Kat-Katha (Registered under the Societies Act, 1860) cares about the personal information that you trust us with when you visit this site, give a contribution, sign up to volunteer, or reach out for any other reason. This page explains, in plain language, what we collect and what we do with it.
1. What we collect
We only collect what each interaction genuinely needs:
- If you make a donation: your name, email, optional phone, donation amount, and (if you choose to provide it) your PAN — required only when you want an 80G tax-deduction certificate.
- If you submit the contact form: your name, email, the topic you chose, and the message you wrote.
- Automatically (for security): the request metadata our payment gateway and email provider need to process your action — including your IP address and basic browser information, used only for fraud prevention and rate-limiting.
We do not collect government IDs (Aadhaar, passport, etc.), bank account details (those go directly to Razorpay, never us), location data, or your contacts.
2. How we use it
- To process your donation through Razorpay.
- To send you a receipt and, where applicable, an 80G certificate within five working days.
- To respond to messages you send us through the contact form.
- To send you occasional updates about the work — only if you explicitly opted in to receive them.
- To keep the donation ledger our auditors and the Income Tax Department require us to maintain.
We do not use your information for advertising, lookalike audience targeting, or any kind of profiling.
3. Who we share it with
We share the minimum data needed with three categories of partners:
- Razorpay — the payment processor. Card and bank details go directly to them and never touch our servers. Their privacy policy is at razorpay.com/privacy.
- Resend — the email service that delivers your receipts and replies. Their privacy policy is at resend.com/legal/privacy-policy.
- Our hosting + database providers (Vercel, Neon) — they store the encrypted records of your donation so we can issue receipts and meet our audit requirements.
We do not sell, rent, or trade your information to anyone. We don't share donor lists with other NGOs.
4. Donations on behalf of children
Donations come from adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. The children who appear on our site as part of the Bridge School and other programs are pictured and described with informed consent from their parents or guardians — those records are kept by our programs team separately from this website.
5. Cookies and analytics
We use the minimum cookies needed for the site to work (mostly session and security cookies set by our payment gateway during checkout).
We do not use third-party advertising cookies. If we ever turn on privacy-respecting analytics (Plausible or a similar tool that does not track individuals), we will update this page first.
6. How long we keep it
- Donation records — kept for at least seven years, as required by Indian income-tax and audit regulations for organisations registered under sections 12A and 80G.
- Contact-form messages — kept until we have meaningfully replied, then deleted within a reasonable period (typically within a year) unless we've started a continuing conversation with you.
- Newsletter signups — kept until you unsubscribe.
7. Your rights
You can ask us to:
- Tell you what personal information we hold about you.
- Correct anything that is wrong.
- Delete it, subject to the legal records we're required to keep for audit (your name + donation amount + PAN have to stay in the donation ledger).
- Stop sending you newsletters or updates.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at communications@kat-katha.org and we'll respond within two working days.
8. Security
All payment processing is handled by Razorpay over TLS-encrypted channels and is PCI-DSS compliant. Our database is encrypted at rest. We use industry-standard practices to protect the data we do hold — but no online service can promise zero risk, and we recommend you use strong, unique passwords and verify donation URLs before entering your details.
9. Changes to this policy
If we make material changes, we will update the “last updated” date at the top of this page and, where the change affects how we use your data, notify newsletter subscribers by email. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated policy.
10. Contact
Questions, concerns, or requests about your data:
Kat-KathaShah Ganj, Ajmeri Gate
New Delhi 110006
India
communications@kat-katha.org · +91 11 4750 3252