Donate to Varta Trust

In the financial years 2024-25 and 2025-26, we are attempting to raise funds for the following priorities:

1. Support for our innovative training activities:

• Biannual workshops and follow-up activities under the Varta Trust Mental Health Peer Counselling Training Programme for queer communities in West Bengal – two workshops with 16 participants completed so far in 2022-23 and 2023-24 along with the facilitation of a support group for the peer counsellors trained (Rs.10 lakh)
• Planning and running a pilot training programme on home-based caregiving for geriatric queer individuals by queer individuals (new activity planned) (Rs.3 lakh)
• Fifth edition of the Varta Community Reporters Training and Citizen Journalism Programme (Rs.3 lakh). Please click here to read details of this unique skills building and citizen empowerment initiative that we have been implementing since 2018

2. Functioning of the Varta Economic Inclusion Mentoring Forum:

• Remuneration for one Aspirant Counselling and Documentation Consultant (full-time) as forum coordinator and to reach out to queer individuals in eastern and north-eastern India, understand their skills building and livelihood needs, guide them in CV development, connect them to relevant mentors, help them work out personal action plans, and facilitate job or self-employment placements where possible – Rs.8 lakh
• Engaging queer friendly mental health professionals and lawyers to address the psychosocial support and legal aid needs of our mentees – Rs.1 lakh
• Creating multimedia and multilingual guides (in English, Bengali, Hindi, Odia, Assamese and Manipuri) to help queer people with wage employment or self-employment opportunities – INR 2 lakh
• Conducting online and offline training workshops / courses on communication skills, spoken English, computer operations, social media, documentation, financial literacy, CV development, and entrepreneurship development for queer people – INR 5 lakh
• Conducting sensitization and orientation workshops on gender and sexuality issues for trainers, employers (particularly from micro, small and medium enterprises), financiers, government social welfare officials, and policy makers – INR 3 lakh

3. Varta Trust’s core operational (administrative) expenses (Rs.8.50 lakh):

• Office rental and associated expenses
• Office equipment – one desktop or laptop computer and printer
• Salaries for two assistive staff members (full-time) for office administration, financial management, and programme coordination

4. Other activities: Support for our website development, monthly webzine, queer archival research, queer oral history research, queer heritage walks (new activity planned), health camps (new activity planned), legal literacy / legal aid work, and multi-lingual online locators on queer friendly health and legal aid services will also be welcome. For details, please write to us at vartablog@gmail.com.

Varta Trust can accept your donation if you are an Indian citizen, resident or non-resident, or an NGO / firm / company registered in India.

If you are a resident Indian citizen or an NGO / firm / company registered in India, we will need to collect your name, email address, phone number, permanent account number (PAN), and address linked to the PAN as per the requirements of Government of India and our payment gateway Razorpay.

If you are a non-resident Indian citizen holding an Indian passport, in addition to the personal data mentioned above, we will also request a copy of the main page of your passport. This is by way of additional proof of citizenship of the donor as advised by the Government of India.

As a registered charitable trust without registration under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, Varta Trust is not permitted to receive donations from foreign donors. This includes both organizations registered abroad and individuals who are foreign passport holders (including Persons of Indian Origin or Overseas Citizen of India cardholders).

The online donation method using the form on this page is the easiest option to donate to Varta Trust. Payments will be handled by Razorpay and you will be able to use a variety of payment methods.

Note: Apart from online donations, we also accept donations in cash (up to Rs.2,000) or through account payee cheques and demand drafts drawn in the name of Varta Trust. All personal data requirements and other particulars mentioned on this page will apply equally to these modes of donation as well.

You have the option of making a one-off donation of any value. Alternatively, you could consider making periodic or recurring donations – monthly, quarterly or six-monthly – these facilitate a regular cash flow and better financial management. Monthly donations could be at least Rs.500-1,000 in value, while quarterly or six-monthly ones could be of higher amounts. However, the feature for automatic recurring donations is yet to be activated. We hope to have it ready in some time. Till then, if you want to make recurring donations, you will need to make a donation every month, quarter or six months manually.

When we process your donation, we will issue you an interim or provisional receipt. An official donation receipt (certificate of donation), issued by the Income Tax Department, Government of India will be sent to you after we have filed the donation returns with the government. Please note, the donation returns for each financial year are filed between April 1 and May 31 of the subsequent financial year. The official donation receipts are normally sent out by early June.