Learn how to apply to use Neon CRM's Text-to-Communicate feature. This help guide will cover how to submit your application for a toll-free number to use as part of the Text-to-Communicate functionality releasing June 29, 2024.

Recommended Reading Before You Start

• Text-to-Communicate with Neon CRM
• 2-Step Verification
• Data Privacy and Consent
• S.H.A.F.T and Prohibited SMS/MMS Content in the US and Canada 

Content

• Accessing the Text-to-Communicate Application Process
• Getting Started
• Required Settings
• 2-Step Verification
• Consent Opt-in
• Toll-Free Verification Requirements
• Select a Toll-Free Number
• Verification
• You're Verified! Now What?
• FAQ

Accessing the Text-to-Communicate Application Process

There are two primary ways to access the Text-to-Communicate Application process:

1. Through the Neon CRM Onboarding process by selecting the "Set up Texting" option.
2. By selecting "Texting" from your navigation bar. You may need to look in the "View More" option in your navigation to find it!

If you don't see this in the product it could because your organization is outside of the USA or Canada or because your organization engages in Federally Prohibited Content or may have the appearance of engaging in activities that are restricted based on S.H.A.F.T guidelines. 

Getting Started

Before the application process can begin, your organization must agree to the pricing and terms for Text-to-Communicate (or Texting), for Neon One. In the case of new organizations, this may have been completed during the initial sales process. For current Neon CRM clients, this can be done in product without the need to engage a sales team member. 

In the product, if you see the "I agree to the pricing and terms" checkbox on the "Get Started with Text Messaging" page, you'll know that agreeing to pricing and terms is required before you begin. In order to proceed, a user with financial authority for your organization will need to select the "I agree to the pricing and terms for the user of text messaging in Neon CRM." checkbox before selecting continue. A user with financial authority will have the ""Financial Authority" permission enabled. By default, your system administrators have this permission; however, administrators can update who should have this permission in the User Management section of Neon CRM.

Once the agreement for pricing and terms have been completed, the application process can begin!

For a reminder about those terms, feel free to review those here!

Required Settings

Before inputting the required data for the Toll-Free Verification requirements, users will have to enable a few required settings to use the Text-to-Communicate functionality. 

2-Step Verification

First, Clients will have to enable 2-Step Verification for their organization. This is required for a few reasons:

1. 2-Step Verification reduces the risk of unintended access to your Neon CRM system and account. This means that by enabling 2-Step Verification you're helping to protect your data and your constituents data from unwanted eyes! The few extra moments to receive a text or use a mobile app to get a unique code can really make an impact. Not only does it help to keep your data and your constituents data safer, it helps to protect other Neon One clients as well. 
2. By nature of the enhanced regulations and laws around texting and telecommunications, additional protection to prevent people with malicious intent from accessing your system to send spam text messages is required. The risk beyond a person with malicious intent gaining access to your data and your constituents data is that they could send messages that include phishing attempts, viruses, or zero-click attacks that could harm your constituents, your reputation, and the reputation of nonprofits as a whole. This also includes the potential impacts to Neon One being able to continue to provide the Text-to-Communicate service. 

Consent Opt-in

Another Required Setting is to enable Consent Opt-in for SMS/MMS leveraging the Data Privacy and Consent capabilities of Neon CRM. In the telecommunication industry, it is required to obtain affirmative consent before sending text communications. In fact, Neon CRM will prevent organizations from sending text messages to those who have not affirmatively consented to receive text messages from the organization. To enable this setting, feel free to update our standard language if you desire for obtaining consent available on all your organization's forms!

Toll-Free Verification Requirements

Now we're ready to start the Verification Requirements to obtain a toll-free number! The Toll-Free Verification process is a mandatory industry-wide process that whitelists your text messaging traffic with the toll-free messaging aggregators. It is required to be approved before you can begin sending messages. 

To complete the Toll-Free Verification process, you will need to provide the following for your organization: 

• Legal Name of your Organization - You can get this information from your 990 or other legal documents for your organization.
• Organization Website URL - This should be your organizations main website.
• Address Details - This should be a physical address.
• Contact Information  - This should be a person that will be the point of contact for the phone number at the organization at the point in time of completing the application. Note: Don't worry if something changes with this contact person in the future. This information is used for one-time verification of your toll-free number and does not need to be kept up to date with the toll-free verification agency after that point.
• Estimated Monthly Message Volume - This is your estimated number of messages sent per month after 6 months of using text messaging (your usage after the initial ramp-up period). Said another way, what do you think your general message volume will look like on an ongoing basis. 
• SMS/MMS Monthly Budget - This is the dollar amount that your organization wants to set as a monthly budget for sending and receiving text message segments. Users with the Financial Authority permission can change your budget at any time from Global Settings > Communication > Texting > Text Messaging. Please note: The amount entered into the Monthly Budget setting is not the actual amount Neon One will bill you for text messaging. You will always be billed for actual text message segments sent during the month. The budget is intended to help provide a guideline and protection against unexpectedly overspending on text messaging.
• Use Case Category - This is a list of use cases for which your organization may use Text-to-Communicate. It is limited to only one option by the industry so while you may find many that could apply to your organization, please select the one that best suites your use case or the one you think will be the primary use case. 
• Use Case Summary - Provide a brief description of how you will use the feature to contact your constituents. The more details, the better. An example might be something like "<<Organization Name>> is a nonprofit organization serving youth. We will be sending messages to remind families of upcoming events and workshops, recruit and remind volunteers about volunteer needs and assignments, and notify donors of fundraising needs and campaigns."
• Sample Messages - Include 1 to 3 examples of text messages that your organization will use in real life. 

Select a Toll-Free Number

Once you've input that information, you're able to choose a Toll-Free Number. These toll-free numbers are only available to organizations in the USA or Canada. 

To begin, we provide a randomly generated available toll-free number for you to review. If that number is not to your liking, you can select the option to refresh on the screen to get a new randomly generated available number. 

You may desire to search for a word or "vanity phrase" that aligns to your mission to see if it is available. To do this, in the "Search Toll-Free Number" area type in the word you wish to search in text form between 4 and 7 characters. As a note, if you have shorter words, the more likely a number will be available as we review the search criteria across the last 7 digits of the phone number. The first three will be some form of an 800 number that you can select for your preference if the number is available. If you like one from the search, you can select it and "Confirm Number." 

If you decide to "Save & Exit" after searching for your number, it may not be available when you return. Please ensure you confirm your number when you're ready and like what you've picked! 

Verification

After you confirm you're number and confirm that you really want to proceed, your application will be sent to a review board managed by the telecommunication industry. Normally, the application review process can take ~3 business days; however, it can take up to 5 weeks by the third-party review board.  You can see the status of your application on the Global Settings > Communication > Texting > Text Messaging page and we will notify you via email when the results are in! Neon One staff do not have additional information regarding the status or timeline for your application. 

You're Verified! Now what?

Congratulations! Now you're able to start sending messages to those constituents that have opted in! Check out Text-to-Communicate with Neon CRM to see the texting options to send a Text Campaign or individual text messages!

FAQ

Why can I not buy a bundle of text messages? 

While purchasing a bundle of text messages is not available at this time, Neon One is always assessing the best approach to pricing its products and services. When asking clients in the lead-up to the launch of Text-to-Communicate it was 50/50 on the preference for bundles of texts v. transactional charges with a budgeted cap. Neon One is beginning with transactional pricing to better understand volume costs for our clients and will reassess the pricing approach each year.

I pay for my Neon CRM subscription annually, can I pay for texting annually too? 

Not at this time. As text messages are charged per message segment, it wouldn't be possible to define the exact number of messages that would be sent during the given year upfront, given this structure.

It is important to note that for clients who are billed annually for their Neon CRM subscription, there is a minimum charge of $1/month for an invoice. As a result, if clients billed annually for their CRM subscription use less than $1 of texts in a given billing period, $1 will be assessed. If a client that is billed annually for their CRM subscription uses more than $1 of texts in a given billing period then the appropriate cost will be assessed.

What is meant by "authority to make financial decisions" for their organization? 

We realize that each nonprofit will be different in who can commit funds on behalf of the organization and sign contractual language. In order to support the different needs of our clients, we have created a new permission (Financial Authority) that will be used when in-product opportunities to enable a new service or product are available. This will limit who can commit your organization to new terms and billing requirements. 

By default, this permission was applied to the Primary and Billing contacts that Neon One has on file. Please ensure the right people are listed for your organization in alignment with the Terms of Service, section 4.11. To make changes to this manually, you can assign the "Financial Authority" permission to the user or user group in the User Management section. 

Does Neon One support text-to-give (through phone carriers) options? 

Not at this time. 

Does Neon One provide Short-code or Local 10DLC phone number options? 

Not at this time. 

Do we support more than one phone number for a client? 

Not at this time. This is primarily driven because the volume of text is "rate limited" across all Neon One clients. While Neon One can put a "priority" on a specific client's messages for a specific time period to ensure timely deliverability or to work with our partner to increase our rate limits for a time, we are only offering one number per client. 

I received a notice that my application was unsuccessful. What should I do next?

There are two categories of unsuccessful toll-free verification applications - those that can reapply and those that can't. If your organization is eligible to reapply, Neon CRM will allow you to go back into the Sign Up for Texting pages inside your CRM to update and resubmit your application. Please review the rejection reason included in the notification email that you received and be sure to update the part of your application that caused the issue with verification. If possible, we recommend resubmitting your application as soon as possible after receiving the notice - resubmissions receive priority in the review queue for a limited time after the initial submission.

Here are all of the possible denial reasons:

Denial code	Reason
501	Content Violation - SHAFT - Sex - Not Eligible for Resubmission
502	Content Violation - SHAFT - Hate - Not Eligible for Resubmission
503	Content Violation - SHAFT - Alcohol - Not Eligible for Resubmission
504	Content Violation - SHAFT - Firearms - Not Eligible for Resubmission
505	Content Violation - SHAFT - Tobacco / Vape - Not Eligible for Resubmission
506	Content Violation - SHAFT - CBD/Marijuana - Not Eligible for Resubmission
507	Campaign Violation - Age Gate Not Present / Not Acceptable - Eligible for Resubmission with Robust Age Gate implemented
508	Known Spam Campaign - Not Eligible for Resubmission
509	Disallowed Content - Loan Marketing - Not Eligible for Resubmission
510	Disallowed Content - 3rd Party Debt Collection - Not Eligible for Resubmission
511	Disallowed Content - Gambling - Not Eligible for Resubmission
532	Disallowed Content - Sweepstakes - Not Eligible for Resubmission
533	Disallowed Content - Stock Alerts - Not Eligible for Resubmission
534	Disallowed Content - Cryptocurrency - Not Eligible for Resubmission
535	Disallowed Content - Risk Investment - Not Eligible for Resubmission
536	Disallowed Content - Debt Reduction - Not Eligible for Resubmission
537	Disallowed Content - Credit Repair - Not Eligible for Resubmission
538	Disallowed Content - 3rd Party Lead Generation - Not Eligible for Resubmission
539	Disallowed Content - Federally Illegal Substances - Not Eligible for Resubmission
540	Known Phishing Campaign - Not Eligible for Resubmission
541	High Risk - Fraud - Not Eligible for Resubmission
542	High Risk - Deceptive Marketing - Not Eligible for Resubmission
543	High Risk - Public URL Shortener - correct to branded URL domain
544	High Risk - Non-secured URL - correct to HTTPS://
545	Invalid Information - Can't Verify Business Information - Correct Business Information / Address / Contact / URL - Eligible for Resubmission
546	Invalid Information - Can't Validate URL - Website is not accessible / not available - Eligible for Resubmission
547	Invalid Information - ISV Contact Information Provided, Need Assigned End User - Eligible for Resubmission
548	Opt-in - Not sufficient for campaign type - Express Consent Required - Eligible for Resubmission
549	Opt-in - Consent for messaging is a requirement for service - Eligible for Resubmission
550	Opt-in - No opt-in provided - Eligible for Resubmission
551	Opt-in is shared with 3rd Parties - Remove language for information sharing / Add language that opt-in is not allowed - Eligible for Resubmission
552	Campaign Violation - Single Number Used for Multiple Businesses - please assign a TFN per business - Eligible for resubmission
620	Additional Information Requested - Justification for more than 5 numbers/business
621	Additional Information Requested - Opt-in information not provided, please update
622	Additional Information Requested - Business Information not valid