Archived: Mukti Australia: charity review

This is review in the series ‘Members of Missions Interlink’, Missions Interlink being ‘the Australian network for global mission^[1]’.

‘Mukti Australia’ is one such Member, and an organisation that allows donations online.

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

Mukti Australia chose not to respond to a draft of this review.

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’s the results for ‘Mukti Australia’^[2], with #5 supplemented by the essentials of the ACNC’s What should I consider when deciding which charity to support?^[3].

1.  A search on the ACNC Register of charities gives three results:

If we go by the website that is linked from the Missions Interlink membership, it is the first one, Mukti Australia Inc. (Mukti).

Mukti is a member of an ACNC Reporting Group. This is the second entry above. There is one other member, The Trustee For Mukti Australia Overseas Aid Fund (the Fund) (the third one above).

2. NA

3. The “web address begins with ‘https’ and there is a closed padlock symbol next to the web address in the address bar”, so the website is secure [the ACNC article above].

A note at the beginning of the giving page says that ‘All payments are processed securely through our PCI-DSS-compliant international payment gateway provider’, but there is no link to allow verification of this.

4. The Australian Business Register (linked from Mukti’s ACNC Register record), says that the charity is entitled to receive tax deductible gifts. Likewise, for the Fund.

5. This is Mukti’s mission:

This is how they do it.

You can’t give to these directly; rather, you give to the work in one or other of India, Sri Lanka, or Australia (administration).

The audited account of how the donations are used is the Financial Report 2017 on the ACNC Register. Within that there are two statements that give information on how the donations were used. But you should first turn to the Notes to the accounts (Notes to the Financial Statements in this case) to check out the ‘Basis of preparation’.

Do you provide or give things to, receive things from, or have oversight of, or review, of the Mukti^[4]? Perhaps you intend to donate or are one of the donors who gave $883K last year [Financial Report 2017]? Or you are one of the 108 staff (AIS 2017)? If so, can you ring Mukti’s office and request that they prepare financial statements that answer the question or questions you have about the charity? I doubt it. You are therefore ‘potentially interested in the information provided in general purpose reports^[5]’.

You are therefore in the wrong place – I only have access to the published accounts of Mukti, and the directors^[6], with the agreement of the auditor^[7], have declared that you don’t exist:

The directors don’t say for whom they have prepared the statements, saying only that ‘These special purpose financial statements have been prepared to meet the reporting requirements of the Act.’ (But if they should be preparing general purpose financial statements, then those requirements have not been met.)

If Mukti is still in the running for your donation (or business), here’s what they said about how your donations were used:

1. Cash: Payments to suppliers and employees $1.025,516
   1. This is 100% of the cash outflows for operating activities, and, for Mukti this year, almost 100% of all cash outflows.
2. Accrual (expenses):

‘Employee benefits expense’ $277K (27% of expenses)

‘Overseas project distributions’ $554K (54% of expenses).

There is no information on the destination of these distributions. Nor on the relationship between them and (a) the three countries in which Mukti works, (b) the four areas in which it works, and (c) the four giving options.

There is no information on how Mukti (a) ensures that the money gets to the overseas organisation it is meant to, and (b) that it is spent on the program or programs for which it was sent.

There is no information on the impact of the charity’s activities.

Please contact me if you need a more in-depth review.

1. https://missionsinterlink.org.au/about/ ↑
2. See here for my last review. ↑
3. 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]. ↑
4. From Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting (SAC2), www.aasb.gov.au: ↑
5. From Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting (SAC2), www.aasb.gov.au ↑
6. The people shown under ‘People’ here. ↑
7. Geoffrey B Johnson, Chartered Accountant, Rucker DWC Pty Ltd. ↑