Archived: The Christian & Missionary Alliance of Australia Inc: 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Care: At least some of the information about this charity is no longer current.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 of The Christian & Missionary Alliance of Australia Inc (CMAA), an organisation that seeks donations online and is a ‘Member Organisation’ of Missions Interlink[1]. (Including the answers to the questions that the Australian charity regulator, the ACNC, suggests that you ask.)
The Australian charities regulator, the ACNC, in their Factsheet: Making sure your donation gets to where it needs to, says that the first thing you should do is to ‘Check the organisation’s name’ by searching for it on the ACNC Register.
Here’s the result:
This doesn’t look like the one we want.
As a check, the Register can be searched using an ABN. You would expect to find an organisation’s ABN on its website, but not so with CMAA. So, use ABN Lookup.
This shows that its search function is smarter than the ACNC’s – it equates ‘&’ with ‘and’, and we so gives us what is most likely the organisation we are looking for:
Using this ABN, we find that CMAA is indeed registered as a charity[2]:
It is at this point, based on experience, that I search for other charities that might be connected with the charity being reviewed.
The ACNC Register shows that the following people – ‘responsible persons’ -are on the board of CMAA:
- Wing Chen
- Chanh Doan
- Kenneth Graham
- Aman Gupta
- Russell Holmes
- Peter Laughlin
- Philip Ticehurst
- Philip Wong
- Wan Yeung
By searching the ACNC Register by responsible person, we see what other charities these people are also governing:
- The Trustee For Cama Services Overseas Aid Fund: all seven board members are also on the CMAA board.
- North East Alliance Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Australia: two of the three board members are also on the CMAA board.
Then we can search for other charities with ‘Christian and Missionary Alliance’ in their name:
This shows two others at the Deakin address of CMAA:
- The Christian And Missionary Alliance Development Fund: Its governing document [ACNC Register] provides that members are nominated by the CMAA board, and board members must be members of CMAA. Its chair is currently the chair of CMAA.
- The Christian And Missionary Alliance of Australasia Property Trust: The membership of the Trust is coextensive with that of CMAA.
So, we have found at least four charities that are controlled by CMAA[3]. But not a single mention of any of them in the financial report that CMAA has lodged with the ACNC. End of review.
- Missions Interlink is an organisation that, among other things, gives members income tax exemption even though they do not meet the “in Australia” test and do not have deductible gift recipient status. ↑
- Which is correct, the organisation with ‘&’, or the ABN record and the ACNC? A search with ASIC shows that CMAA is an ACT (incorporated) association:
The list of incorporated associations is kept by Access Canberra. It shows that it is that CMAA that is using its name incorrectly:
Time for a name change CMAA. ↑
- From my review last year, I know that there is another one: The Alliance College of Australia. This is ‘A ministry of the (CMAA), with a ‘Governing Committee’ appointed by CMAA [Governing document, ACNC Register). ↑
