Donor CRM for Indian NGOs: 80G, FCRA and CSR tracking
A donor CRM for an Indian NGO has to do three things global CRMs don’t do out of the box: hold the donor details needed for 80G statements and certificates, keep foreign and domestic money apart for FCRA, and track CSR partners like grants rather than donors. Any of the CRMs in our comparison of the best CRMs for nonprofits can do this if you add the right fields. This page gives you the fields.
This is a systems guide, not tax or legal advice. Confirm forms, dates and thresholds with your CA.
Why global CRMs miss this
Bloomerang, Salesforce and Zoho are built for US-style tax receipts or for sales. None of them knows that a ₹5,000 cash gift doesn’t qualify for an 80G deduction, that FCRA money must sit in a separate account, or that a CSR partner wants a utilisation certificate every quarter. Sound familiar? That is why so many Indian NGOs keep “the real list” in a spreadsheet beside their CRM.
The field template
Donor (contact or organisation)
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Donor type: individual / company CSR / foundation / foreign | Drives which pipeline and which rules apply |
| ID type and number (PAN preferred) | Needed for the annual statement of donations |
| Name as on PAN | Certificates should match the ID |
| Address | Required in the donation statement |
| Nationality / foreign source flag | Feeds FCRA tagging |
| Consent: email, WhatsApp, with date | DPDP Act; see our DPDP compliance checklist |
Donation
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Date, amount, mode (UPI, bank, cheque, cash) | Mode decides 80G eligibility |
| Fund type: domestic / FCRA | Never mix in reports or utilisation |
| Receiving account (FCRA account or domestic) | Audit trail |
| 80G eligible? (Y/N, reason) | Cash over the limit, or non-eligible fund, = N |
| Receipt number (sequential), receipt date | One sequence per financial year |
| Purpose / restriction (corpus, specific programme, general) | Restricted funds need separate reporting |
| Included in Form 113 (10BD) filing for FY | Lets you prove nothing was missed |
CSR partner (a custom module, not a deal)
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Company, CIN, CSR committee contact | Who decides and who reports |
| Project, Schedule VII area, geography | What the company will report on |
| MoU date, total amount, tranche schedule | Cash flow and reminders |
| Utilisation certificate due dates | The thing CSR teams chase most |
| Impact assessment needed? | Required for larger CSR projects |
| Your CSR-1 registration number | Companies ask for it at due diligence |
The compliance calendar your CRM should remind you about
| When | What | CRM job |
|---|---|---|
| Every gift | Issue receipt with sequential number | Auto-number + template |
| Each quarter | FCRA: disclose foreign contributions received | Report filtered by fund type = FCRA |
| CSR tranche dates | Utilisation certificate and progress report | Task to owner 15 days before |
| 31 March | Financial year closes | Lock receipt sequence; start new one |
| By 31 May | File statement of donations (Form 113, formerly 10BD) and issue certificates (Form 114, formerly 10BE) | Export donor-wise totals; check missing PANs in April |
| By 31 December | FCRA annual return (FC-4) | Fund-type-wise totals |
Missing PANs are the most common problem we see in April. Build a report that lists every gift without a valid ID and send it to the fundraising owner each month, not once a year.
A worked example: one gift, three records
A Mumbai company’s CSR team commits ₹12 lakh over a year in three tranches to a Coimbatore livelihoods nonprofit.
- The company is an organisation record (donor type: company CSR), linked to its CSR head as a contact.
- The CSR partnership is a record in the CSR module: Schedule VII area, MoU date, three tranche rows, utilisation certificate due dates.
- Each tranche received is a donation record: domestic fund, bank transfer, receipt number, linked to the partnership.
When the second utilisation certificate is due, the owner gets a task. When finance closes the year, the three donations appear in the donor-wise statement. Nobody rebuilds the story from email. If the company also funds a programme with field data, link to the programme system rather than stuffing it into the CRM; our Bigin vs Zoho CRM guide covers when that pushes you to Zoho CRM.
Where receipts live
You can generate 80G receipts inside the CRM with a template, in Zoho Books, or with a dedicated tool. EdZola’s FundZola issues bulk receipts in sequence and flags FCRA versus local gifts on import. Your finance and legal advisers still own the receipt policy. Our nonprofit CRM implementation guide covers go-live timing: avoid March and May.
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