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Scarborough Baptist Church: 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Care:  At least some of the information about this charity is no longer current.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 charity review in the series ‘Members of Missions Interlink’, Missions Interlink being ‘the Australian network for global mission[1]’.

‘Scarborough Baptist 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

This Member did not 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 ‘Scarborough Baptist Church’[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 a charity, after adding ‘Inc’, in that name (Scarborough).

2. There is no mention of professional fundraisers on the website, but given that this is a local church, this is not surprising.

3. NA

4. The Australian Business Register (linked from Scarborough’s ACNC Register record), says that the charity is not entitled to receive tax deductible gifts[4]. But you can get one if you donate to its ‘Scarborough Baptist Church School Building Fund’. School? There is no mention of this Fund on the website.

5. This is the only description on the website: ‘As an evangelical church, we seek both to share the good news of Jesus Christ and to help people grow in their relationship with God.

This is what was consumed in order to do this in 2017-2018:

The 69% of expenses that went on ‘Employment’ was for one full-time, two part-time and six casual employees[5].

There is no information on what was achieved in the year with the spending. All spending to date, though, has resulted in two pieces of land in the books at $2 million (on which is a building said to be worth nothing), and an (unexplained) investment portfolio valued at $382K.

 

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

 

 

  1. https://missionsinterlink.org.au/about/http://tedsherwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/word-image-21.png ↑
  2. The Church is a newer member of Missions Interlink, so there is no prior 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. It also says that Scarborough is an unincorporated entity, which is not correct. ↑
  5. This cannot be 16.25 FTE, as the AIS 2018 says. ↑

 

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BY: Ted Sherwood IN : , , , ,
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