Projects

Charity Governence Reviews

The Christian Oversight and Accreditation Trust (COAT)

Our mission is to help build faith and trust in Christian organisations, be they churches, charities, schools or otherwise, to enable them to achieve more effective outcomes.

We believe that the love and teachings of Jesus are vital for our world to experience and understand, and therefore that Christian organisations and churches play a valuable role in society. We desire that these organisations are effective in pursuing their mission, and that they govern and account for themselves in a manner that stands up to public scrutiny. Christian organisations should be the standard-setters for impeccable corporate behaviour, and COAT exists to help the Christian sector meet that high standard.

We do this by:

• Articulating and publishing a set of standards defining accountable behaviour for Christian organisations and churches;

• Accrediting organisations that are fully compliant with those standards;

• Publishing details of accredited organisations in our directory;

• Providing resources, training and assistance to help organisations become more accountable; and

• Challenging donors and volunteers to favour organisations that are serious about good governance, transparency and accountability.

Our model is simple and follows patterns established in the USA, Canada, and Australia.  We invite Christian organisations to commit to our standards, prove their compliance, pay a fee, and cooperate with us in ongoing monitoring. In return, they are permitted to display our 'Accredited' COAT seal on their website and literature, they appear in our 'Give Confidently' directory, and they receive a range of other benefits. For more details, see our 'Get Accredited' page.​

The SHEPHERD AssessmentTM

Walk into most Christian bookstores, and you'll find shelves lined with leadership books. Many of them are excellent, offering insights drawn from business, psychology, and organisational development. But here's what troubles me: too many of these books focus almost exclusively on competence while giving only passing attention to character. They teach us how to cast vision, build teams, and manage change. They offer strategies for growth, systems for efficiency, and communication techniques. All of these things have their place. But they're not enough.

The SHEPHERD model offers a framework that combines biblical wisdom with practical application. It values both character and competence. It provides clear criteria for assessment and specific pathways for development. It is designed to be used by individuals for self-evaluation, by churches for leadership selection, and by organisations for ongoing formation.

I often find that we lack adequate models or systems to help us review our own leadership styles and character as Christian or biblically defined leaders, or to evaluate each other. These tools would enable us to recognise our blind spots, work on them, pray about them, and ask God to help us become better leaders.

Over a number of years, I sought ways, models, and systematic methods to make this process easier— to design and create a platform that will allow us to review our own leadership styles but also serve as a tool to sharpen each other in love and humility. 

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