor, missionary or member of the Board of Management, a nominee must firstly attest in writing their consent to the Lausanne Covenant [constitution, paragraph 34].

Date Established

• Not incorporated until 21 November that year.
• No history found.

Who the Charity Benefits

• Vision
  • ‘Empowering Indigenous churches in the Asia-Pacific region to impact villages, cities and nations with the Gospel of the Kingdom’ [About Us].
• Mission
  • The menu says that the mission is on this page. MVA’s Purpose at the bottom on this page?
• Activities (What did MV do?)
  • From the Description of charity’s activities and outcomes in the AIS 2015:
    • empowered (sic) and encouraged communities in the Asia/ Pacific
      • Not particular to 2015. However, under ‘Beneficiaries’ there is this:
        • We supported communities in the wake of Cyclone (sic) in Philippines ad Vanuatu. We supplied motor bikes to pastors and to religious field workers in Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia. We help support schools and communities in Fiji with resources. We supported and led youth programs in Indonesia. We taught in Bible schools in Thailand and Malaysia . we (sic) lead 138 participants on life changing mission trips.
• Outcomes (What did MV deliver?)
  • MV did not respond to the request in the AIS 2015 for a description of its outcomes.
  • Nothing systematic found on the website.
  • There is some anecdotal evidence under Media on the website, and on their FaceBook page.
• Impact (How were people’s lives improved?)
  • Nothing systematic found.
  • There is some anecdotal evidence under Media on the website, and on their FaceBook page.

Size of Charity

• MV is $62K under the threshold for the next size up, Medium.

Financial Year End

• The next AIS (including Financial Report if they choose to include it) is due by 30 June 2017. Before that the financial information on the Register will be up to 18 months out-of-date.
  • You may therefore need to ask for more up-to-date information.

WHERE THE CHARITY OPERATES

Operating State(s)[ii]

• It doesn’t have a fundraising licence in this state.
• Nor in any of the other six states that have a licensing regime.

• • Apart from exemptions, whether it needs such a licence in a particular state depends on (a) whether fundraising is part of what MV does in that state, and (b) whether that state thinks that MV, by calling for donations publicly, is ‘fundraising’ in their territory.

CHARITY’S DOCUMENT (SIC)

• There is no Annual Report/Review available on the ACNC Register.
• Nor on the website.  There is, however, an End of year 2015 newsletter.

RESPONSIBLE PERSONS

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

John Williams       This function was not working at the time of publication

Chris Parker

Phil Plowman

Kevin Palmer

Matthew Gosbell

• Note that a majority of the committee are not independent: John, Phil, and Matthew are executives of MV.
• According to the list on the website, there is another responsible person, Jane Bateson.

(End of review of the ACNC Register information)

Membership of accountability organisations claimed

• None claimed. MV is, however, a member of Missions Interlink.

(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.