Watoto Child Care Ministries, a U.S -registered charity closely affiliated with Watoto Church in Uganda, is on the spot for alleged repeated use of overlapping individuals as directors and officers across its United States and Ugandan entities.
It is alleged that there is a high concentration of decision-making authority among founders, family members and senior staff on the US board members with operational roles in the foreign recipient entities.
Information obtained from IRS forms 990 and state charity filings show that Watoto Child Care Ministry (WCCM) identify Gary Skinner, the founder, as a U.S board member and an interested person in significant transfers from the U.S entity to Uganda, despite public announcements years ago that he had stepped down from day-to-day leadership of the Ugandan church.
Surprisingly, WCCM also lists Garry Skinner’s son, James Skinner as well as Eugene Stutzman as an executive director as well as a paid employee and board members.
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Other paid employees include; Valerie King (finance director), Brent Smith (development/ fundraising), Julius Rwotlonyo the head of Watoto in Uganda who is also registered as an interested person in transfers to Uganda. Rwotlonyo’s appearance reflects overlapping leadership between U.S and Ugandan entities.
It is stated that Brent Smith is a senior fundraiser and regarded among the highest paid employees.
Other members of Watoto Child Care Ministries board in the US include Tom Hanover, Allan Leary and Garry Scherer.
Public filings indicate that a significant portion of voting directors are insiders or paid executives, reducing the proportion of independent oversight.
Watoto Child Care Ministries a close affiliate of the Watoto Church in Uganda that builds villages with schools, churches, medical centers, and homes and populates them with new families.
Public US tax filings show that the American arm of Watoto raises millions of dollars annually and sends most of it to an affiliated Ugandan Organization led by overlapping insiders.
Public filings indicate that Brent Smith, the Director of Development earns more than the organization’s Chief Executive Officer / Executive Director, and has a compensation structure that governance experts say is unusual for large U.S. public charities.
Smith is also listed as a voting board member, meaning he participates in governance decisions while simultaneously serving as a senior paid fundraiser, a structure that experts say raises questions about independence and oversight.
The document further shows that in the year 2024, Watoto’s total revenue from the United States amounted to $7,574,158 from grants and assistance from other organisations, domestic individual grants, foreign assistance, benefits paid by members and other payments.
According to the document, Watoto Child Care Ministries lists a total of 13 individuals as the board of directors but double as Watoto officers, directors, trustees, key employees, highest compensated employees and independent contractors. Among them is Rwotlonyo as the president and leader of the Organization in Uganda but also sits as a board member in the US where he serves two hours per week.
The retired pastor Gary Skinner is also registered as a board member who also work for two hours every week and his son James Skinner as a director who also works for two hours a week.
Some filings indicate that the said officials work up to 40 hours a week which is a violation of the U.S visitor’s visa, “If this work is done remotely, does that strengthen the argument that Watoto US is governed by Watoto Uganda?”
In 2023, Garry Skinner and his wife Marilyn, the founders of Watoto Church formerly Kampala Pentecostal Church handed over the leadership to Rwotlonyo and his wife Vernita after 40 years.
Other listed board members include Chief Finance Officer Valerie King, Brent Smith (Director of development), Scott Young (Vice President), Ben Wendland (Secretary, Philip Wagner (Director), Corey Wall (Director), Sharon Kelly (director), Roland Mitchell (director), Treasa Conrad and Eugene Stutzman the Chief Executive Officer.
An investigation shows that the listed board members are employees of the same organization who participate in governance structures that include oversight of compensation and financial decisions, a structure that experts say may undermine the intent of U.S. nonprofit governance rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest and excess benefit transactions.
A source privy to the investigation shows that Gary Skinner who retired from the leadership of Watoto in Uganda remains a board member in the U.S and an interested person in wired remittances from U.S to Uganda.
During Watoto’s September 2025 tour in Washington State, a local advocacy group Seattle Gay News contacted the Washington State charities regulator and was informed that WCCM was not registered to solicit charitable contributions in the state at that time.
Given that the U.S arm of Watoto raises the majority of the organization’s global funding, governance specialists note that oversight of the U.S entity is particularly important where significant funds are transferred to affiliated organisations abroad. U.S charity regulators commonly examine such structures to ensure appropriate independence and accountability.
The revelations come months after the Tax Appeals Tribunal (TAT) in Uganda dismissed with costs an application in which Watoto Child Care Ministries was challenging a Shs594m tax assessment on imported services.
In a unanimous decision, the Tax Tribunal held that payments to the service providers were made from Watoto Child Care Ministries’ income even though they were paid directly by the donors or by their partner offices.
According to the ruling, the payments which directly benefited the Watoto Child Care Ministries or were payments which were dealt with as the ministry directed, hence the payments constituted income sourced in Uganda.
In a November 28, 2025 ruling, the Tax Tribunal held that the non-resident service providers were non-resident persons who had derived income under a Ugandan source services contract and that Watoto Child Care Ministries had properly withheld Withholding Tax (WHT) in respect of the payments and had properly remitted them to Uganda Revenue Authority.
