Text-to-Give Keywords for SMS Donations

A text-to-give keyword is a word you own, like GIVE or RAMADAN, pointed at one of your giving pages. A donor texts the word, and the reply carries a link that opens that page ready to give.

When you’d use this

An announcement from the front of the room: say a word, and everyone in the hall can give from the seat they are in.
A printed flyer, banner or bulletin insert where a QR code is awkward but a word is easy to read aloud.
A seasonal appeal that should land on its own page, so you can see what the appeal raised separately from general giving.
An overflow room or a parking lot where there is no kiosk and no volunteer with a card reader.

Claiming a keyword

In the sidebar, open Muin for Non-Profits > Fundraising > Text-to-Give.
Click New Keyword.
Fill in the form:
- Keyword: 2 to 20 characters, letters A to Z and digits 0 to 9 only. It is stored in upper case, so give, Give and GIVE are the same keyword. Spaces and punctuation are not accepted, because they are not reliably deliverable over SMS.
- Giving page: the page a donor lands on. The list shows your own giving pages.
- Status: Active or Inactive.
- Description: optional, up to 200 characters, for your own team.
Click Create.

There is no availability check before you submit. If the word is already taken in your organization, saving fails and the form shows keyword ‘<WORD>’ is already in use for this organization. Pick another word and save again.

The page needs the manage level of the nonprofits.campaigns permission. A colleague with view-only access does not see Text-to-Give in the sidebar at all.

What the donor gets back

The reply carries two links: the giving page itself, and the same page with monthly giving pre-selected. The donor taps one and completes the gift on the page, with whatever payment methods that page already offers.

The giving page has to be active for the keyword to work. A keyword pointed at a draft, paused or deleted page replies with This keyword is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. rather than a broken link.

An unrecognized word replies with Keyword not recognized. Text a valid keyword to donate.

Inbound texting is a platform-level setting. Keyword authoring is available to every organization on the nonprofits module, but the inbound SMS handler that answers a donor’s text is enabled centrally, not per organization, and it is off by default while keyword routing across organizations is finished. Author your keywords whenever you like; ask support to confirm inbound texting is live for you before you print a word on a banner or read it out from the front.

Pausing, retiring and re-using

What you want	What to do
Stop it answering for now, keep the record	Edit the keyword and set Status to Inactive. The inbound handler ignores it.
Retire it for good	Click Delete. Donors who text it stop getting a link.
Re-use a word you retired	Create it again. Deleting frees the word, so the same word can be claimed a second time.
Point it somewhere else	Edit it and choose a different Giving page. The word stays the same, so printed material stays correct.

Deleting is a soft delete: the row leaves your list and the word becomes available again, which is why the confirmation says the action can be undone by recreating the keyword.

Choosing words that survive contact with a phone keypad

Short wins. Two to six characters is easier to read from the back of a hall than a whole phrase.
Avoid words a carrier intercepts. STOP, START, HELP, REVOKE and OPTOUT are handled as consent commands before any keyword is looked up, so a keyword with one of those words never fires. Nothing stops you creating one, so avoid them deliberately.
No spaces, no apostrophes, no hyphens. The form rejects them, and so would half the phones in the room.
One keyword per appeal, not per event. A keyword you have to retire every few weeks is a keyword somebody will print after it stops working.

What it affects

Giving pages: the keyword is a second door onto a page you already have. Nothing about the page changes, and gifts from a text arrive as gifts on that page.
Campaign and fund attribution: the page’s own fund and program routing decides where the money lands. The keyword has no routing of its own.
Giving reports: because each keyword points at a specific page, pointing a seasonal keyword at a seasonal page is what separates that appeal in your reports.
SMS consent: replies carry the compliance footer automatically; you do not add it.

When it goes wrong

What you see	What it means	What to do
Keyword must be 2–20 characters, A–Z and 0–9 only.	The word has a space, a hyphen, punctuation, or is too short or too long.	Remove the extra characters. Case does not matter.
keyword ‘<WORD>’ is already in use for this organization	Another keyword in your organization already holds that word, including one that is Inactive.	Search the list for the word and edit the existing keyword instead of creating a second one.
Select a giving page for the keyword.	The form was submitted with no page chosen.	Pick a page. Every keyword needs one.
A donor texts the word and gets This keyword is temporarily unavailable.	The giving page is not active, or it was deleted.	Open the keyword, point it at an active page, and save.
A donor texts the word and gets nothing at all	Inbound texting is not enabled for your organization yet, or the keyword is Inactive.	Check the status badge first, then contact support about inbound texting.
Failed to load keywords. Please try again.	The list could not be fetched.	Reload the page. If it keeps failing, contact support.

Next step

Point the keyword at a page that is ready to receive the gift: see Giving Pages for setting the page up, and Kiosk Campaigns for the in-person version of the same ask.