How to check if an NGO is genuine (India)

Giving to a genuine organisation should not require detective work — but a few minutes of checking protects both your money and the credibility of the sector. Here is the checklist we use ourselves.

1. Confirm it legally exists

Every legitimate Indian NGO is registered as one of three things: a public charitable trust, a society (under the Societies Registration Act), or a Section 8 company (under the Companies Act). Ask for the registration number, or look for it on the NGO's website — genuine organisations display it, usually in the footer or the About page.

2. Look up its DARPAN ID

NITI Aayog runs the NGO Darpan portal (ngodarpan.gov.in), where NGOs that work with the government register voluntarily. A DARPAN ID is not mandatory, so its absence proves nothing — but its presence is a good signal, and the portal lets you cross-check the organisation's name, registration and sector.

3. Check 80G and 12A if you want the tax benefit

• 12A registration is what makes the NGO itself tax-exempt.
• 80G certification is what lets YOU claim a deduction for your donation.

Both can be verified: ask the NGO for its 80G certificate number, and remember that certificates expire and must be renewed. If the tax deduction matters to you, confirm the certificate is current before donating — and read our 80G guide for how the deduction actually works.

4. For foreign donations: FCRA

If you are donating from outside India (or via a foreign entity), the NGO must hold a valid FCRA registration to legally receive foreign contributions. The Ministry of Home Affairs publishes the list of FCRA-registered associations at fcraonline.nic.in. No FCRA, no foreign donation — a genuine NGO will tell you this themselves.

5. Read one annual report

A serious organisation publishes annual reports and audited financials. You are not looking for perfection — you are looking for existence. An NGO that publishes what it raised, what it spent and what it did has the habit of accountability. One that publishes nothing at all is asking you to take everything on faith.

6. Sanity-check the claims

Impact numbers should trace to somewhere: a report, a page, a programme. Round numbers that only ever appear in marketing copy ("10 million lives changed") deserve a raised eyebrow. On Daan, every impact figure we display carries a source link to the NGO's own published material — and where an NGO hasn't published figures, we show nothing rather than invent something.

Red flags

• Pressure to donate in cash, or to a personal bank account rather than the organisation's.
• No registered address, no landline, no names of trustees or directors anywhere.
• A website that lists no registration numbers at all.
• Claims of 100% of donations reaching beneficiaries — someone pays the rent, and honest NGOs say so.

What "verified" means on Daan

When we mark an NGO as verified, it means we have confirmed the organisation is real and operating: its official website, its registered name, and the logo we display, checked against its own published material. It is not a financial audit and not an endorsement of programme quality — the checklist above is still worth running for any large donation.

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