To provide your organization with text-to-give and text-to-pledge capabilities, we use Twilio, a tool built into your Donor Management platform, to generate and manage a “10DLC,” also known as a “10-digit long code phone number,” for each nonprofit’s account.

These phone numbers are considered “A2P” numbers, or “application-to-person" numbers, and are commonly used for organizations to send messages to their contacts through a virtual phone service (like Twilio).

As of July 5th, 2023, new guidelines require that any A2P 10DLC numbers be “registered” to continue to send messages to your contacts.

As of August 31st, 2023, any unregistered A2P 10DLC numbers will have lost the ability to send text messages to U.S. phone numbers.

This change is designed to comply with new, more rigorous sender transparency compliance standards required by cellular providers (like AT&T. T-Mobile, Verizon, etc.) with the aim of minimizing fraudulent and spam messages. It should also minimize the number of messages you send that are rejected by those carriers.

To comply with these new guidelines, your text messaging number that you use with Donor Management must be registered in order to continue sending messages.. If your organization's phone number (via Twilio) was not registered by that deadline, it will impact your ability to send text messages to your contacts.

Don’t worry – you will have the option of choosing a toll-free number for no cost, or registering your existing number for a registration fee. All phone numbers that did not register by August 31st, 2023, were deactivated at the end of September.

Once a number has been registered and approved, any existing limitations will be removed and you will be able to use messaging services without disruption.

You can to register a phone number for your organization through our new self-registration portal, found within Donor Management.

You can access this self-registration portal under the “Settings” tab, then selecting “Your Organization,” and locating the section labeled “Text Messaging Integration.”

In this section, there will be an option to “Register Your Number.”

Using this tool, you will be able to select your messaging preference and confirm your organization details prior to registering.

While we would highly recommend registering a toll-free number, there are two ways that you can ensure that your phone number is registered properly and you will be able to send messages. Please note that you cannot change your number later, so make the best decision for the long-term.

If you opt to register a toll-free number, you will receive a number (example: 1-800, 1-888, etc.) that will allow you to continue to use our text messaging tools at no additional cost to your organization.

There are no registration fees with this option, and in most cases, your new phone number will be verified and available for use about one business day after registering. Please note that if you change to a toll-free number, your previous text-to-give number will no longer work so we’d recommend reaching out to your contacts regarding the updated number.

If you opt to register a new or existing number with a local area code, there will be a one-time fee of $200, billed by Bonterra. This covers the registration fees from "The Campaign Registry" third party reviewer, monthly costs associated with the number, and the "per message" fee.

We do want to caution that this option can take several weeks for Twilio to verify and make the number available for use, so we recommend opting for a toll-free number if you are working within time constraints.

If you haven’t registered for texting capabilities, we strongly recommend doing so as soon as possible.

Please note that there may be up to a four-week waiting period to register and approve a local number. The toll-free number registration process typically only takes a day.

If you missed that August 31st deadline, you can still self-register your number through the same process as you would have previously.

Registering a toll-free number typically takes one day for Twilio to verify; however, please note that there may be up to a four-week waiting period to verify and register a local number following that August 31st deadline.

Please note that while your number is being verified, your organization will not be able to send or receive any text messaging through the platform until the number has been registered.

If you choose to change to a toll-free phone number rather than registering an existing local number, and you’ve previously used the Text-to-Give feature, we’d strongly recommend notifying your contacts once it has been registered. Once the phone number is changed, any messages sent to the previous number will not be received by your organization.

We recommend sending an Email Blast so that donors know how they can continue using the Text-to-Give feature. For example, the subject for the email could be: “New number to donate via text!” and the body of that email could include the new number - along with a warning that the previous number can no longer be used for donations.

We recommend checking out this related Twilio article for more information on A2P 10DLC numbers.

Twilio also has provided a comprehensive FAQ on these new requirements, which can be found here.

Again, the registration process is handled directly within your Donor Management platform, so please do NOT contact Twilio directly with any questions with regards to this process. If you have questions, please reach out to our Support Team directly for further guidance.