Allow your attendees to express generosity in a whole new way with Text Giving.
With Breeze's Text Giving, donors can give via credit card, debit card, or bank account (ACH), and can set up recurring giving, all by texting an amount to your church's Text Giving number! Your church can even customize your Text Giving and allow your donors to give to specific funds with the use of keywords.
Activate Text Giving
- Navigate to "Giving" > "Online Giving."1
- Look for the Text Giving box on the right side in the middle of the page, and click "Activate."
- Select the number you would like to use to receive text gifts and click "Confirm" to enable text giving.2
1 If you haven't already, enabled online giving. Online giving is a prerequisite for text giving.
2 We'll display a list of numbers from what we assume is your own area code. You can always change the area code by clicking the link in the lower left of that window to adjust your area code.
We are unable to add numbers to the list of available text giving numbers, as this is outside of our integration.
2 We'll display a list of numbers from what we assume is your own area code. You can always change the area code by clicking the link in the lower left of that window to adjust your area code.
We are unable to add numbers to the list of available text giving numbers, as this is outside of our integration.
Text Giving Settings
As an organization, you can specify the default fund for text gifts and set up additional keywords for giving to specific funds. To adjust these settings:
- Navigate to "Giving" > "Online Giving."
- Look for the Text Giving box on the right side in the middle of the page and click "Settings".1
- To set the default fund change the "Text Donations Go To" drop-down to the fund you would like text giving without a keyword included to be designated to.
- Click "Add Option To Give to a Specific Fund" to set up additional funds eligible to be donated to via text message.
- In the "Keyword" box, enter the keyword you would like givers to use, and select the fund from the drop-down that you would like this keyword to go to.
- For example, you could set up a keyword of "building" and if someone texted "$50 Building" then $50 would be donated to the building fund.
- There should only be one "keyword" per fund (capitalization does not matter - keywords are not case-sensitive). If you set up multiple keywords for one fund the giver may receive an error code stating that fund does not exist.
- Make your changes and click "Save."
1 This assumes you have already activated text giving.
Note: Text givers will get an email confirmation receipt, while one time givers also receive a text confirmation of their donation, recurring givers will not receive a text confirmation, only an email.
Note: Text givers will get an email confirmation receipt, while one time givers also receive a text confirmation of their donation, recurring givers will not receive a text confirmation, only an email.
Donate By Text
To donate by text, a donor simply:
- Text the amount they'd like to give to your text-to-give number (e.g. $50). Remember to include a space between your dollar amount and your keyword. If a user submits $50Missions, they will receive a "Sorry, not sure what you meant" error message. The proper format must be $50 Missions in order for the command to be received properly.
- If a person has donated by text before, they'll receive a text in response confirming that their gift has been received successfully and they're done.
- If it's the first time a person is donating by text, they'll be sent a message that says, "It looks like you are a new giver; to begin: (link provided). It will be a link to the church's online giving page. Clicking on the link they will be asked to supply their payment method (credit card, debit card, or bank account). This payment source will then be linked with their phone number so that, in the future, all they will need to do is text in the amount. (They will not need to re-enter their payment information.)
- If the donor didn't specify a fund by keyword, donations will automatically go to the default fund in Breeze. Example giving by keyword: $50 missions Note: Donors can only give to one fund at a time.
The donor will receive a confirmation email, sent to the email entered with their payment details, that their online gift was processed.
Text Giving Commands
The following is a list of example commands that the text giving system accepts:
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| $50 | Donates $50 to your church. Users can type any amount; the dollar sign is optional (e.g. $50 and 50 both work). |
| give $50 | Same as above. |
| give | Your text giving number will respond asking "how much you'd like to give". Telling people to text 'give' to your number can be a more succinct way to communicate text giving. |
| $50 missions | Donates $50 to the missions fund. You can customize fund keywords and what fund they point towards. Note: Donors can only give to one fund at a time. |
| $50 weekly | Sets up a recurring gift of $50 each week. Frequency options are 'weekly', 'biweekly', 'monthly', and 'yearly'. |
| $50 missions weekly | Sets up a recurring gift of $50 each week to the missions fund. Frequency options are 'weekly', 'biweekly', 'monthly', and 'yearly'. |
| refund | Refunds the previously given contribution. 1 |
| update | Allows a donor to update their payment method or recurring gift.2 Your text giving number will respond with a link where users can make these changes. |
| unlink | Unlinks a user's phone from the text-to-give system. If a donor wants to set-up two recurring gifts from two different methods, using "unlink" will allow the donor to set-up a secondary recurring gift from an additional method.4 |
| commands | Provides the user with a list of the available generic text commands (will not include the unique specific keywords you have set up for your church) |
1 Donors can only refund their own gift with this command within 24 hours of giving the gift. If the previously given contribution started a recurring gift, the recurrence will also be canceled.
2. If a person needs to update their name associated with the payment method (which will be associated to the Contribution receipts emailed) they will use the "Update" command and be sure to enter the accurate name with the payment method update.
4. If a donor sets up a second (or subsequent) recurring gift from a different method, the only way to modify any previous recurring gifts would be through the web portal (Give Now).
Currently, there is no way to disable keywords that you create, they must be deleted if you don't want them to be active.