The puzzling connection between UCCF and The Areopagus Trust

I've been looking at the annual filings of UCCF. The most interesting thing? What's missing from the reports.

(If UCCF are unfamiliar, I've written an introduction: Who are UCCF?)

Like Soul Survivor, UCCF has a number of connections to other charities and churches. And yet their filings rarely show any transactions with those charities. 

Is that plausible? 

Well, let me tell you about The Areopagus Trust.

The Areopagus Trust has no website and uses no social media channels. The only information available about them comes from the filings they're required to make with the Charity Commission.

I tell a lie. They are mentioned in one other place on the Internet: on the biography page of the UCCF CEO, Richard Cunningham:

"Richard has been Director of UCCF: the Christian Unions since early 2004.  Immediately prior to that he was Executive Director of the Areopagus Trust, developing initiatives in confronting secular thought in universities across Britain and Europe and, at the same time, was Director of Evangelism at St Andrew’s Church, Oxford."

If we look at the Charity Commission website, we find a statement about the purpose of The Areopagus Trust:

"(a)for or towards such charitable purposes and to make donations to such charitable institution or institutions at such time or times and in such manner as the trustees may in their absolute discretion think fit (b)without prejudice to the generality of sub-clause (a) the trustees shall apply the trust fund in particular towards the provision of facilities and accommodation for the use of students who are members of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) and who are attending a course of study given by the charity in order to train and educate them in apologetics and biblical exegesis with the object that they embrace the christian faith more intelligently and to enable them to relate that faith in a skilful and convincing manner to the secular society."

I find it hard to follow, but it does seem to centre UCCF in its mission.

The annual filings of The Areopagus Trust give some more info about this relationship:

"During the year the Trust continued to provide accommodation and facilities to enable courses of study to be run for students at its principal place of operation. The Trust received fees for the provision of the facilities from the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), who took responsibility for all expenses arising in connection with the courses."

(Source: Page 2, Accounts and TAR 2019, Charities Commission website)

I've worked in charities, but I know little about trusts. The gov.uk website has some useful information about trusts. They use this definition;

"A trust is a way of managing assets (money, investments, land or buildings) for people. There are different types of trusts and they are taxed differently.

Trusts involve:

-the ‘settlor’ - the person who puts assets into a trust 

-the ‘trustee’ - the person who manages the trust

-the ‘beneficiary’ - the person who benefits from the trust"

In the case of The Areopagus Trust, the settlor is identified as someone called David Douglas Monteath.

Each year the income of the trust is composed of donations (made, perhaps, by Monteath), fees and investment income. I think that the fees here are from UCCF, because no other charity gets mentioned in any of the available reports, and UCCF is central to the purpose statement of the charity. That is an assumption on my part. 

If that assumption is correct, UCCF made these payments to The Areopagus Trust over the last 6 years:

• £16,000
• £17,500
• £20,000
• £21,000
• £17,500
• £21,000

In total the trust says they received fees of £113,000 in that time period.

So what? UCCF probably pay all sorts of organisations in fulfilling their mission, right?

There are two reasons I bring this up.

Firstly, I find it strange that UCCF makes no other mention of this charity. I went through their last 15 years of filings, and there's not a single mention of The Areopagus Trust.

Secondly, the UCCF CEO, Richard Cunningham, had a significant connection to the Trust from 2003 until at least 2018. 

You see, the contact address he gave for some of his trusteeships:

Matches the contact address given for the main premises of The Areopagus Trust:

So what was Cunningham's relationship with The Areopagus Trust? He's not listed in any of the available filings for the charity.

Some possibilities...

1. Maybe he is close friends with the staff member (1 is listed), or the trustees, and they let him use their building as a contact address for 15 years.
2. Maybe he is the single staff member, drawing a salary from The Areopagus Trust as well as UCCF.
3. Maybe he lives at the building, in some sort of unpaid-caretaker-role. 

This matters because these possibilities would each present a conflict of interest. Is paying the Areopagus Trust for training facilities in the best interest of Richard Cunningham or in the best interest of UCCF?

Maybe there's another explanation. Do let me know if you can see one - my contact details are at the top-right.

Long-time readers will remember that Charity Commission rules say 

"disclosure must be made of transactions involving trustees, related parties, staff renumeration and ex-gratia payments"

(Source: The Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), page 86 )

If Cunningham lives at that location, or works there, my understanding is that it must be disclosed in the UCCF annual filling.

In the last 15 years of filings... there is no mention of such a disclosure. 

So, what is Cunningham's relationship with the Areopagus Trust? And if it's significant, why have the UCCF trustees not disclosed it in the annual filings?

Who are UCCF?

UCCF have been in the news. Who are they, and why do I care?

University and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) are a 95-year-old charity with over 100 staff and a turnover that hovers around the £4 million mark. They also have the biggest gap year programme I've ever heard of.

UCCF supports Christian Unions (CUs) in universities. A CU is a student society of Christians from a variety of backgrounds. CUs vary in size and scale. Some have 300 members, others have 8. 

CUs are run by students. But CU leaders seem to have a fair amount of interaction with UCCF. There's training, support, and resources for missions and events. So they are involved, but you might not appreciate how much unless you were on the leadership team of a CU.

I joined a CU at university. It was a gathering for Christians of all denominations. We had weekly services and regular small group meetings. The CU was a big, positive part of my life.  I'm aware that the positive experience may have been shaped by my spiritual journey and the fact that I was a straight white man. 

That was 20 years ago now, so things will have changed a bit. And how a CU works may vary from one to another. 

At CU I barely heard of UCCF. But I now realise that they will have been having a lot of interaction with the leaders of my CU, and will have had an influence on the formal rules that were in place. For example, the leader of my CU was always male.

Remember, the leaders of CUs are students. So each year some will graduate and the leaders will change. In that context I can imagine the support of UCCF may shift into influence, as new leaders look for guidance. For example, did the male-only-leaders thing come from UCCF's influence?

(Update - 7/2/14 - I've heard from some credible sources that some CUs had/have female leaders. Seems like this varied from CU to CU. Maybe this has shifted since my time in the late-90s.) 

UCCF have been in the news. There has been an investigation, and while this happened the CEO and one of the directors stood down. 

And? Well, it's unclear what has happened. We've had some press stories, and publicity from tweeters like Jonathan Severus and Old Boundaries. UCCF have put out a fairly strange statement. And at the same time half of their trustees have resigned, which hints of problems behind the scenes.

There's a line in the statement that grabbed me:

"The investigation found a small number of instances where the termination of CUSWs’ contracts had been badly handled and conducted in ways that caused them considerable upset and were potentially unlawful."

So I thought I'd take a look. Because our actions reveal our character. Which, ironically, is the kind of thing we heard at CU talks. If one aspect was 'potentially unlawful', according to the lawyer hired by the trustees, then other aspects may also be.

A few more things about UCCF:

• Christian Unions are all over the country. So many of their staff are regionally based, and a fair amount of travel must feature.
• I mentioned their gap-year programme. It's called Relay. It's pretty big: about 70 people each year. 
• They run an annual conference for CU leaders called Forum.
• They jointly organise a spring-time festival for Christians called Word Alive. This used to be part of Spring Harvest until the 2000s.
• They're based in Oxford, having relocated from Leicester in the early 2000s. 

See also

The puzzling connection between UCCF and The Areopagus Trust

Was there a hidden motive behind Mike Pilavachi's choice of interns?

Back in May, I tried to count Soul61's spend on each of the Mike Pilavachi interns. And in doing so, I noticed something strange: all the interns I came across were male. That bothered me, as I've heard before that Soul Survivor are supportive of women leaders, a position that is controversial in some UK churches. 

As I investigated, things took a strange turn; a picture began to emerge. It's taken 7 months and hundreds of hours, and now I'm ready to share it, in this final Soul Survivor post. 

You may remember that according to Soul61:

"Interns are generally those that Mike Pilavachi meets (through his role as Executive Director for Soul Survivor or as Pastor of Soul Survivor Watford Church), whom he feels demonstrate strong leadership potential."

(Source: Total exemption full accounts made up to 31 August 2017, Soul61 Companies House filings, page 3)

I have news: the evidence suggests that this isn't true. 

Or that the word 'generally' is having its meaning rather stretched. 

Or that Pilavachi has some serious tunnel-vision when it comes to leadership potential.

I've found 10 of the 25 Mike Pilavachi interns from the 2010s. Obviously that's not comprehensive. However one would expect to see some variety in that sort of sample, right? It's 40% of all the interns from the period.

Here are my findings:

First off, these 10 interns are all male.

That's a problem. 

More than half the UK population are female. We see examples in the bible of a number of female leaders. And Soul Survivor Watford is part of the Church of England, where women hold significant leadership roles. 

Soul Survivor say they value female leaders. They ran seminars about female leadership at the festival. And they allow women to join The Leadership Course, charging them £3,000, £5,000 or £7,000 to do so (the cost changed over the decade).

So why didn't I find any female interns? 

Maybe I got unlucky in those I identified.

Secondly, these 10 interns all look white, like me. 

That's a problem.

Jesus wasn't white, like most of the people in the Bible. One of the earliest converts to Christianity was Ethiopian. Like many organisations Soul Survivor Watford pledged public support to racial justice during the George Floyd protests of 2020.

White folks, like me, have gained in the past from some racial bias in the UK. Soul Survivor would add to that inequality if they were providing free leadership training disproportionately to white men. 

Maybe I got unlucky in those I identified. Or maybe some of these men were biracial, which can be hard to identify visually.

Soul Survivor Watford, and Soul Survivor Ministries, have done admirable work on justice over the years. For example, they made social action a key thread of their events.  But if this free training opportunity was inaccessible to women, or inaccessible to people of colour, that would be unjust. 

This also raises the question: was their selection of interns illegal? 

I ask because at least £350,000 of charitable funds was spent on this programme in the 2010s. And UK law has important things to say about discrimination based on gender and race. There's an exception that applies to charities, but I can't see that it applies to this context. 

There's more. 

Thirdly, 7 interns are sons of Christian leaders.

Say what?

Of these 10 interns, 7 are sons of Christian leaders.

Wow. I didn't see that coming. 

Of the remainder, 2 interns have parents without a church leadership connection. I have been unable to identify the parents of one of the 10 interns I found.

If we look at the Bible, we see that a fisherman can make a good leader. We see a tentmaker can make a good leader. But Soul61 seems to have decided that your father's job determines your leadership potential.

What about the biblical passages about all of us having gifts? What about the talented leaders whose parents aren't Christians? What about the gifted young adults who don't know their father?

This doesn't mean that the interns chosen lacked gifts or talent. But it does pose the question - were more talented people disregarded for the development opportunity because they weren't sons of Christian leaders? 

To rub salt in the wound, some of these interns were brothers of other interns of Mike Pilavachi.

This seems a long way from the objective use of charity funds. Did the people who donated to 'young leaders' realise that these funds were being spent on only certain types of young leaders?

Maybe the 15 interns I couldn't identify are mostly women, contain a fair amount of people from a BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) background, and no sons of church leaders. Maybe.

Why might Pilavachi have favoured children of other Christian leaders? It's hard, often impossible, to evidence someone's motive. Here are some ideas:

One theory: these internships, with their extensive global travel, were used as rewards for friends. Who wouldn't want their kids to get a chance to travel for free around the world? That would clearly be wrong. Remember that charity funds paid for this, not Pilavachi's money or the profits of a business.

Another theory: these internships were used to curry favour with people who might be valuable in the future. 

These were influential Christian leaders: leaders of large churches, or leaders of many churches, or leaders of Christian charities. At the time their sons were interns, the organisations they led had incomes between £1,400,000 and £3,000,000. They were each large enough to employ the equivalent 16-20 full-time staff.

I also notice that the church leaders are from a range of church movements: Anglican, New Frontiers and Vineyard. You'll have noticed from earlier posts that Pilavachi had a rare ability to gain speaking engagements from churches of all denominations. Maybe that connects with this?

Favouring people with family connections would be quite a departure from the actions of Jesus. Didn't he elevate outcasts and outsiders? Some authors of scripture share similar viewpoints:

'My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?'

(Source: James 2:1-4, NIV Bible)

There's no evidence the interns or leaders concerned knew about this bias. However, in those cases where two siblings were interns, wouldn't that make things obvious to the parents concerned? 

Fundamentally, though, this was the responsibility of the person running the programme (Mike Pilavachi), the leader of Soul61 (Andy Croft) and the other trustees of Soul61 in the period:

• Ali Martin
• David Saunderson
• Liz Biddulph

(We should note that conflicts of interest may have hindered these people in holding Pilavachi accountable)

Now, it could be that both of these theories were in play at different times. Or both might be false. As I said, it's very hard to evidence a motive. 

I appreciate that interns-for-influence may seem far-fetched. But I can also see the concept cropping up before 2010 in the previous generation of interns. 

For example, in 2004 Mike Pilavachi selected an intern whose father was the head of a theological college in the Anglican Church. Five years on the father had been promoted to the role of bishop. It can't hurt your ministry to be on good terms with another bishop, can it? Perhaps Pilavachi learned from that experience.

The intern concerned? That was Andy Croft, leader of Soul61.

The final post

I've finished my Soul Survivor posts. I've covered all the significant discoveries, and fulfilled my aim: supporting victims of Pilavachi's actions. 

This was all an accident, born of disgust with the Christian world's tendency to look the other way when things go wrong. I have no training, or business plan, or message to spread.

It's cost a lot. That toll is small compared to the spiritual abuse that has occurred at Soul Survivor. Nevertheless, I need to recognise it and take some time to rebalance in 2024.

Thanks and praise go to the others who also spoke up. You know who you are. And especially to those who were victims. Is there anyone braver than a survivor who takes a stand? 

What is the evidence for this?

As with my previous post, I can evidence what I've said,  but I can't share that information without identifying the interns. And the stories that have appeared in the media say that at least one of these interns is a victim. With that in mind, I won’t be identifying these interns either publicly or privately. 

I've made an exception in the case of Andy Croft, because Soul Survivor Watford disclosed this on their website many years ago, and he again disclosed this himself in a recent statement.

If you have doubts I can evidence what I've said, look at my posts – you’ll see I’m careful to have sources for any factual statements I make.

The Soul61 charity flew one intern to six countries in six months to shadow Mike Pilavachi

Let's talk about interns. 

When this all began in April, I discovered Soul Survivor Watford had removed lots of mentions of interns from their website. Which made me think, do they have something to hide here?

Yes, I think they do. 

Since 2011 the intern programme has been run by Mike Pilavachi through the Soul61 charity. Each year, 2-4 interns were selected by him. Their mission was to:

“shadow him on his speaking engagements for a year”

(Source: 2016-2017 Trustees report, Soul61 filings at Companies House, page 3)

Which is unusual, for two reasons.

Firstly, Pilavachi, “travels the world telling people about Jesus”. As such, shadowing him costs quite a lot of money. For example, in 2015-2016, Soul61 spent £55,799 on 'international travel and subsistence' for 4 interns.

Secondly, I’ve never heard of shadowing someone for this long. Sure, you might do that for a few days, or weeks. But for 8, 10, 15 months? 

I've been wondering, was this a reasonable use of charitable funds? Let me give an example. 

This is intern 9 (my randomly generated number). In a 6-month period, 9's travel included these countries:

• Malaysia
• Norway
• Singapore
• USA (3 times)

I can see there’s some useful learning in observing how a leader travels and ministers abroad.

I can also see how you might argue the case for having an intern travel to a different cultural context. Perhaps one approaches Christian ministry in Malaysia differently from the USA.

But at least 6 countries in 6 months? How much learning is gained from the 3rd trip to the USA?

When people gave money to the Soul Survivor festival collection, did they realise a sizeable chunk was going on long-haul airfares so shadowing could happen?

Intern 9's experience wasn't unusual. Through a mountain of research, I've managed to identify 10 of the 25 interns from the 2010-2019 period. All of them travelled the globe with Pilavachi. Destinations included Australia, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, as well as those listed above. 

None of this is the interns’ fault. They were the people with the least power in this organisation. This is the responsibility of the programme leader (Pilavachi), the leader of Soul61 (Andy Croft) and the Soul61 trustees. They are the people who agreed how Soul61 could spend its charitable funds. 

I'm aware that the number 25 is based on who Soul61 declare is an intern in their filings. That may differ from whom people referred to verbally as an intern.

“But it’s where Pilavachi travelled” you might say. "They had to go where he went."

Sure. So isn’t a better way to use charity funds for Pilavachi to only take interns on one or two of these trips? 

Or if developing young leaders is important to Pilavachi, why doesn’t he reduce costs by only accepting speaking engagements in Europe?

This approach costs the charity quite a lot of money, doesn’t it? 

I did some calculations in a previous post about spending on the intern programme. I've revisited them to check the travel cost. Here is the spend on intern travel each year:

Year	Spending on intern travel
2011/2012	£3,671
2012/2013	£8,650
2013/2014	£30,702
2014/2015	£29,176
2015/2016	£55,799
2016/2017	£22,122
2017/2018	£53,571
2018/2019	£25,253
2019/2020	£40,691

In total, for the 2011-2020 period, Soul61 spent £269,635 on flying interns around the world to shadow Mike Pilavachi.

(Sources: the expenditure section of the documents labelled 'Total exemption full accounts', Soul61 filings at Companies House)

Is that a reasonable way to spend money from donors to the church and to the festival collection? When those givers were told 'Soul61' or 'young leaders' were they aware they were paying for extensive long-haul travel? 

How do I know all of this?

I can evidence what I've said,  but I can't share that information without identifying the interns. And the stories that have appeared in the media say that at least one of these interns is a victim. With that in mind, I won’t be identifying these interns either publicly or privately. 

If you have doubts, look at my posts – you’ll see I’m careful to have sources for any factual statements I make.

More Soul Survivor Blogs

Who paid for the Mike Pilavachi interns?

Soul Survivor spent more than £14k on each Mike Pilavachi intern