Planning Center's texting partner requires that churches receive consent before sending texts. To prevent a high number of unsubscribes, which puts your account at risk of being marked as spam, it is recommended to only text people who have given consent. Create an opt-in form to allow people to confirm their consent to receive text messages.
Tip
If a person wants to receive texts again after unsubscribing, they can text “Start” to your church's toll-free number. Administrators can not resubscribe someone.
To track who has consented to receive texts, create a custom field that will show up on their profile.
On the People page, select the gear and choose Customize fields.
Create a new tab or choose an existing tab and select New Field within the tab. Use the Yes/No type to create an option to store text opt-in information on the person's profile.
Add this custom field to a form. You can create a specific form to gather consent or add these fields to any appropriate form.
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Include a field to collect phone numbers to comply with texting partner requirements.
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For legal purposes, add a description to your consent to text question that includes “Message and data rates may apply” as well as the type and frequency of the texts that will be sent.
Tip
Instead of adding your own description, copy and paste this description into your form, making sure to fill in your church's name and email: You are consenting to receive reminders and announcements via text message from <your church's name>. Text message frequency varies and message and data rates may apply. Reach out to <your church's email> with questions. Reply STOP to unsubscribe from messages.
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Set the fields to Required so a person must answer them to submit the form.
On the public side of your form, submitters will see the full description before opting in or out.
If people log in to Church Center before submitting the form, their response in the consent-to-text field is automatically added to their profile upon submission. If they don't log in first, they must verify their form submission before the field will update.
To send texts to only those who have given consent, add a condition to your lists that looks for people who answered Yes in this custom field.