How To Set Up Text to Give in Church

via text messaging: Pretty exceptional when you consider that it was raised in $10 increments.

In its earliest stages, cell providers directly facilitated text giving, so donations didn’t wind up in a charity’s account until after donors paid their phone bills. This created a significant delay while charities waited to receive donations and find out how much had truly been given. This, coupled with the limited donation dollar amounts, made text giving less than ideal.

However, these problems were offset by some big wins:

• A vast majority of Americans had cell phones (roughly 80 percent)
• It was easy and quick: donors received a response minutes, if not seconds, after texting their donation
• It was perfect for impulse giving: Potential donors could give immediately and wouldn’t forget or change their mind
• It made sense to technology-reliant Millennials
• The cost to the charity for the transaction fees was negligible

Compared to the alternatives people had at the time, text-to-give was incredibly convenient. The public also closely followed these disasters in the news, so there was already a lot of awareness surrounding relief efforts. But that’s not all that these charities had going for them.

The Red Cross’ wildly successful text giving campaign heavily relied on influencers. They partnered with celebrities, including former First Lady Barbara Bush, and the NFL promoted the text-to-give fundraiser during the playoffs. At the campaign’s peak, a Red Cross spokesperson says donations were “coming in at the rate of $500,000 an hour.”

Not every charity can partner with massive brands or well-known influencers, but the initial success of charities like the Red Cross led to the widespread adoption of text-to-give. Now, modern text-to-give platforms have taken the reins from cell providers, so they can process donations faster and at a lower cost.

Meanwhile, churches were slow to embrace this new text donation method.

Text-to-Give and the Church

Passing the plate has a familiar and tangible quality that gives it the feeling of a sacrament, even though the Bible doesn’t say we have to tithe that way. This could be part of the reason why even as late as 2015, only 42 percent of churches offered any type of online giving.

When text-to-give was first introduced as a digital giving solution, there was some question about whether churches would be able to make the jump to digital giving from the traditional webforms they were used to. The criticism of text giving was that it would be perceived to be impersonal. Any sense of the sacredness of giving would be lost.

What detractors hadn’t considered was how comfortable people were becoming with texting as a method of communication. It wasn’t too long before texting replaced phone calls as the preferred method to interact with friends, relatives, and significant others. By the time that text-to-give campaigns showed up, people were already thinking of texting as an intimate and personal method of communicating. The transition toward churches using text giving seemed completely natural.

Now, text-to-give is one of the main potential digital-giving solutions churches consider. I bet you never thought you’d be encouraging your congregants to text in church! If you’re wondering if text giving is the right choice for your church, here are some considerations:

Text-to-Give May Not Be the Best Option Anymore

The same arguments churches make for text giving could be made for responsive web forms or a mobile app. The reality is that while text-to-give was a groundbreaking solution that bridged the gap between mobile devices and online giving, churches have additional options today.

How a Mobile Giving App Provides More Than Text-to Give for Churches

As great as text giving might be, there are other tools that provide the best digital giving solution. Case in point the mobile giving app. When your giving is bundled with a church’s app, it becomes part of the church’s entire engagement strategy.

Mobile giving includes all of the perks of text giving without the liabilities. You’re free from the dependence on cash and checks, and you don’t have to worry so much about the security issues associated with currency. You also have a tool that’s even more convenient. You can do it anytime and anywhere, but you don’t have to remember numbers and codes.

Here are some advantages to using a mobile app:

1. People are used to making transactions with mobile apps

People do much of their shopping with branded apps. They even use apps to order their coffee. (Nearly one-third of Starbucks’ revenue comes from their mobile app.) When someone makes a purchase through the eBay or Amazon app, they know that they’re dealing with a reputable company.

People also use apps for banking, managing their investments, and even paying their friends.
You don’t have to get your congregation used to the idea of using an app to make a financial gift. Sure, text-to-give is something people have probably heard of, but sending money through an app is something people already do all the time.

Church apps let you provide a branded experience that gives people the confidence that they’re interacting with your church. The app looks and feels like your church, and they don’t have to remember a number every time they want to give.

Mobile apps have far more versatility, and our apps are designed to optimize the giving experience. Text giving is still pretty easy, but mobile giving is even easier. It’s getting to the point where you’ll have to retrain people to use text-to-give because they aren’t used to it anymore. Next, you’ll be telling them how to look up your number in the phone book! (Not to be confused with your text-to-give number, of course.)

2. Mobile apps are more secure

Remember how easy it could be for a child to accidentally send a donation text from your phone? Accidentally making a mobile payment isn’t as likely. Your child would have to open the app, navigate to the giving portion of the app, and then actually give. It’s a simple process, but it’s not easy to do unintentionally.

You can also make that scenario next to impossible by requiring a secure login, such as a fingerprint.

3. Mobile giving encourages greater generosity

Churches we have worked with that made the jump from text to mobile giving have also experienced a jump in their giving. A lot of churches know they need a digital option for giving, and they think they’re making a huge step forward with text giving.

4. Church apps can do more than giving

Imagine if the number people used for text-to-give was the same number people used to communicate with your church for everything else. It’d be a number they regularly interacted with and associated with your church, and the next time they wanted to give, interacting with that number would be a familiar experience.

That’s what mobile giving can be like with a church app. It’s a clean, simple giving experience, but it’s also a lot more than that. It’s where people go to read your blog, watch to your sermons, listen to your podcast, register for events, and find information about your church.

If you’re serious about having an online presence—not just accommodating your mobile members—a church app is definitely a better long-term giving solution.

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Thousands of Churches Use Mobile Giving Apps

More than 7,000 churches choose Pushpay to provide their congregation with the best online giving experience.

Real Life Church had about 750 members when they started using Pushpay. Like many churches, Real Life had piecemealed together their online giving experience—they had online giving forms, kiosks, and text-to-give.

“We had, like, twelve different ways to give, and it was kind of cumbersome,” says Pastor Steve Murray. Switching to Pushpay streamlined their mobile giving experience.