The Seal is gone.
I have confirmed that Gospel for Asia is no longer a member of Independent Charities of America. A representative of the company which manages memberships has indicated that GFA was denied membership last week. As of now, the Best in America Seal of Excellence touted by GFA has been removed from most locations on the GFA website (for some reason, it remains here at the time I wrote this).
I have not been able to learn what triggered ICA’s action. I do know that ICA was aware that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability terminated GFA’s membership.
In October, I reviewed the ICA criteria for membership. It seemed to me at the time that GFA did not comply with several ICA standards.
One of the major standards used by ICA is approval by the Office of Personnel Management for participation in the Combined Federal Campaign. I have contacted OPM to inquire if GFA is still an approved charity.
UPDATE: Today a Maguire & Maguire representative alerted me that the reason GFA was denied membership was because they failed to turn in their 2014 audit and their modified 990 form as required by their membership standards. Maguire & Maguire provide management services for the Independent Charities of America.
Category: Gospel for Asia
Update of Charity Review of Gospel for Asia Australia; Are GFAA and GFA Related?
Earlier this year, Ted Sherwood did a charity review of Gospel for Asia Australia. Recently, he updated it. As a part of the update, Sherwood evaluates a rather amazing claim made by an Australian association of Christian ministries called Mission Interlink. In essence, Mission Interlink claims that GFA Australia is independent of GFA in the U.S.
While technically accurate, it is clear from the evidence Sherwood supplies that GFA Australia wouldn’t exist if there was no GFA in the states or in India.
About Mission Interlink’s position, Sherwood wrote:
GFAA is a member of Missions Interlink, the closest we have in Australia to the ECFA:
Member use of the Missions Interlink logo implies high standards of governance and financial accountability, giving the Christian public assurance of their integrity[iii].
On 27 August 2015 I sent a link to my review to the National Director, Pam Thyer, suggesting that GFAA was in breach of one or more of their standards. On 3 December 2015, in response to my suggestion that donors should be alerted to GFAA’s misrepresentation when soliciting donations, Pam said that she had discussed the matters I raised in the review with GFAA and had concluded that ‘they do not contravene the MI Standards’.
Sherwood disagrees and provides evidence that GFA Australia is indeed in violation of some MI standards.
Furthermore, it is incredible that MI sees GFAA as separate from GFA. The only real reason GFAA exists is as a conduit to GFA in India. GFAA is sending money to GFA in India in ways that may or may not align with donor intent. Donors in Australia should be aware that their donations may be used to purchase or develop for profit businesses under the control of Believers’ Church.
Gospel for Asia's and Believers' Church's Lawsuit Against Google and Facebook Moved to District Court
Inexplicably, K.P. Yohannan is still claiming that Gospel for Asia and Believers’ Church won a defamation lawsuit which named Google and Facebook as defendants among many others. On the GFA website, Yohannan claims
The High Court thus issued a verdict, directing networking sites to remove and stop uploading any false information about Gospel for Asia and our various ministries. In addition, the High Court also had those who posted this misinformation arrested and the material they uploaded removed.
Yohannan’s web posting links to two articles in the Indian press (here and here) as evidence for his claims. However, as I pointed out previously, the articles don’t support Yohannan since they do not describe a verdict. Instead, the press articles report the initiation of a lawsuit against Google, Facebook and many others by Gospel for Asia in India and Believers’ Church. The case has not been, and probably won’t be, heard by the High Court.
Last week, the High Court transferred the case to District Court. Here is the court order:
A source in India told me that the case was sent to District Court (Saket District Court in Delhi) because the amount of damages claimed was too low to trigger the High Court’s involvement. By statute, cases under 2 crore (about $300,000) are sent to a lower court.
A search of the High Court record reveals no injunction in the case so it is puzzling that Yohannan would claim a verdict when the case hasn’t been tried.
Here is another situation where what GFA says is at odds with information that is publicly available. I call on Yohannan to retract his claims or provide an explanation supported by evidence which can be verified.
UPDATE: A reader sent along a December 3, 2012 email sent by GFA (click the link to see the image) with K.P. Yohannan’s article “A New Type of Persecution” article as an update from K.P. Yohannan. It is the same as the article on the website and was touted to donors and mailing list members. Apparently, this “news” was intended to help raise funds.
Petition Urges Gospel for Asia Board of Directors to Remove K.P. Yohannan
Former Gospel for Asia donor Jimmy Humphrey wants to send a message to the current board members at GFA. Humphey wants change at the giant mission organization and believes it should start at the top. Over the weekend, Humphrey started a petition at Change.org asking GFA’s board of directors to fire GFA’s founder and CEO K.P. Yohannan. In support of his petition, Humphrey wrote:
I originally discovered the ministry of K.P. Yohannan and GFA through listening to a sermon online, and was amazed at this ministry, and swayed powerfully by the presentation given by K.P. I was a supporter of multiple missionaries for just under a decade, and even gave some money to some various “emergency” situations to strike Asia. Now after recent discoveries, I wonder if the money ever made it into the hands of the people I gave towards. I want to give GFA the benefit of the doubt and believe nothing fraudulent happened, and that the ministry simply grew too big and too complex for the likes of K.P. Yohannan to run. But honestly, at the end of the day, I simply don’t know anymore. As a result, in good conscience I can no longer continue to give or support GFA. A change of leadership is in order.
Recently it has come to light that the “Gospel For Asia” (GFA) missionary organization lost its “Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability” (ECFA) seal of approval and accreditation, due to numerous violations of the financial standards that the ECFA requires of its member organizations. The ECFA is regarded as the “gold standard” in the Evangelical Christian community for non-profit organizations, that attests to the fidelity of its member organizations faithfully handling the charity of its donors, acting as wise stewards, in keeping with Christian conduct and the highest of financial accounting standards.
As a result of these violations and the losing of its ECFA accreditation, GFA has suffered severe public reproach, not only in Evangelical Christian circles, but also in the secular media. The level of reproach brought upon GFA undermines the ability of the organization to carry out its mission, which is to ultimately spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout all of Asia, by training, equipping, and financially supporting native missionaries within each country that GFA operates.
Humphrey calls on the board to take over day to day operations of GFA:
In order to save GFA, we the undersigned call on the independent board of directors to either fire or place on leave the current leadership team of K.P. Yohannan, David Carroll, John Beers, and Danny Yohannan.
We urge the board to take control of the daily operations of GFA.
Click the link below to read the rest and sign the petition:
GFA PETITION
Note to Gospel for Asia: Indian Customs Also Requires Declaration of Aggregate Cash Transfers Over $10,000 (UPDATED)
Advisory: Due to questions presented by commenter JP below, I am investigating this issue again. There is no question that Gospel for Asia’s actions violated U.S. law but it is unclear to me now if GFA violated India regulations. I thought the form I attached below required declarations of aggregate amounts of cash over $10,000. Due to information brought by JP, I am not so sure as of 12/24/15. The information I have gotten is conflicting and so I contacted Indian authorities and will be report the results back here when I get an answer. Thanks to JP for raising the questions. Stay tuned…
……………………………………………….
Original post:
While Gospel for Asia has admitted that GFA groups traveling together to India violated U.S. law by taking aggregate amounts of cash over $10,000 out of the U.S. without customs declaration, little has been said about Indian law.
Those who carried cash to India were told they had $4500 in an envelope which was to be given to officials at Believers’ Church headquarters in Kerala. The $4500 in cash was under the limit for an individual traveler. However, since whole groups traveling together transferred more than $10,000 from GFA-US to GFA-India, someone in the group should have declared the total amount.
As it turns out, Indian law also requires declaration of cash if the total per transfer is over $10,000. This is clear on Indian customs forms which would have been filled out by those entering India. See the customs forms below and check item 10, subpoint ix.
It is hard to imagine that frequent India travelers like K.P. Yohannan and other senior GFA leaders had not seen this form.