Kiwis For Good Foundation (CC57436): what donors should know before giving

Claims examined

Pages reviewed

40+

Primary sources cited

The verdict scorecard

Distribution across all 58 claims — tap a segment to filter the catalogue

False / fabricated

Unsupported / unverifiable

Misleading or selective

Half-true / mixed

Pseudo-scientific marketing

Accurate or defensible

Bar chart of the verdict tally across the 58 catalogued claims — **Figure 4 — Verdict tally**Report chart: the same six-bucket verdict distribution across all 58 catalogued claims.

Key findings

01
A Scientology link at board level: trustee Mike Ferriss (appointed March 2026) is the long-time public face and Certification Officer of the Church of Scientology of New Zealand and a director of CCHR NZ — a Scientology-founded organisation whose doctrine holds psychiatry to be a “pseudoscience” and which campaigns against psychiatric medication for minors.
02
The chair sells unproven therapy: Dr Robin Youngson (chair since April 2025) is a genuinely decorated retired anaesthetist turned full-time Havening/“Somatic Compassion” practitioner; the charity endorses his method and produced a documentary promoting it — and he authored the charity’s November 2022 anti-vaccine-mandate article nearly three years before joining the board.
03
A systematic anti-antidepressant media operation: at least a dozen articles attack SSRI prescribing — the misused Moncrieff serotonin review, a Study 329 exposé, the Thomas Kingston inquest, an article tying SSRIs to Jeffrey Epstein’s emails, a sympathetic profile of an illegal psilocybin supplier — while promoting the charity’s own programmes as the alternative.
04
Culture-war content the earlier analysis missed: articles attacking gender-affirmation surgery, the COVID vaccine mandates and pornography (partly sourced from a US conservative think tank) mean the original “no right-wing content” assessment must be revised.
05
A fabricated statistic sits at the core of the pitch: “useless” and “worthless” as “two of the most common words found in suicide notes” has no source and contradicts every published analysis of genuine suicide-note corpora (Claim 1, False).
06
Extremely thin finances: FY2025 revenue of NZ$58K against NZ$69K expenditure, ~NZ$8K in assets, roughly one month of reserves and ~100% donation dependence — while advertising free gym memberships, “over $10,000 in prizes,” 8 staff, funded counselling and film production (Claims 9/13, Unverifiable).
07
A commercial fundraising arm: the KiwisForGoodShop “$20 subscription + $10,000 guaranteed cash prize draw” is operated by Australian telemarketing firm Adflex Marketing, is explicitly not tax-deductible, and its commission share is undisclosed.
08
Not a scam — and not what it presents as: the register record is clean, and there is no fraud finding or regulator action. The problem is the gap between the charity’s “evidence-based” framing and what its media output actually promotes (Part 10.3).

The worst offenders

The claims we found to be flatly false or fabricated — each quoted verbatim, with the counter-evidence on the claims page. The full catalogue covers all 58 claims.

CLAIM 1 “‘Useless’ and ‘Worthless.’ Tragically, these are two of the most common words found in suicide notes.” Unsupported — contradicts all published research CLAIM 25 “The latest science tells us, apart from very rare cases depression and anxiety are simply a natural reaction to the day-to-day traumas we inevitably face in life.” False minimisation CLAIM 27 “The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse.” False as stated CLAIM 28 “The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse.” False as stated CLAIM 44 “roughly 120–160 New Zealanders take their own lives within 90 days of being discharged from an acute psychiatric bed”; Denmark’s crisis recovery units show “a 60–70% drop in suicides in the first month after discharge”; “Switzerland and Germany’s Soteria houses cut one-year suicide rates by 50–80%… (2021 meta-analysis)”; Fairburn House: “120 high-risk discharges, zero suicides in the following year (vs an expected 4–6).” Real problem, invented statistics CLAIM 45 “roughly 120–160 New Zealanders take their own lives within 90 days of being discharged from an acute psychiatric bed”; Denmark’s crisis recovery units show “a 60–70% drop in suicides in the first month after discharge”; “Switzerland and Germany’s Soteria houses cut one-year suicide rates by 50–80%… (2021 meta-analysis)”; Fairburn House: “120 high-risk discharges, zero suicides in the following year (vs an expected 4–6).” Real problem, invented statistics CLAIM 18 AA/NA has “100 years” of history False

Browse the catalogue by verdict: 7 false · 13 misleading · 9 unsupported · 10 accurate

Read all 58 claim-by-claim verdicts →

Why this matters, precisely Bad mental-health information can kill, through a well-understood pathway: depression is treatable and treatment works; suicide risk is highest in the gap between illness and treatment; and the audience for mental-health content is, by definition, the least equipped to filter it. Content that corrodes trust in treatment in general, while offering unproven alternatives in its place, does not merely misinform — it redirects people away from the things most likely to keep them alive. The harm chain here is concrete: a distressed teenager or parent finds KFG content → absorbs “medication is the scandal; depression is just life trauma; connection/touch/micronutrients are the real answers” → declines or discontinues effective treatment → lands in programmes staffed by lay mentors with no published clinical governance, under a board containing an anti-psychiatry campaigner and a chairman whose therapy the charity promotes. To be fair and accurate: trustee Ferriss’s CCHR advocacy for Lake Alice survivors was genuine, officially recognised work (The Post), and the charity’s August 2026 article on safe antidepressant tapering is genuinely responsible.

The ideology: revised assessment

An earlier conclusion (“no right-wing content”) was wrong and is corrected here. The full catalogue shows the site’s ideology is a hybrid:

Scientology-adjacent anti-psychiatry — CCHR doctrine at board level; “psychiatry is pseudoscience” echoed editorially; medication framed as the scandal.
Commercially-motivated fringe therapy — the chairman’s Havening/Somatic Compassion practice promoted with charitable funds and films.
Anti-mandate/anti-state health content — Youngson’s 2022 mandate article; Barnett’s contribution; “gaslighting” framing of government.
Socially-conservative culture-war content — gender-affirmation surgery, pornography and the “nuclear family”/birth-rate framing, sourced partly from a US conservative think tank.
Conspiracy-adjacent framing — the Epstein article’s guilt-by-association; debt-collector “extortion” content; unsourced firefighter statistics.

There is still no evidence of Christian-evangelical organising, anti-abortion campaigning or party-political affiliation. But the combination maps recognisably onto the international “medical freedom”/anti-psychiatry/culture-war media ecosystem — with a suicide-prevention charity as the vehicle and vulnerable young people as the audience. What we did not find: fraud, deregistration, regulator action, or any evidence that participants are currently being recruited toward Scientology or told to stop medication. Absence of evidence is stated as such.

Open questions for the board

1. Are Hero’s Journey facilitators supervised by any registered NZ health practitioner, and what is the protocol when a mentee discloses suicidal intent? 2. Are participants ever given advice about psychiatric medication — by whom, and what? 3. Any formal, financial or in-kind relationships with CCHR, the Church of Scientology, Adflex Marketing, or Dr Youngson’s practice beyond what is published? What percentage of $20 subscriptions and street/tele-fundraising reaches the charity? How much was paid for the two documentaries? 4. What does the officer red flag on the Charities Register refer to? 5. Why did the entire 2019–2023 board depart? What vetting preceded the Ferriss and Youngson appointments? 6. Will the charity publish its safeguarding policy, facilitator qualifications, programme outcome data, and the terms/status of the BetterHelp arrangement? 7. Does the board stand behind the Epstein article’s implied argument that parents should reject SSRIs for their children — and the claim that depression is “simply a natural reaction to day-to-day traumas”?

A transparent charity should be able to answer all seven in writing. Concerns about charitable status can be lodged with Charities Services (Department of Internal Affairs); misleading advertising claims can be taken to the ASA.

If you need help, or are choosing where to give

Safer, established options — for support: free call or text 1737 (Need to Talk?, 24/7), Lifeline 0800 543 354, Youthline 0800 376 633, or GP referral to publicly funded care. If a treatment is causing you problems — side effects, feeling worse, wanting to stop — the right move is to tell your prescriber and adjust or taper slowly with support, not to stop suddenly or swap proven care for unproven promises. For giving: established providers publish audited accounts, clinical governance and safeguarding policies — ask for them. Any charity working with suicidal young people should welcome those questions.

Read the full claim-by-claim analysis → Download the complete report (PDF)