Before you start
A few things need to be in place before automated texts will send: Your organization must have a phone number to send from. SMS goes out from a phone number owned by your organization. If your account doesn’t have a number provisioned yet, your texts will not send. You can set up your phone numbers under Settings > Phone Numbers in your dashboard. Donors must be opted in to receive texts. WeGive only sends an automated text to donors who have SMS notifications enabled and who are not marked “do not SMS.” Donors who reply STOP (or otherwise opt out) are automatically flagged and will stop receiving texts going forward. Keep this in mind when you look at why a given donor didn’t receive a message. WeGive recommends using a different phone number for marketing texts than verification codes, so your donors don’t opt out of verification codes. You need a trigger to attach the message to. A trigger is the event that causes the message to send (for example, a donation being made or an email engagement event). The automated text is created in the context of a trigger.Step 1: Open the trigger
Navigate to Triggers in Dashboard v2 and open the trigger you want to send a text for. The trigger represents the event that will set the message off.Step 2: Create a new message on the trigger
From the trigger’s detail page, choose Create Message. This opens the message editor with the message already categorized as triggered and linked to the trigger you came from, so you don’t have to reselect it.Step 3: Choose Text as the delivery method
In the message editor, set the delivery method to Text (rather than Email). Choosing Text tells WeGive to send the message as an SMS from your organization’s phone number. (If you choose Email instead, you’ll be asked to pick a send-from email address — that path is for email automations, not texts.)Step 4: Write your message content
Enter the text your donors will receive. A few things to keep in mind for SMS:- Keep it short. Texts are best kept concise, and longer messages may be split or rejected by carriers. Write only what the donor needs.
- Personalization variables are supported. You can insert merge variables (such as the donor’s first name) so each text is personalized. Set fallback values where it makes sense, so the message still reads well if a donor is missing that piece of information.
- Formatting is stripped. SMS is plain text, so any rich formatting is converted to plain text before sending.
Step 5: Set the audience filters (optional)
By default the message can go to everyone the trigger fires for. If you only want a subset of donors to receive it, add audience filters to narrow the recipients — for example, only donors in a particular segment or with certain attributes. You can also add trigger filters to control which specific events qualify (for example, only donations above a certain amount). Some trigger types require a filter to be set before the message can be saved; if that applies, the editor will prompt you.Step 6: Set the timing
Choose when the text should go out relative to the trigger:- Immediately — send as soon as the trigger fires.
- Delayed — wait a set amount of time after the trigger before sending (useful for follow-ups, reminders, or thank-yous that shouldn’t land instantly).