Mass Texts

[kmilleca]

Thanks for the suggestion jsorens6.

When I googled for documentation on this process, I found this gmail help page.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/ ... T4XP-MDRmc

According to this documentation, the email needs to be addressed like so 0000000000@carrier.net
How do you find out the carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile ...) of each of your members?

Thanks again for the suggestion.

[jsorens6]

You're welcome! When they send the text to the email address specified you will be able to see the return address so you can make sure it's addressed according to their specific carrier format.

[lajackson]

How do you find out the carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile ...) of each of your members?

It appears they opt in by sending you a text that goes to gmail, and then you update the bcc field with the text to email address for everyone who opts in.

[russellhltn]

Of course, if people would rather get the messages via email, that's easy to do as well. They just send the opt-in message via email.

This looks like a really good system. As long as members don't mind all this information going though "the great Google".

[jamiep39]

I used to use email to text for my YSA ward. Some problems I had were that sometimes members on certain carriers (it varied which ones, but I seem to remember Sprint was a frequent culprit) would never receive the messages. The other struggle if it's a larger group like an entire ward was removing people. Since there isn't way for someone to opt themselves out, whoever maintains the list has to keep track of that.

A lot of the YSA wards here have used Remind. It's free, people opt themselves in and out as they want, you can create different groups within the system (like a Ward Council group, groups for different committees, etc.). It's targeted at schools, but their FAQ (https://help.remind.com/hc/en-us/articl ... se-Remind-) says anyone sending out non-advertising texts can use it. The other nice thing is that because people are opting themselves in, you don't end up going against any sort of data privacy policy with member data since the ward never provides any actual information to Remind. Definitely worth looking at at least.

[kimtingey]

I'm a Bishop of a YSA ward. I'm curious what wards are using now for mass text. The Remind app now costs $4 per person per year. For us with 200 members to text that is $800 per year. Does anyone else use a different app or does the "list" function in LDS Tools work? I can't get it to. Thank you!

[russellhltn]

I believe if you know everyone's carrier, you can email them a text message.

For example to send a text to (801) 555-1212:

AT&T: 8015551212@txt.att.net
Sprint: 8015551212@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: 8015551212@tmomail.net
US Cellular: 8015551212@email.uscc.net
Verizon: 8015551212@vtext.com

[jamiep39]

I've found that a lot of carriers block email to text anymore. Too much spam. Remind still has a free tier from what I can see. It has a 150 person per class cap. If you need more than that for your whole ward you could split it into Elders and Relief Society and then just send to both for general announcements. Maybe I'm not seeing where it says it costs the $4.

[sbradshaw]

I recently saw the "Remind" app recommended as a way to communicate in a ward. Has anyone used that?

A few years ago, my wife and I were added to a "Remind" app without our permission or desire by a well-meaning stake choir director. We got lots of "communication" we did not want nor request. There was no way to get off the list without offending someone - I finally just marked it as spam in my e-mail program to get it all to stop.

Nobody should be adding anybody's contact information to a third-party service without permission. It's against Church policy and in some places against the law. But most services do have a way to unsubscribe. For example, here's a help page about unsubscribing from Remind messages:
https://help.remind.com/hc/en-us/articl ... f-messages

[kleavitt56]

I am a new elders quorum president. Has texting to a group improved since the last posting here in June 2018. Can you text the entire quorum at once? Do carriers still limit this to 10 numbers? Who is using this well and tips to use this function?