The International Nepal Fellowship (Australia) Limited: charity review

This is review^[1] in the series ‘Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Members’. ACFID ‘is the peak body for Australian non government organisations (NGOs) involved in international development and humanitarian action.’ It requires Members to adhere to a Code of Conduct. ‘International Nepal Fellowship (Aust) Ltd’ is one such Member.

COVID-19

Donors

The name in the ACFID membership list links to a website in the name ‘INF/International Nepal Fellowship’. Here they seek donations from the public.

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 ‘International Nepal Fellowship (Aust) Ltd’, with #5 supplemented by the essentials of the ACNC’s What should I consider when deciding which charity to support?^[2]

1.  There’s no registered charity in that name, but searching on ‘International Nepal Fellowship’ gives one in a name very close: The International Nepal Fellowship (Australia) Limited (INF Australia).

INF Australia has ‘INF Australia’ registered as a business name^[3].

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2.  There is nothing to indicate that INF Australia uses either door-to-door or street (donation) collectors.

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3.  The web address does not begin with a closed padlock symbol, so the website is not secure [the ACNC article above].

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4.  All donations to INF Australia are tax-deductible. (It is both a public benevolent institution and operates a DGR fund.)

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5.  The use of your donations

As context, here, from the website, is what INF Australia does.

Which is what it did last year (from the Directors’ Report, Financial Report 2019) :

Sharing the Gospel? ^[4]

No. INF Australia is a DGR recipient that gets grants from the government.

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Giving options online

Twelve. Plus another that implies that there are yet others – see the dropdown in the middle here.

INF Australia says (page 12, Financial Report 2019) that ‘100% of all income received are (sic) directly assisting Nepal projects and programmes.’ This defines ‘direct’ as the entire Australian operation. A more reasonable calculation of direct is those funds sent to Nepal. This is 68% (leaving 32% as overhead). It would not be unreasonable, therefore, for you to question why it would not be better for you to send your money direct to Nepal.

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Cash spent

From the Statement of Cash Flows (with last year in the second column):

Although this is one more line than most charities, it doesn’t give much information about where the cash went.

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Resources consumed (i.e. accrual)

This is how that activities translated into expenses incurred:

Apart from two minor items (‘Community Education’ and ‘Non-Monetary Expenditure’), the terms are defined.

No connection with the giving options (see above) is given.

That IMF Australia think that more information is useful to donors is shown by the inclusion of this table (and other more detailed information) in the Annual Report 2018-19 [page 18]:

There is no explanation for why this figure is not the same as the expense ‘International Programs’ ($1.52 million) above.

How the funds got to Nepal is not disclosed. Perhaps it is via the charity that shares an office, email address and website with INF Australia, INF International? From the Directors’ Report [Financial Report 2019]:

This is the only mention of INF International in the Financial Report. There is nothing in the audited statements. The required related parties disclosure is missing.

From the Directors’ Report [Financial Report 2019], these are the people responsible for the Financial Report 2019:

Ravi Underwood

Richard Groves

Rudra Paudel

Matthew Johnson

Kerrie Worboys

William Hood

Catherine Clark

Nicola McGunnigle

Richard Reeve^[5]

The ACNC Register, and the website (at the bottom here) shows that these directors still comprise the INF Australia board.

Impact

‘Impact’ means the changes for the better in the beneficiaries as a result of INF Australia’s activities.

A search on ‘impact’ gave nothing systematic on the Australian website, and only this 2014 publication on the main INF website.

Charity response

Their ‘Transparency & Accountability Policy’ implies that they are open to feedback:

We sent them a draft of this review on 24 April 2020. They received the email but chose not to respond.

1. See here for the last 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?

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3. They don’t need to have ‘INF’ or ‘International Nepal Fellowship’ registered because the website linked from the ACFID is not the Australia site, but belongs to ‘INF International’ (see page 3 of the Directors’ Report, Financial Report 2019). ↑
4. ‘When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett says this about sharing the Gospel: ‘A host of contextual issues determine the best manner and the appropriate time to present the gospel verbally, particularly in militant Muslim or Hindu settings. But without such a presentation, it is not possible for people to be personally transformed in all their relationships, which is what poverty alleviation is all about [Kindle Locations 1262-1264, Moody Publishers]. ↑
5. The directors are accountable to the members. At 30 June 2019 there were 105 members. ↑