According to an internal report, in 2012 Samaritan's Purse spent 78 per cent of its $17 million budget on religion-oriented activities and just 11 per cent on aid and disaster recovery. Thankyou bottled water is set to be sold at major supermarkets. Credit:Joe Armao Both Thankyou Water and Samaritan's Purse said the charity's aid and development work was clearly separated from religious work. They said Samaritan's Purse recently split into two entities so its aid work could retain a tax-deductibility status. But a recently advertised job for a water program manager position in Cambodia with Samaritan's Purse said the successful applicant needed to be someone who could ''keep the focus of work on the overall goal of sharing the gospel'' and ''be a consistent witness for Jesus Christ''. Thankyou Group funds several Samaritan's Purse projects in Cambodia. In an interview with Fairfax Media, Thankyou Group co-founder and managing director Daniel Flynn also acknowledged the company had ties to the Planetshakers Church, but said Thankyou Group's staff's beliefs did not influence its day-to-day operations or where it directed the money it raised.

The company does list some of its aid partners, including Samaritan's Purse, on its website. But Mr Flynn conceded Thankyou Group had not disclosed to its customers or campaign supporters details on how much it gave to different aid groups or spent on specific projects. ''We do not want to play off our [charity] partners with each other,'' he said. Subsequently, he sent an email saying the company had current allocations of $236,000 to Red Cross, $188,000 to Samaritan's Purse and $100,000 each to World Vision and Oxfam. Some of that money had been spent, some was yet to be spent. He did not detail how previous profits had been allocated and said Thankyou Group has not released audited financial records and had no plans to make annual reports available to its customers. It was not required to do so under corporate or charity regulations. Mr Flynn declined to reveal the identity of private donors who have provided about $50,000 in cash - including the funds to hire two helicopters to buzz the head offices of Coles and Woolworths - and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of services. He said Samaritan's Purse had met funding criteria, and the most important consideration when choosing a project partner was being able to prove the location of new water wells and pumps. Thankyou Group started with a focus on Cambodia, where it has been partnered with Samaritan's Purse since 2010. Its employees have visited Samaritan's Purse development sites in Cambodia and Kenya, including in 2010 with a crew from Sunrise.

When asked whether it had examined Thankyou Group's project partners, Coles spokesman Jon Church said it had and was ''comfortable that [project funding] is done in accordance with a sound criteria, including requiring its project partners to adhere to the Australian Council for International Development code of conduct''. The code bans aid as a vehicle for promoting religion or political groups and requires financial transparency and auditing. Samaritan's Purse is not a signatory to the code. But Mr Church said Samaritan's Purse had signed a memorandum of understanding that it would be monitored by Thankyou Water and abide by the code. A spokeswoman for Woolworths said all its suppliers complied with relevant laws and regulations. Australian Council for International Development executive director Marc Purcell said he was surprised to hear Thankyou Group had been telling stockists that Samaritan's Purse adheres to its code of conduct. Loading

''We are keen to talk to them and it would be best if they do not make that claim until that organisation decides to join ACFID, or not, and adhere to the code,'' he said. A key marketing tool for Thankyou Water is allowing consumers to track the impact of their purchase through a unique code on each bottle.