SMS giving for smartphones

A common problem with many SMS donation systems is that they only support one-off, micro-donations, like £1, £2, £5, £10 etc (or in your local currency). A further issue is that many mobile service providers and tariffs don't support the use of shortcodes (i.e. send your donation to 12345).

With ChurchSuite Donate via SMS, not only can givers make one-off donations of any amount, but they can also make weekly and monthly recurring donations - all from their smartphones! And what's more, no SMS integration is required for you to receive donations via SMS!

There's no SMS cost involved in using the Donate via SMS functionality - ChurchSuite covers the cost of the 'SMS auto-response back to the giver. The giver pays the cost of sending the original SMS to give via Donate, although most mobile tariffs include free SMS messaging. While there's no cost involved in using the 'Donate via SMS' service, online donation transaction processing fees do apply to the card or direct debit payment method used to pay the donation - see our support article on Accepting online donations using Donate for full details of those transaction fees, which are deducted from each donation so that you receive the 'net of transaction fee' amount.

How does this work?

For a giver to make a recurring or one-off donation from their smartphone, all they need to do is to send a simple text message - explained below - and in return, they'll receive an SMS auto-response from ChurchSuite containing a clickable link to your ChurchSuite Donate page...

Clicking the link opens your ChurchSuite Donate page with the donation details pre-populated into the form.

The giver reviews the details of their donation (amount, fund, frequency, method), selects whether to Gift Aid their donation (UK customers only), whether to optionally increase their donation to cover the online donation transaction fees and enters their email address.

If they've not previously given through Donate on their device they'll be prompted to enter a security code sent to their specified email address. They'll enter some basic contact details (i.e. if they are a new giver, or if an existing giver with missing details) before finally choosing their payment method - card, ApplePay, Google Pay, or bank details (depending on the payment gateways you've integrated and the supported payment methods available for your country/region).

Finally, a success page confirms everything has been completed - it's a simple and secure process and easy for your prospective givers to participate! The giver even receives a donation confirmation email, through which they can further manage their giving.

You can view the Donate via SMS details for your ChurchSuite account in the Givers section of the Giving module.

The giver sends an SMS to 07380 307 800 containing your organisation's keyword, followed by the word give, followed by the amount they wish to give one-off and adding an m or w at the end if they want their donation to recur monthly or weekly.

Here are some examples of supported SMS donation messages (where 'KINGSHOPE' is an example keyword)...

• KINGSHOPE give £500 pre-fills the Donate form for a one-off £500 donation.
• KINGSHOPE give £100m pre-fills the Donate form for a £100/month recurring donation.
• Other supported recurring monthly formats are KINGSHOPE give £100/m, KINGSHOPE give £100mo, KINGSHOPE give £100/mo, KINGSHOPE give £100month, KINGSHOPE give £100/month, KINGSHOPE give £100monthly.
• KINGSHOPE give £10w pre-fills the Donate form for a £10/week donation.
• Other supported recurring weekly formats are KINGSHOPE give £10/w, KINGSHOPE give £10week, KINGSHOPE give £10/week, KINGSHOPE give £10weekly, KINGSHOPE give £10/weekly.
• KINGSHOPE give £250 £125m pre-fills the Donate form for a one-off £250 donation and a £125/month recurring donation.
• The currency symbol is always optional. Uppercase, lowercase and mixed-case characters are recognised. There must be a space between the keyword and the word 'give' and between 'give' and the amount.
• KINGSHOPE give will also work, opening the Donate form with no donation amounts pre-populated.