Accepting Foreign Donations on Your NGO Website: How to Build the FCRA Donation Flow, Forms and Records
An NGO website that accepts foreign donations needs a separate, clearly labelled donation path for overseas donors, a form that captures the facts the finance team will need later, a payment setup that your gateway and bank have confirmed in writing, and records that let every payment be traced from the donor to the bank statement. The legal questions, such as whether a particular receipt is a foreign contribution and which account must receive it, belong to your FCRA-experienced accountant or lawyer. The website's job is to make the right decisions easy to follow and the records easy to produce. This guide explains how to build that flow on an NGO website in India: what to ask the gateway, how to design the foreign-donor path, which fields to collect, how to keep domestic and foreign money apart, and how to test it before launch.
It replaces an earlier version of this article that concentrated on compliance questions. Compliance still matters, and we keep the essential cautions below, but most readers asked a more practical question: what should our website actually do? This version answers that. It is not legal, tax or accounting advice, and nothing here should be read as a statement of what the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) permits in your particular case.
Start With Two Decisions That Are Not the Website's to Make
Before any developer opens a design file, two decisions must be settled by the trustees with professional advice.
- Is the NGO entitled to receive foreign contributions at all? Generally, an organisation needs FCRA registration, or prior permission for a specific contribution, before accepting money from a foreign source. A website and a payment gateway do not create that entitlement. Check that your registration is valid and current, and read our guide to recent changes under the FCRA amendment rules with your adviser.
- Which bank account receives foreign contributions? FCRA requires foreign contributions to be received in a designated FCRA account, and the current Ministry of Home Affairs instructions govern the details. Your bank and your adviser must confirm the route. The website cannot decide this and should never be built on an assumption.
Once these are decided in writing, the website can be designed to support them. If they are not decided, stop. A well-built donation form attached to the wrong settlement route creates a compliance problem faster than a poorly built one.
What the Website Has to Do
For foreign donations, a website has six jobs:
- Offer a donation path that overseas donors can find and use.
- Capture the donor information the NGO will need for review and records.
- Show honest, accurate statements about the organisation, the purpose and the receipt.
- Route the payment through the gateway configuration that your bank and provider have confirmed.
- Keep a complete, exportable record of each transaction.
- Keep domestic and foreign money distinguishable, from the form through the ledger.
The rest of this guide takes these in turn.
Designing the Foreign-Donor Path
One donate button, two clearly labelled routes
A common pattern is a single "Donate" page that asks, early on, where the donor is giving from, and then shows the appropriate form. Another is two separate pages: "Donate from India" and "Donate from outside India". Either can work. What matters is that a donor cannot accidentally use the wrong route, and that the route chosen is recorded on the donation.
Avoid guessing the donor's status from their IP address. A donor in India may be a foreign citizen, and a donor abroad may be an Indian citizen. Ask the question, explain why you are asking, and record the answer. Our guide to donation page design covers how to keep the page simple while asking for what is needed.
Show currency and amounts clearly
If you offer donations in a foreign currency, state which currency the donor will be charged in, what the NGO will receive and who performs the conversion. Do not display an Indian-rupee equivalent as a promise if the final amount depends on an exchange rate fixed later. Test the page with a card issued abroad, because many gateways behave differently for international cards.
Payment methods by donor location
Indian payment methods such as UPI and net banking are designed for Indian accounts. International donors typically use cards, and some use bank transfers or international wallets. Which of these is available to your NGO depends on your gateway, your bank and your compliance position, so the form should show only the methods that have been confirmed in writing. Do not enable an option simply because the gateway dashboard offers it.
| Donor route | Typical payment method | What the website should do |
|---|---|---|
| Donating from India, Indian account | UPI, net banking, Indian cards | Standard domestic flow, with domestic receipt rules |
| Donating from outside India, individual | International card | Foreign-donor form, with the extra fields below |
| Institutional or foundation grant | Bank transfer, not a card | Show bank instructions or a contact route; capture a grant reference; do not use the card form |
| Indian citizen abroad | Depends on the source of funds | Ask the question; route according to your adviser's guidance |
Large institutional gifts rarely come through a website payment form. Provide a contact route and let your finance team handle the paperwork, including the grant letter.
The Fields to Collect
The form should capture what the NGO needs to classify, receipt and report the contribution, and no more. Over-collection is a privacy risk and it lowers completion.
Core donor fields
- Full name, as it should appear on the receipt
- Email address and phone number
- Postal address, including country
- Country of residence
- Citizenship, where your adviser says it is needed to classify the donation
- Donor type: individual, company, foundation or other organisation
- Name of the organisation, if giving on its behalf
- Identification details only where required and permitted, such as a tax or ID number, and only with an explanation of why it is requested
Transaction fields
- Amount and currency
- Purpose or programme, if the donor selects one
- One-time or recurring
- Payment method
- A unique donation reference generated by your system
Declarations and consent
- A statement that the donor is giving from their own funds, where your adviser advises including it
- Consent to receive the receipt and, separately, optional consent for updates
- A link to the privacy policy
Our guide to DPDP Act compliance for NGO and business websites explains how to explain data use clearly. A checkbox does not replace compliance. The NGO still decides whether it can accept the contribution, and the form should make clear that acceptance is subject to review.
Keep identifiers out of URLs and analytics
Do not put a donor's name, email or reference into page addresses or into analytics events. Our guide to donation analytics with GA4 shows how to measure the funnel without sending personal data to advertising platforms.
Choosing and Questioning the Gateway
"International payments supported" can mean very different things. Some providers accept foreign cards for Indian merchants and settle in rupees to a domestic account. Others work through overseas entities or intermediaries. Whether any of these is suitable for FCRA donations to your NGO is a question for the provider, your bank and your adviser, in writing.
Ask the provider these questions, and keep the written answers on file:
- Do you onboard NGOs with FCRA registration, and do you support foreign donations as opposed to export payments?
- Which legal entity processes the payment, and are there overseas or intermediary parties?
- In which currency is the donor charged, and in which currency and to which account does the NGO receive settlement?
- Can settlement go to the account the NGO's bank has confirmed as the designated FCRA account?
- Who performs the currency conversion and what rate is applied?
- What are the fees, and are they deducted before settlement?
- How are refunds and chargebacks handled and who bears them?
- Which fields appear in transaction and settlement reports, and can they be exported in full?
- Can we limit countries or payment methods?
- What is the settlement cycle, and can it change after a risk review?
- Is recurring billing supported for foreign cards?
Our guide to payment gateway integration for NGOs explains how these answers shape the build. Do not rely on a sales representative's verbal assurance. The gateway's approval of your NGO under its own rules is a different matter from your NGO's compliance with FCRA, and neither substitutes for the other.
Keeping Foreign and Domestic Money Apart
If the NGO receives both kinds of donation, the system should keep them traceable from the first click to the ledger. There are several ways to do this, and the right one depends on your gateway and accountant.
- Separate payment pages or campaigns for the two routes, each with its own reference prefix.
- A required donor-status field, stored on the donation record.
- Separate gateway configurations or accounts, where your provider and bank require them.
- Different ledger codes, assigned automatically from the route.
- Separate receipt series, where your adviser recommends it.
Whatever you choose, test a donation through each route and check that it arrives in the right report, with the right label, and settles where it should. Do not use one generic payment link for every donor and plan to sort it out in a spreadsheet later.
Honest Wording on the Page
Statements on a donation page are public, and they must be accurate.
- Name the organisation exactly, as on its registration documents, including registered address.
- State the FCRA registration status accurately, and keep it current. If registration lapses or is suspended, the page must change immediately. Assign someone to review this page at fixed intervals.
- Do not make tax-benefit claims unless the NGO has verified that the donor and donation qualify under the relevant rules. FCRA status and tax deductibility are different matters.
- Do not promise "100% of your donation goes to the project" if fees or permitted costs are deducted.
- Describe restrictions honestly, such as how funds raised for a specific project are used if the project is over-funded.
- Show refund and cancellation terms and a contact route for donors.
- Show the privacy policy and a plain explanation of data use.
Check the legal name, address and registration details on the website against the certificate before applying to a gateway. A mismatch can delay onboarding or lead to payments being held.
Receipts, Records and the Audit Trail
A donation is only as useful as the record behind it. The website and the finance system together should let you follow a payment from donor to gateway to bank to ledger.
What each transaction record should hold
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Unique donation reference | Joins the website, gateway and accounts |
| Donor details and country | Classification and receipts |
| Donor route (domestic or foreign) | Keeps ledgers apart |
| Gross amount and currency | The donor's actual payment |
| Gateway fee and tax on the fee | Accounting for net settlement |
| Exchange rate, where used | Currency conversion trail |
| Gateway payment ID | Reconciliation with the gateway |
| Settlement ID, date and bank reference | Reconciliation with the bank |
| Refund or chargeback status | Reversals |
| Receipt number and date | Proof of acknowledgement |
| Purpose or programme | Restricted-fund reporting |
Record the gross amount as well as the net settlement. A bank statement shows only the net credit, which is not enough on its own. Our guide to donation records and reconciliation exports describes what the admin panel should capture, and the same structure applies here.
Receipts
Receipts should be generated only after payment is confirmed by the gateway, not when the donor reaches the thank-you page, and should carry the NGO's correct legal details. Whether and how a receipt refers to tax treatment is for your accountant. Test that a failed or refunded payment never leaves a valid-looking receipt behind. Our guide to 80G-compliant donation platforms covers domestic receipt design.
Exports and retention
Gateway dashboards often show only recent history. Export transaction and settlement reports regularly and store them in a controlled location. The annual FCRA return, including Form FC-4 where applicable, is prepared from complete records, and the finance team should not discover at filing time that a field such as donor country or settlement reference was never kept. Our guide on the FCRA annual return explains what the return draws on.
Recurring Foreign Donations
A recurring card donation continues until stopped. Circumstances can change between instalments: registration status, project funding or the donor's own situation. Before enabling subscriptions for foreign donors, confirm that your gateway supports recurring international payments for your NGO, that donors can cancel easily, that you can stop all mandates promptly if your status changes, and that each instalment generates its own transaction record. If you cannot monitor recurring payments properly, a one-time donation flow is safer. Our guide to recurring monthly giving covers the build for domestic donors.
Security and Access
The donation page is part of the NGO's compliance surface.
- Serve the whole donation journey over HTTPS.
- Use the gateway's hosted checkout or tokenisation. Never store card numbers or security codes on your own servers.
- Limit who can see donor reports, and use different permissions for finance, programmes and fundraising.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for the gateway, hosting and admin accounts, and remove access when people leave.
- Protect the form against bots and card-testing. See our guide to donation site security and hosting.
- Keep the privacy policy current and linked from the form.
Test Plan Before Public Launch
Run controlled tests with the gateway's test mode and, where your provider allows it, a small live transaction. Verify:
- The domestic route and the foreign route each record the right donor status.
- A foreign-card test reaches the intended merchant account and appears in the gateway report.
- The fields the finance team needs are stored, exported and complete.
- The donor receives the right receipt only after payment is confirmed.
- A failed payment leaves no receipt and no confirmed record.
- A refund updates the record and the receipt status.
- Fees, currency and exchange rate are recorded as the gateway reports them.
- The settlement, when it arrives, can be matched to the transaction records and the bank reference.
- The page shows the correct legal name, registration details and policies.
- The form works on a phone and meets basic accessibility expectations.
- Cancelling a recurring test donation stops further charges.
- An authorised finance user can export everything needed without developer help.
Ask your gateway whether test-mode transactions are supported and whether a small live payment is treated differently from a test. Our pre-launch testing checklist is written for stores but its payment and device checks apply here too.
Common Mistakes
Building before the bank route is confirmed. The website should follow the settlement route, not the other way round.
Settling into an unrelated account. Foreign contributions should not pass through a trustee's, consultant's or another organisation's account or gateway.
Treating gateway approval as legal approval. The provider's KYC acceptance does not certify that a donation is permitted.
Collecting too little. An email and a payment ID are rarely enough to review the source and purpose of a contribution.
Mixing routes. One generic payment link for all donors makes later separation hard.
Letting the page go stale. Registration details, address and trustee information must match the records at all times.
Forgetting refunds and chargebacks. A card dispute months later must be recorded and reflected in the project ledger.
Where to Start
- Confirm your registration position and the designated bank account in writing with your adviser and bank.
- Decide which donor routes you will offer and which payment methods are confirmed.
- Send the gateway questions above and keep the written answers.
- Design the form fields with your finance team.
- Have your adviser review the wording on the donation page and the receipt.
- Build, test using the plan above and get finance sign-off.
- Schedule a regular review of the page and of exported records.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an NGO use any payment gateway for foreign donations?
No. The provider must accept the NGO under its own onboarding rules, and the payment and settlement route must be compatible with the NGO's FCRA banking and record-keeping obligations. Obtain written confirmation of the legal entity, currencies, settlement account and reports before accepting public donations.
Can foreign donors give through an Indian donation website?
They may be able to, if the provider supports their payment method and the NGO is permitted to receive the contribution. The website's location does not decide the status of a donation; the donor's identity, source of funds and the payment route do.
Should foreign and domestic donations use separate pages?
They should at least be separately identifiable and reconcilable. Separate pages or campaigns are a common way to do this, with a stored donor-status field. Your gateway, bank and accountant determine what arrangement is required.
What records should the website keep for each foreign donation?
At least the donor's details and country, gross amount and currency, fees, exchange rate where used, gateway and settlement references, receipt number, purpose and refund status. Export them regularly instead of relying on a dashboard.
Does FCRA registration allow me to promise donors a tax deduction?
No. FCRA status and donor tax deductibility are separate questions. Do not make tax-benefit claims on the page or receipt unless your accountant has confirmed that the donor and donation qualify.
Who should review the donation page before launch?
Your trustees' FCRA adviser, your accountant and your finance lead should all review the wording, the fields and a test transaction trail. The developer builds the flow; the professionals confirm that it is correct for your organisation.
Sources and Notes
- Ministry of Home Affairs, FCRA Division, official notices, forms and instructions: fcraonline.nic.in
- Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 and Rules, as published by the Ministry of Home Affairs: fcraonline.nic.in
- Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, data protection framework: meity.gov.in
This article describes how a website can support a compliant process; it does not interpret the Act. Requirements change, so check the current notices before building. TODO: the NGO's own adviser must confirm donor-classification fields and receipt wording.
Working With Govindani Infotech on FCRA-Ready Donation Websites
Govindani Infotech is a website design and development company at 2nd Floor, Landmark Plaza, 206 Satara Road, Parvati Paytha, Pune 411009, and one of India's most experienced teams in NGO donation platforms, with more than 500 non-profit websites engineered. Our NGO website development team builds donation flows, donor forms and reconciliation exports, and works alongside your accountant and your gateway provider.
To talk through a foreign-donor donation flow, message us on WhatsApp at wa.me/919201958278 or use our contact page. The website and gateway requirements can be discussed there, while final FCRA and tax decisions should be confirmed with your professional adviser.
About the author: written by the Govindani Infotech NGO web development team in Pune, drawing on our experience of building donation platforms for non-profits.