Question

Answer

Are you an NGO?

Yes, we are an NGO. GuideStar India is an initiative of Civil Society Information Services India (CSIS India), a trust registered in New Delhi.

What is GuideStar India?

GuideStar India is an online, fully searchable database of reliable and comparable information on NGOs. The information is frequently updated because it puts the power in the hands of NGOs to manage their content. It allows NGOs to upload legal documents, Annual Reports, Audited Accounts, pictures and allows NGOs to provide links to other sites and blogs. In other words, GuideStar India is one place to find everything about NGOs in India.

Who owns GuideStar India?

GuideStar India is owned by Civil Society Information Services India (a Trust registered in India).

How are you connected with GuideStar US, UK?

GuideStar India is set up in collaboration with GuideStar International (GSI), the founders of GuideStar US & UK. GuideStar India is independent of its US and UK counterparts. GSI provides technology and other resources to GuideStar India. We are a part of the GuideStar Alliance, hence connected with all other GuideStars which are emerging in more than 10 countries. We are a part of the global reporting framework developed by GSI, which makes NGOs featured on GuideStar India, also an integral part of the global search across other GuideStars. For more details, visit www.guidestarinternational.org.

What is CSIS India?

CSIS India or Civil Society Information Services India is a trust registered in India. CSIS India's mission is to revolutionise philanthropy and non-profit practice by providing information that advances transparency, enables better decision making & encourages charitable giving.
GuideStar India is one of its key programmes.

Who funds GuideStar India?

The initial support is from GuideStar International and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. CSIS India also takes up NGO outreach and database projects for other foundations, corporates and institutional users for which it receives project funding.

Who are your users?

Individuals (donors, volunteers, career seekers in the voluntary sector)
Corporates (CSR teams, service providers to NGOs)
Foundations & Grant-makers
Policy makers, Government & Researchers
NGOs
NGO networks, advocacy & capacity building organisations, intermediaries in the voluntary sector
Media

How will GuideStar India be helpful to its users?

Different users can find GuideStar India helpful in the following ways:
a) People seeking to volunteer their time or donate money/ clothes & other items, can search for NGOs in need in their area. People who seek support for medical treatment or want to refer affected people/animals, etc can find NGOs who could support them.
b) Donors and volunteers can more easily identify NGOs working in areas of interest to them.
c) NGOs themselves can use GuideStar India data to showcase their work and voice their needs. Also the NGOs who provide services to other NGOs like capacity building, advocacy etc. can increase their reach. NGOs improve their own understanding of the work of other organisations in their field. Our site provides NGOs with a great web presence leading to much wider public recognition than they can achieve alone.
d)Those who provide services to NGO, such as banks, communication & IT support, etc. can use the data on our site to provide tailor made options to NGOs.
e)Government departments and agencies can track reports uploaded by NGOs, identify underserved areas to inform policy decisions, identify NGOs that can partner with government to implement programmes. We encourage NGOs to register on the Planning Commission's NGO Partnership System as well as quote the unique identity number allotted by the Planning Commission. This enables pooling information from both sites for further use by government.

How are you different from other databases?

 Our website is more detailed than any other database provider about registered NGOs in the country. GuideStar India has aimed itself to be the first place to search information on NGOs. Our Advanced Search engine is the first of its type in the country. This meets the needs of a wide range of users. We make focused efforts to make sure that maximum information is updated on our site. There is a facility of "Report  Error " on every page of our site which makes it easy for the users. Our innovative search engine guides the users to search an NGO by keywords, location and its size. We work closely with our partner NGOs. The registration form is easy to fill and NGOs themselves can update their work on our portal. There is a flexibility to fill in as little to as much as the NGO desires to share. GuideStar India incentivises the NGOs to update their work because the ranking of search result is based on how recent and how comprehensive is the information provided by them.

What benefits does an NGO featured on GuideStar India gets?

• Your pages on GuideStar India are like a free website which you can manage yourself! If you already have a website, you can also link your page(s) on www.guidestarindia.org to your own website.
• You can directly update your information at your convenience. It is as simple as filling the online railway reservation form.
• You can upload your Annual Report, Audited Accounts, statutory returns, logo and pictures.
• You can put up your needs to reach donors and volunteers worldwide.
• You can access information about grant-makers.
• You may not have to re-submit the same information to multiple agencies.

How you benefit as a Donor, Grant maker, Volunteer, Researcher, Policy maker or Supporter of NGOs

• GuideStar India has a powerful search engine that lets you search for NGOs by name/cause/location/size/needs/ keywords, etc. using our Advanced Search.
• You can shortlist, using your criteria, from a large set of NGOs before you contact them for details, saving you a lot of time and energy in reaching out to NGOs and processing application.
• You can use our platform to showcase NGOs you support and give them access to a wider resource group.
• You can avail of our customised services for your NGO centric activities, use our newsletter & targeted mailing services to reach NGOs or get relevant datasets of NGOs.

How do corporates benefit from your site?

Corporates can use our portal for their CSR, to search for potential grantees, to get their grantees to showcase their work and thus broad base their reach to other donors. GuideStar India has a powerful search engine that lets you search for NGOs by name/cause/location/size/needs/ keywords. You can shortlist, using your criteria, from a large set of NGOs before you contact them for details. You can use our platform to showcase NGOs you support and give them access to a wider resource group.
You can avail of our customised services for your NGO centric activities use our newsletter & targeted mailing services to reach NGOs or get relevant datasets of NGOs.

How is the government benefitted from your site?

We promote the use of Planning Commission’s NGO Partnership System.
Provide ready access to NGO filings (ITR, FC returns, and annual returns to Charity Commissioner/ Registrar).
Give datasets for macro aggregates.
Support trend analyses of NGO performance.
Enable sector wise gap identification.

How are you different from giving sites

We are not a giving site. We only provide information which helps people to make informed giving decisions. Some of the NGOs on our site are also listed on GiveIndia and they would have mentioned the same under "Memberships & Associations", while some of the NGOs would have iGive pages on GiveIndia which they would have mentioned in their "Needs" section. NGOs that have payment gateways on their website would have stated the URL on their respective page.

What do you do with NGO data?

GuideStar India collects and organises the NGO data provided to it and displays it on the website in such a manner that the users can easily find what they are looking for. Currently all information is available free of cost to all the users. However where users require specific data about a set of NGOs meeting their criteria, we provide it to them against a small contribution towards our expenses.

Why should I use only GuideStar India ?

GuideStar India gives you a powerful and "Advanced search" facility to quickly get information about NGOs that you are looking for. It would be the first place to look for NGOs but is not the only place, as we provide links to other useful sites and resources.

Are there other GuideStar systems being developed?

GuideStar International supports the establishment of various GuideStar organisations worldwide. GuideStar in US (founded 1994), UK (founded 2003) and Israel (founded 2010) are fully functional. GuideStar India and three others are in various stages of development. Six other countries are conducting assessment studies. For more information, visit www.guidestarinternational.org.

Who audits GuideStar India's accounts?

S. Sahoo & Co.
(Chartered Accountants)
107, Laxman Singh Complex - I
Munirka, New Delhi 110067

Where does Guidestar India gets its information from?

All information displayed on GuideStar India is filed directly by the NGOs themselves which they enter online. In addition to it, GuideStar India brings together existing information that is already in the public domain from reliable sources. We also obtain data from Foundations, non profit intermediaries, networks and other databases. We have a policy of obtaining data ethically. We verify whether an organisation is registered in India as a Society/ Trust/Sec 25 company and we verify its physical existence.

How latest is the information displayed on GuideStar India?

Our data sourcing started in June 2009. Some of the information provided on our portal is as recent as yesterday and is an on-going process. We undertake a variety of activities to motivate NGOs to update their information. Our search results are ranked on the updation of data and the volume of information input by the NGOs.

Why is it that not all NGOs have provided all types of information?

GuideStar India is a platform for NGOs registered in India. We recognise that not all NGOs would have the time or resources to input all fields of information at one go. Hence the site allows NGOs to input information section wise. The site motivates NGOs to report by ranking search results on the amount of information reported and date of updation. We leave it to users to base their decisions on what the type of information they value the most.

How does GuideStar India manage to keep its costs low?

We are fortunate to attract professionals who work for us at nearly a third of their market value. We also have volunteers who support our work. We get our technology support from GuideStar International at a low cost as some of the development costs are shared across all GuideStars. We also negotiate very hard with all our vendors and seriously review our expenses every month.

Does GuideStar India publish its Annual Report?

Yes, CSIS India will be publishing its Annual Report each year wherein you will find our financial statements and our year-round activities as well. By October of every year, our Annual Report will be available on the site.