Why not give to a NGO directly ? Why give it to a NGO through Karmic ?

You are welcome to give to a NGO directly. We welcome it because it serves the same purpose. In fact, you can get all the details about a certified and credible NGO from our website and donate directly. You give it through us because you are able to derive more mileage from every penny and we facilitate many things which may not be possible directly through a NGO.

• Online Platform : Most good NGOs work in the rural areas. They may not have an online facility to receive your donation or upload their feedback reports.
• Tax break : Karmic sends you a tax receipt instantly for your online donation. Avail 50% tax benefit for Indians. Check for 501(c)(3) tax breaks for US residents. Many NGOs may not offer this.
• Scale : We can collect from multiple donors for the same project to make it a meaningful contribution. Too small a single donation may not be that useful.
• Quality : You donate to a pre-screened NGO which is selected through a rigorous three stage process. We invest considerable time and effort on this since this is the main stay of the outcomes of your donation and our motivation to start this endeavor
• Online Feedback : You have a fully online system to select, donate and monitor the journey of your money as well of the beneficiary. We track every donation and publish the report on the website for you to track the progress of your money utilization as well as beneficiaries
• Range : We offer a wide range of Causes as well NGOs to choose from. We continuously upgrade this so that you may affect the lives of people from different geographies and different needs. You get more choices of certified entities.
• Professionalism: You deal with us who are educated professionals making it easier to communicate, share your ideas and upscale your engagement in different ways
• Not for ourselves:We do not raise funds for ourselves, but offer you the chance to donate to a wide range of NGOs that have met clearly defined norms for being credible. We have a vested interest to see good utilization of your funds as a third party.
• Payment modes : You can donate through a range of payment options - credit card, cheque and DD. Even through Net-Banking

Donors can avail of the following tax benefits

For Indian Tax Payers:
u/s 80G of the IT Act up to 50% of your donation is deductible.  Karmic provides the 80G number on the receipt itself, in keeping with Income Tax Department rules. You do not need a copy of the 80G certificate to claim your deduction. However, for your own reassurance, you can download a copy of our 80G certificate.

For US Tax Payers:
We are in the process of registering for exemption u/s 501(c)(3) in USA. You will get the benefit  only if you register as a U.S. Tax Payer on our site before you donate. Please note that donations made with your Person Category set to any other type are not eligible for 501(c)(3) benefits, even if you subsequently change your profile on our site.

About Registration and Password.

Registration is mandatory on Karmic for a number of reasons:

• We need to capture your contact information to send you donation receipts and feedback reports.
• The Government of India regulations stipulate that every NGO that seeks funding from any person who is not an Indian national must possess an FCRA certificate. That's why we ask you to choose a person category based on your nationality and country of residence.
• The Government of India requires us to keep track of the full address of each donor.
• For NRIs: The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, requires us to store passport numbers of NRIs who donate online. Since the source of funds is outside India and the donation is exempt under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, they require us to capture this information.However, if you register as a citizen of another country, you will be able to donate without providing your passport number. However you will be able to choose only those NGOs on our site that are allowed to receive funding from foreign citizens.

Please be assured that Karmic will not use your personal details for any other purpose. Please be sure to use your permanent personal email ID when you register at Karmic website. This will be your unique identity on the website and cannot be changed.

Change Password

 To change password, first click on “Login”  then click on 'Change password'. 

How to donate

Here are the steps.

Step 1: Register as a donor on Karmic website by  clicking on 'New user? Or “Register”. Your email ID is your login ID. Your password will be emailed to you on this email ID as per the process explained on the Registration screen.
Step 2: Click on “Login” on the main bar.Now enter your User ID and Password. Select your favourite cause / NGO and find a donation option that you like.
Step 3: Finalise your donation option by clicking on it and then enter the desired quantity and then click on the green 'Donate' button.
Step 4: Select a payment option on Your Donation Cart page and then click on Check Out to complete the donation.

What is a Corpus Fund and a General Fund. What do these donation options mean?

To be sustainable, NGOs need to build up a strong organisation. Given the erratic nature of funding, developing a corpus/general fund is one way that NGOs can do this. When you donate to the corpus/general fund, this helps NGOs to design long-term programmes without worrying about programme support from aid agencies, and to meet some organisational costs that no one else is willing to bear.

Essentially, corpus/general fund donations are not earmarked for a specific purpose, and the NGO is thus free to use them as required [e.g., to meet fundraising costs, or to conduct a training programme to upgrade skills of its own staff, or to launch a new project etc.

Funds in the general fund can be used at any time, whereas money in a corpus can normally not be touched - the organisation is supposed to use only the interest that accrues from investments made out of corpus donations, without touching the principal itself

Donation Option that I saw previously is no more there.  Why? 

NGOs have predefined requirements for each donation option based on their current operating capacity and need for funds. Once the need has been fully met, the donation option is automatically removed from our website for the rest of the period.  We also delist donation options where the NGO is unable to provide feedback reports to donors despite repeated reminders and follow-ups from our side.

How does Karmic support itself ? 

To keep Karmic sustainable we remain afloat  by a combination of following means:

• By retaining a % of the donations as our administrative fees. The industry benchmark for NGOs for cost of funds is in the range of 30-50%. We try to keep it between 5% – 15% depending on the amount of funds that we are able to raise. As we raise more funds less  we retain since our expenses are predictable. As we become more and more self sustainable by increasing the volume of funds we want to achieve a benchmark of 2-3% in a few years time so that maximum amount flows to the underprivileged – the target audience of all our endeavors..
• We seek a Corpus grant from large hearted social givers – HNIs or corporates - which will close the annual deficit between our income and expenses.
• We try and keep our costs low, by obtaining free or subsidised services wherever possible.  Several ad agencies and others provide pro bono services to help us, and we have many volunteers that drive several aspects of our operations, thus helping keep costs even lower.
• We also organize special fund raisers to increase our corpus. We also provide specialized client services to generate additional funds.
  

Is the Website secure for online Payments ?

You can feel secure while passing on personal information on the Karmic site because:

For user registration or login, we provide you the option of Thawte SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) with 128 bit encryption for highest security.

•  In order to preserve user's confidentiality, the login passwords are encrypted before being stored.
• The information that we capture is minimal - only the basic data that law requires us to obtain.
• Karmic does not capture or store your credit card or banking information. You enter this information directly on the Paypals website while making a donation.