Archived: Youth With A Mission – Tasmania Inc, charity review

This is a charity review, a review for those with an interest in the Australian charity Youth With A Mission – Tasmania Inc (YWAMT).

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 YWAMT.

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 my observations to the charity, on 7 May 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.)
• There is then a more detailed comment on the Financial Report.
• Lastly, there is a section Membership of accountability organisations.

Sources

• ACNC Register (including links)
• Google search on the charity’s name.
• A page on YWAM Southlands (No separate YWAMT website.)
• Facebook – and, confusingly, again.
• Instagram.  Plus Pinterest, Twitter and Google+ available at the top of YWAMT’s page on the website.
• But not YouTube.  Nor LinkedIn.
• State government fundraising licence registers.
• No reviews on Glassdoor.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Entity Subtype

• This selection is long overdue (30 June 2015).
• ‘Advancing religion’ is one of the possibilities.
• The primary purpose in the constitution is
  • To advance the Christian Faith (sic) in all parts of Australia and the rest of the World (sic) by such means as the committee of the Association may determine…
• This does not seem consistent with its ability to give a tax deduction (its DGR status).

CHARITY DETAILS

Legal Name

• This name does not match that in the constitution, and its state registration (No. 01883C), Youth With A Mission (Tasmania) Incorporated.

Other Name(s)

• There should be two trading names here, but YWAM has no business name. It therefore cannot therefore legally trade under any other name than its legal name.
• Despite this, it is called Southlands Tasmania by YWAM Australia, and YWAM Southlands Tasmania on one of its Facebook pages.

Charity ABN

• Tax deductibility: Yes, you can claim a tax deduction for a donation to YWAMT.
  • Why, then, are only two of the five donation options on the website eligible for a tax deduction?

Charity Address for Service

• Did this work?

Charity Street Address

• Postal address, from the website:  PO Box 328 Gosford, NSW 2250.

Email

• Did this work?
• The one on the top of YWAMT’s page on the website is different: info@ywamsouthlands.com.

Phone

• From the website: 03 6265 2108.

Website

• From the Google search: a page on the YWAM Southlands

ANNUAL REPORTING

• AIS 2015
  • This is YWAMT’s compulsory Annual Information Statement 2015 (AIS 2015).
  • It gives basic financial information.
    • Unfortunately, because the Financial Report has only a balance sheet, this is all you’ve got for the income statement.
    • Zero for Employee expenses/payments matches the number of employees reported elsewhere in the AIS.
    • But the existence of grants does not match YMAMT’s description of its activities elsewhere in the AIS (see Activities, below).The two balance sheet figures match those in the Financial Report.
• Financial Report 2015
  • There is nothing in the Financial Report that is signed, so we don’t know when the accounts were approved by the directors (or, indeed, if they were approved).
  • The sole financial statement in the Report was generated from the accounting system on 23 October 2015, four months after year end, and only days before it was lodged with the ACNC.
  • The coverage of finances in this review is left until the financial report proper (see Latest financial report – detail, below).

ABOUT THE CHARITY

• Statement of Faith
  • Plus ‘Foundational Values’.
  • The constitution refers to six documents that define how YWAMT is meant to behave; the first of these are probably the above two documents.

 Date Established

• There is a history on the right hand side near the bottom here.

Who the Charity Benefits

• Vision, mission
  • Nothing found
• Activities (What did YWAMT do?)
  • In the AIS 2015:
    • running (sic) training courses for young people seeking an understanding of God’s purposes for them.
      • The lack of specifics means that we can’t tell whether this is particularly about 2015.
  • The upcoming activities are on their website page.
• Outcomes (What did YWAMT deliver?)
  • Nothing found.
• Impact (How were people’s lives improved?)
  • Nothing found.

Size of Charity

• YWAMT is only $38K below the threshold for the next size up, ‘Medium’, the size that would require it to lodge reviewed or audited financial statements with the ACNC.

Financial Year End

• This means that the next financial report is due by 31 December 2016 – or 31 January 2017 if the ACNC is generous again. 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)[i]

• These states are where the three YWAM partners in YWAM Southlands are located, so I suspect that this is a mistake as a description of where YWAMT operates.
  • If not, there is a strong argument that YWAMT, as a registrable Australian body, needs an ARBN. It doesn’t have one.
• YWAMT has ‘Give’ in its main menu.
  • It does not have a fundraising licence in any of the seven states that have a licensing regime.
    • Apart from exemptions, whether it needs one depends on whether those states think that YWAMT, by calling for donations publicly, is ‘fundraising’ in their territory.

Operates in (Countries)

• Nothing found to support the inclusion of Vanuatu here.

CHARITY’S DOCUMENT (SIC)

• An Annual Report/Review can be lodged on the ACNC Register, but YWAMT hasn’t done this.
• Nor is there one on the website.

RESPONSIBLE PERSONS

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

Matthew Collwell        This function was not working at the time of publication

Katie Kemperman

Scott Kemperman

Rayomd Lind

Shiree Lind

Christine Lucerne

Robert Lucerne

Patrick O’Connell

Amy Thompson

• Presumably Rayomd is misspelt. And therefore is this one.
• Presumably Collwell is misspelt. And therefore is this one.
• This is one more member than is permitted by the constitution.
• The directors are not shown on the website.
• Under ‘Position’
  • The constitution requires a Public Officer.
  • ‘Chairperson’ should be ‘Director/President’ (or as close to that as possible in the ACNC’s choices).

(End of review of the ACNC Register information)

Latest financial report – detail[iii]

• This report is grossly deficient. It is missing all the statements except one, and that one, the balance sheet, is not in the proper form and contains many counter intuitive amounts.
• This means that there is no audit report. (Was an audit even performed?)
• The report is in severe contravention of the accounts and audit provisions of the constitution.
• It is also fails to meet the requirements imposed by Missions Interlink as a result of YWAMT being a member.

Membership of accountability organisations claimed

• None claimed on the website.
• YWAMT is, however a member of Missions Interlink.

(End of review)

[i] 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.’

[ii] 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.

[iii] I use the Pinnacle Financial Statements, respected in the profession as providing a very sound basis for producing compliant financial reports.  To this I add an assessment of materiality (both quantitative and qualitative), where the users being considered are donors.