NGO Website Checklist: 40 Things Every Indian NGO Website Should Include

A few months ago an NGO we work with told us their website was "done". It had been up for four years. The pages loaded slowly on a phone, the annual report link pointed at a PDF from two financial years ago, there was no one listed as responsible for the site, and a CSR manager who had emailed asking for their registration certificate got no reply for three weeks.

Nothing on that site was technically broken. Every page rendered, every menu worked. It simply did not tell a visiting stranger enough, fast enough, or clearly enough for them to take the next step. That is the gap this checklist is about.

We have put together forty checks we run across NGO websites. We use them as an audit on our own work and as a starting conversation with organisations we advise. Not all forty matter in the same week. Take the section that hurts, fix it, and move on.

Identity and credibility

• Your full registered name, exactly as it appears on your registration certificate.
• Registration number and the state registration authority you are registered with.
• Your 12A and 12AB status, if you have it, with the dates they are valid.
• FCRA registration number and validity, if you receive foreign contributions.
• Your Darpan listing, linked if you have one.
• PAN and the name your bank account is held under, so a donor can verify the match.
• Bank account details for direct transfers, with the current IFSC.
• A named founder or director, not just "our team".
• The year you were founded and the year you registered.
• A short statement of what you believe about the problem you work on.

Who you serve and where

• Who your beneficiaries are, described in plain language a non-expert can follow.
• The states, districts or blocks you currently work in, named rather than "across India".
• Your working model in a paragraph: what you actually do, and with whom.
• Who is excluded, if that is a relevant and honest thing to say.
• How people can reach the beneficiaries directly, if that is appropriate.
• Your service or programme coverage map, even a simple one.

Programmes and impact

• A dedicated page per programme, not one combined "our work" page.
• Each programme page states the goal, the method, the geography and the current period.
• Output numbers with the year they refer to: households covered, children enrolled, litres delivered.
• Outcome numbers where you have them, and an honest note where you do not.
• At least one real story per programme, with the subject's consent respected.
• Photos that are clearly from your work and not stock imagery.
• Evaluations, third-party audits or SEEP studies linked where they exist.
• An explanation of how you measure whether the work worked.

Governance and transparency

• The current financial year's annual report, downloadable as a PDF and readable on the page.
• Audited financial statements for the last two years.
• Trustee or board member names with the role each holds.
• The date of the most recent board or general body meeting.
• Board composition including any governing body the law requires you to have.
• A conflict of interest policy, or at least a statement that you have one.
• Your fundraising or donation policy, and a grievance contact.
• Disclosure of any serious incident or regulatory action in the period.

Fundraising readiness

• A page whose whole job is to explain how someone gives money.
• UPI and card options alongside net banking, not bank transfer only.
• A clear breakdown of what a donation pays for, and any honest overhead disclosure.
• Donation receipt terms and how long after giving it arrives.
• 80G benefit explained if applicable, and whether it is available on all giving.
• A corporate or CSR partnerships page aimed at a CSR or partnerships manager.
• A downloadable one-page organisation profile, current within the year.
• A named, monitored email address for funding enquiries, with a response time you can keep.

Making it findable

• A descriptive page title and meta description on every page, not a generic sitewide default.
• A sitemap.xml and a robots.txt that do not accidentally block the site.
• Organisation structured data on the About and Contact pages.
• Consistent name, address and phone number across your website and every directory listing.
• Links to your profiles on GuideStar India and similar registries, where you are listed.
• Internal links connecting programme pages to your impact reporting.

Accessibility, language and mobile

• The site loads quickly on a 3G connection and an entry-level Android phone.
• Text is readable without zooming, and body text is at least 16px.
• Sufficient colour contrast between text and background.
• Every image has descriptive alt text that says what the photo shows.
• All functionality is reachable by keyboard, including menus and forms.
• A visible WhatsApp or phone contact option, which is how most of your audience will reach you.
• Content available in the languages your beneficiaries and donors actually use.
• No text embedded in images, so it cannot be translated or read by a screen reader.

Trust and ownership

• A privacy policy that covers the beneficiary data you collect.
• A child protection policy, or a statement of your commitment to one.
• An accessibility statement, even a short one.
• Terms of use for the site.
• A named person or team who owns the website, with the authority to publish and to take it down.
• A plan for what happens when the person who built your site is no longer available.
• A calendar reminder to check the site quarterly, not just when it breaks.

Minimum viable against strong

How to work through it

Do not open all forty at once. Pick the six from the callout at the top of this post and get those genuinely right. They cover the objections a stranger will have in the first thirty seconds. Then move outward section by section, assigning one person per section rather than trying to review everything at a board meeting.

The two most commonly skipped items are the unglamorous ones: naming the person who owns the site, and setting a quarterly check. Both cost nothing and both decide whether any of the other thirty-eight are still true in a year's time.

Want your website assessed against this checklist? Request a website audit from digiSarathi.