Where to give your Zakat in India, and how to check the organisation first
Four things to verify before you transfer — and where to look each of them up.
Zakat is an obligation, which means giving it to an organisation that mishandles it is not a small mistake. Before you transfer, four checks are worth the ten minutes they take.
First, confirm the 12A and 80G registrations exist and are current. Both are searchable on the Income Tax portal. An organisation that will not publish its numbers is telling you something.
Second, check the NGO Darpan listing. It is the government's own directory and it confirms the organisation is who it says it is.
Third, ask whether Zakat funds are held separately from general donations. Zakat has eight defined categories of recipient. An organisation that pools it with unrestricted income cannot honestly tell you it reached one of them.
Fourth, read the audited accounts, not the impact report. The accounts are the record; the report is the story told about it.