Text to Give for Churches

Make Giving Simpler: Text to Give for Churches and Parishes

The offering plate reaches the end of the row, or the collection basket comes down the pew, and the person holding it meant to give this week. Their wallet is at home. Their phone is in their pocket.

Three in four Christians say churches could benefit from online giving tools, and text giving brings that kind of tool into the pew. The person texts a short keyword and an amount, completes the gift on their phone, and takes part in the offering with everyone else.

With text to give, church or parish staff don’t take on a new giving system. On many platforms it runs on the online giving already in place, so a text gift goes to the same funds, giver records, and year-end statements as any other gift. The work is in the setup and in showing people how to use it.

Every gift sent by text should be as easy to find in your records as a check dropped in the basket.

How Does Text to Give Work?

Text giving, sometimes called SMS giving, lets someone give by texting a church’s keyword and an amount to a text giving number.

Many giving platforms use one shared text giving number, often a short code, and each church’s unique keyword routes the gift to the right place.

The giver’s path is short:

1. They text the church’s keyword and an amount to the text giving number.
2. The first time, a reply sends a secure link to a giving page that shows the church’s name.
3. They enter payment details (credit card, debit card, or bank account) and can save them. This first setup usually takes a couple of minutes.
4. After that, the saved payment method makes each mobile donation faster, and each gift is followed by a confirmation and a receipt.

No mobile app download is needed, since the first gift is completed on a mobile web page. Unlike some older “text to donate” campaigns, gifts aren’t added to the phone bill.

How to Set Up Text to Give for Church and Parish Giving

On many platforms, text giving is included with online giving and uses the same giving pages, funds, and records. Whether you use a standalone text to give app or text giving built into your giving platform, the setup decisions are similar.

Setting up text to give for small churches often falls to one administrator or a part-time bookkeeper, and most of the work happens once.

1. Set up online giving and your merchant account. Text gifts run through your online giving setup, so they need a merchant account to process card payments and ACH (Automated Clearing House) bank transfers.
2. Reserve a keyword people will remember. Keep it short, easy to spell on a phone, and recognizable, such as your church’s name or an abbreviation. On some platforms, a reserved text giving keyword is permanent, so agree on it with staff first.
3. Choose the funds text givers can pick. Text gifts open a default giving page, so choose which funds appear on your default text giving form and list only your most-used ones. That might be the general fund and missions, or the weekly offertory and current second collections.
4. Make the giving page recognizable. Add your logo and colors so people know they’re giving to the right place, and write a short thank-you message they’ll see after each gift.
5. Add the required texting terms. Providers often require a short notice wherever you promote text giving, covering message and data rates, and how to text HELP or STOP, plus links to their terms and privacy policy. Copy it exactly.
6. Confirm text gifts reach your contribution records. A text gift should post to each person’s donor history the same way an online gift does, with no manual re-entry. If your giving platform is separate from your church management software (ChMS), confirm how the two connect. Check how first-time text givers are matched to existing records, too, so a new phone number doesn’t create a second profile.
7. Check what your year-end statements need to show. Donors need a bank record or written communication from the church for every monetary gift, including card and electronic transfer gifts. For any single gift of $250 or more, they need a written acknowledgment that states whether the church provided any goods or services in return, and one annual summary can cover several of those gifts. Separate gifts under $250 aren’t combined to reach it, even when a year’s total passes $250. A CPA can confirm what your statements should include.
8. Test before you announce. Have staff make a small first-time gift and a repeat gift, then refund one. Check the confirmation text, receipt, fund, and record, and confirm the refund reverses cleanly and whether the processing fee comes back. Then match the test gifts to the bank deposit and note how fees are recorded.

Text-to-Give Best Practices That Help People Start Giving

Scripture leaves the decision to give to each person, “for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7). A church can’t make that decision for anyone, but it can keep a confusing process from standing between someone and a gift they’ve already chosen to make. Once setup is done, that depends on how people learn to use it.

• Show the exact text format everywhere giving is mentioned. Put the keyword, an example amount, and the text giving number on a pre-service slide that stays up every week, a permanent spot in the bulletin, your website’s Give page, and cards in the pews.
• Walk through it once during the offering or offertory. In a parish, that might be the offertory or the announcements before or after Mass.
• Equip ushers, greeters, and office staff to answer questions. Expect questions about the phone bill, saved payment details, and choosing a fund. Impact Church in Jacksonville paired its giving message from the pulpit with staffed spots in the lobby where people could ask questions and get help setting up recurring gifts.
• Give special appeals their own keyword. Where your platform allows it, use a separate giving page and keyword for a specific giving campaign, a missions offering, or a second collection.
• Offer it alongside other giving methods, never in place of them. Only 1% of Protestant churches say they don’t offer an in-person offering at worship. Envelopes, online giving, and a mobile app still serve people who prefer them. Members without a smartphone need those options most, since the first text gift opens a web page.

ACST Giving Tools That Keep Text Gifts Connected

Each ACST giving solution supports online, mobile app, and text giving, with options like recurring gifts and saved payment methods:

• Realm eGiving is for churches that manage people and giving in Realm. Text gifts appear in each person’s giving history alongside online and offline gifts.
• MP eGiving is for larger churches on MinistryPlatform. Text-to-Give is one of its giving channels, every payment syncs to MinistryPlatform automatically, and batch totals match across systems for closing the books.
• PDS Abundant is for Catholic parishes and dioceses. Parishioners and visitors text a keyword and can save their payment method, and parishes can set up giving for appeals such as the Bishop’s appeal.

ACS Technologies is PCI (Payment Card Industry) Level 1 compliant. For help beyond the software, ACST’s training, support, and bookkeeping services work alongside your team.

Make Text Giving Easy for Every Giver

When a text gift sits next to last week’s envelope in someone’s giving history and no one had to retype it, the setup is doing its job. Behind each of those gifts is a person who has already decided to give, whether a longtime member, a parishioner at a weekend Mass, or a first-time guest. If your church already offers text giving, text your keyword this week the way a guest would and fix whatever slows you down. If you’re still weighing it, see how ACST’s giving tools handle text gifts from keyword to record.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Givers Set Up Recurring Gifts by Text?

Often, yes. The giving page that opens from the text can offer the same frequency options as your online giving page, depending on your platform’s settings. Recurring donations let someone decide once instead of every week.

Can First-Time Guests Give by Text?

Yes. Text giving is often the easiest option for guests, who may not know your website or have your app. They text the same keyword, complete the one-time setup on a smartphone, and get a receipt confirming the gift.

Are There Any Fees Associated With Text to Give for Churches?

Usually, yes. Givers may pay their carrier’s standard message and data rates. Churches pay processing costs on credit card and bank-transfer gifts. Many platforms let givers optionally help cover those costs, and in a decade-long churchgoer giving study, 69% say they’re willing to pay a 2% to 4% processing fee. Review your provider’s fee schedule before launch.