Category: David Carroll

Former Gospel for Asia Staff Respond to K.P. Yohannan's Donor Letter: GFA Leaders Never Followed Through

Yesterday, I posted an email that Gospel for Asia donor services is sending to donors about the recent controversies, many of them disclosed on this blog. Today, the former staff have posted a response to the question: Is Diaspora willing to meet with GFA?
The letter from GFA CEO K.P. Yohannan did not address the questions about GFA’s financial dealings but did indicate that the former staff (now around 100) were to blame for lack of face-to-face meetings. This reply provides the other side of the matter.
To the question, is the Diaspora willing to meet? They say:

The short answer is: Yes.
However, we doubt there continues to be a reason to meet.

Diaspora had hoped from the beginning to meet with GFA leadership to address the concerns voiced in our first letter. As we moved forward through this process, we even chose a date with KP for such a meeting (October 2, 2014 and then October 13, 2014), but GFA’s leadership never followed through in actually sitting down to meet. Instead, we were told that Gayle Erwin was heading an investigation into our concerns and, as such, it was now out of KP’s hands and up to the board as to what to do next.

A part of the results of the investigation, according to the Diaspora, was a statement that GFA saw no reason to meet.

Several months passed until Gayle Erwin sent his final report in March stating that our claims were dismissed and that they would no longer be communicating with us. We took that to mean an end of any opportunity for a meeting to take place.

The Diaspora explain their reasoning for commenting publicly and deny that a demand for videotaping was the deal breaker:

We have been told that GFA is telling supporters that the only reason the meeting has not happened is because “Diaspora would not meet without it being videotaped” and GFA has been counseled against doing so by the ECFA. Therefore, they have accused us of not being willing to meet.
We think this is disingenuous, as it gives the impression that GFA did all they could to arrange a meeting and the only thing that led to failed negotiations was our demand that it be videotaped (see Aug 22, 2014). This is simply false. Again, see our Communications History for the whole truth.
The only meeting negotiations between GFA and ourselves were the emails and calls between JD and KP. If one reads, s/he will find that JD asked one time about it being videotaped and KP never even responded to that. Then KP announced the investigation. After that, the negotiations about meeting times simply stopped and KP never spoke directly to JD after that. We would not call that a failure on our part.

I encourage interested readers to examine the communications history and responses to other questions from the former staff group.
The GFA response so far appears to be to claim they want to be transparent but actually not be transparent. They have ignored calls to provide information which would address the many issues which have been raised.  I hope that will change. The silence from GFA is very loud.
 

More Questions for Gospel for Asia About 2013 Spending and Funds Unaccounted For

It has been nearly a week since I posted auditor Jason Watkins analysis of publicly available records of Gospel for Asia’s spending in 2012.  I sent the information to Gospel for Asia’s CEO, K.P. Yohannan, and COO, David Carroll as well as the president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability Dan Busby. I asked them to provide information which would contradict Watkins’ findings. No reply.
Today, I want to post Watkins’ analysis of the spending in 2013. Over just these two years, if Watkins is correct, $90 million that GFA affiliates report as contributions to GFA in India do not show up in Indian reports (see both posts).
GFA Pie Chart 2013 F2
 
This is a similar break down as the 2012 chart.
I want to add that GFA may have some explanation for where the $47 million is. It may be that they give it away to other organizations in India (which might be a problem, see this report). If GFA ever responds with additional information, Watkins and I will adjust the analysis and other posts.
For those who are disturbed by these reports, I want to say that this analysis was done with publicly available records. These records are required by various governments and watchdog groups to keep organizations accountable. An examination of those records has led to this analysis and others I have previously published. I have in good faith asked GFA for explanation or additional information. However, COO David Carroll told me in May he would no longer answer my questions.
GFA stopped responding to my requests on May 7. For nearly eight weeks, GFA has remained silent as report after report has been published. To staff, leaders admitted requiring students to carrying cash to India, and told them it wasn’t illegal. GFA said their audit firm, Bland Garvey, said what they did was fine and legal. Then, they acknowledged that they have retained lawyers. However, at no time has GFA commented about why they violated their own financial integrity promises and possibly U.S. law to get hundreds of thousands of undeclared U.S. dollars to India.
My sources inside GFA tell me that some students have left the School of Discipleship over these issues and others including the conflicting stories over Believers’ Church bishops kissing His Eminence the Most Reverend Metropolitan K.P. Yohannan’s ring at ordination.
On the GFA website, CEO Yohannan promises*:

And if you hear something about Gospel for Asia that doesn’t sound right, would you please contact us—via email or phone—and let us know? Whenever there are accusations, we seek to immediately respond. We don’t walk away or cover it up. Most often, these are simply rumors or misunderstandings. And if we are wrong, we are happy for the opportunity to repent and make things right. We desire to walk in the light with the Lord and with our brothers and sisters.

I have been contacting you since May with no answers. Rev. Yohannan, you walked away 55 days ago.
 
*This was written before the recent controversies. There have been other issues over the years I haven’t begun to examine.

An Auditor Raises Questions About Gospel for Asia's Promises, Spending and Unaccounted For Donations

I have been raising concerns for weeks about Gospel for Asia’s use of students to carry undeclared cash to India and unreported donations in India.  GFA remains silent and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability appears to be disinterested in the evidence submitted. Neither organization responded to my request for comment and information about this post.
On the other hand, I regularly receive emails from former GFA donors and supporters who have taken the information very seriously and have contacted GFA. Thus far, no donor who has contacted me has expressed satisfaction with GFA’s answers. Also, I was recently contacted by Jason Watkins, a former auditor with a Big 4 accounting firm who did a detailed analysis of GFA’s finances using information publicly available from around the world. I will post more of his material in coming days, but for today, I want to post an image depicting Watkins’ analysis of where GFA funds were spent in 2012. See below:
GFA Pie Chart 2012
 
I have posted information which addresses some of these issues, but this image brings 2012 together in one place.*
Jason had this to say about the chart:

The data from the FC-6 Forms for the 4 GFA NGO’s (Gospel For Asia-India, Believers Church, Love India, and Last Hope) were obtained and converted to US dollars. The amounts reported as received from foreign (non-Indian) countries were reconciled to the amounts reported as sent by Gospel For Asia, Inc. (US), Gospel For Asia-Canada, Gospel For Asia-UK, et al. This reconciliation shows that nearly half of the money sent from the west was not reported as received by GFA in India. That money is not accounted for. That is, of the $95 million that was spent by all entities, $45 million was not reported and $50 million was reported in India.
Further, of the foreign $50 million that was reported as received in India, an analysis of the ways that money was spent was performed. This analysis segregated and identified the specific expense categories (water wells, children, women, disaster relief, missionaries, administrative expenses, et al) to show how much was actually spent for the purposes indicated.
The amounts on the pie chart are a sum of the spending categories [called ‘utilised’ on the FC-6] reported in India on the 4 GFA NGO’s FC-6 forms, and then dividing each spending category by the sum of the spending of all GFA entities ($95 million).

The Indian government requires completion of the FC-6 form by registered charities. GFA has completed those forms but, as Watkins points out, the GFA affiliates around the world report sending more funds than the FC-6 forms show as received.
Watkins found reason to question several of GFA’s signature claims:

Gospel For Asia (GFA) solicits and collects over $90 million per year from trusting donors by using the following claims:

A detailed analysis of the actual spending by Gospel For Asia in 2012 reveals

  • 47% of the money ($45 million) is missing and unaccounted for. This was money donated by citizens of the US, Canada, UK, and other western countries. This money has not been recorded as received by the four Indian NGO’s (Gospel For Asia-India, Believers Church, Love India, and Last Hope) according to the FC-6 forms filed with the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs. If there are other NGOs directed by GFA, then GFA should reveal this.

  • 21% of the money ($20 million) was spent on administrative overhead in the west (12%) and administrative overhead in the field (9%).

  • Only 31% went towards charitable expenses, and only 12% actually reached the needy. These are the items that are highly promoted as uses for your donations (water wells, disaster relief, humanitarian outreach, women, children, and missionaries).

  • GFA spent $0 on adult literacy and poverty and yet this is a huge promotional item.

I have asked GFA several times for information regarding these matters. However, GFA told me that the organization would answer no more questions. Regarding the claims of 100% going to the field, I have indicated before that much of the money is on the field, but it is sitting in banks.
Perhaps this is case of bad reporting on the part of GFA. Maybe there is some other explanation. I have acknowledged in the past that I am not an auditor and have been open from the beginning of my research to any information provided by GFA. However, when an experienced auditor examines the publicly available documents and comes away with these findings, I think it is past time for GFA to address these matters.
I have additional analyses to report and plan to do so in the coming days.
 
 
*Sources: Forms FC-6 filed by Gospel For Asia-India, Believers Church, Love India, and Last Hope with Indian Ministry of Home Affairs; Audited Financial Statements of Gospel For Asia, Inc. (TX Corp); Gospel For Asia-Canada, Forms T-3010 filed by Gospel For Asia with Canada Revenue Agency (CRA); Unaudited Financial Statements of Gospel For Asia (Australia) Inc. filed with Australia Charities Regulation Commission (ACNC); Audited Financial Statements of Gospel For Asia (UK) Ltd. filed with the UK Charity Commission; and other online inquiries. Local currencies were converted to USD using exchange rates at oanda.com for the relevant reporting periods.

Gospel for Asia's Leader K.P. Yohannan to Speak at Calvary Chapel Missions Conference

According to this website, Gospel for Asia’s founder and president will speak at Calvary Chapel in Downey, CA as a part of a missions conference. I wrote the church to ask if Yohannan plans to address any of the controversies swirling around Gospel for Asia and will add any answer I get.
Specifically, it is not known if any leader at Gospel for Asia is going to publicly acknowledge that the leaders prevailed upon their own students and ministry partners to carry envelopes of undeclared U.S. cash to India in apparent violation of U.S. law. Thus far, GFA has not apologized for violating their own financial integrity guidelines or requiring students as young as 18 to engage in smurfing of large amounts of cash to India.
There are other issues about which donors and supporting churches should be briefed.
GFA’s audit (conducted by Bland Garvey) failed to disclose three related NGOs which received funds from GFA’s American donors. Furthermore, between $30-50 million of money GFA said went to India in 2013 does not show up in reports submitted to the Indian government.
Another question I hope H.E. Most Reverend K.P. Yohannan addresses is the massive surplus of funds being stored in Indian banks.
Perhaps he could also address why he claimed he didn’t allow men being ordained to kiss his ring but a video shows the men kissing his ring.
An ongoing concern has been the stories of more than 80 former staff members who have unresolved problems with GFA. Current turnover in U.S. staff should be a red flag to any supporter.
Although this might not be of great interest to California church goers, maybe he could also say why GFA – India did not disclose to the Indian government the amount of money given to GFA – India by Canadian donors.
There are other questions and more issues to be raised, but these would be a good start.
 
 

Why Doesn't Gospel for Asia Report All Related Party Transactions?

The only audited financial statement Gospel for Asia makes available is from 2012 and 2013. In that statement, Note H reports Related Party Transactions. Generally, organizations are expected to disclose transactions with other groups where there are common board members or other common elements. In Note H, GFA reports contributions of cash to five related parties, all GFA affiliates in Asia. However, GFA failed to report other related party transactions to Believers’ Church, Love India Ministry, and Last Hour Ministries. I assume that the $58 million GFA claims that it sent to GFA – India includes money sent to Believers’ Church, Love India Ministry, and Last Hour Ministries. It would be good for GFA to clarify this, especially considering the discrepancy between U.S. and Indian reports. Give notice to the first paragraph of Note H:
GFA Related Party Transactions 2013
 
Believers’ Church, Love India Ministry and Last Hour Ministries are related parties, so why were donations to those organizations not reported? All are controlled by K.P. Yohannan which makes these resources under his control in India. More troubling is the fact that the American and Indian reports do not match up. Just looking at calendar year 2013 receipts (from GFA’s FC-6 reports to the Indian government), only $28.6 million in contributions to the four organizations controlled by K.P. Yohannan show up. This is a nearly $30 million discrepancy.
If one just takes this audited statement as written (GFA – U.S. gave $58.5 million to GFA – India in 2013), then the problem is much worse. In the reports filed with the Indian government for GFA – India, just over $6.5 million is reported as received from GFA -U.S, a discrepancy of $52 million. I assume that $22 million of that went to Believers’ Church, Last Hour Ministry and Love India Ministry but the audited statement omits those facts.
The practical matter is that donors dollars intended for GFA may be paying the salaries of bishops and clergy within Believers’ Church, or ordination services such as the one where those ordained were expected to kiss the ring of K.P. Yohannan.  Some dollars indeed going to GFA affiliates in Asian nations but other dollars are going to a denomination with K.P Yohannan as Metropolitan with all the administrative, personnel, and other costs associated with it. Another practical matter is the millions of dollars which GFA claims were sent to GFA – India but don’t show up on Indian reports.
Legally, failure to report related party transactions can be a big deal in the for profit world, but not so much in the non-profit sector. The issue is about why GFA and/or Bland Garvey failed to report it. Is there some reason GFA doesn’t want donors to know the largest share of contributions go to Believers’ Church? Did GFA tell Bland Garvey about the other three related party transactions. Or did Bland Garvey omit that information?  And where is the $30-52 million which doesn’t show up on Indian reports?
As always, if GFA has information which are relevant to this post, I invite them to present them. I will always present their side or information the organizational leaders believe to be relevant.