How does Civic Champs determine if volunteers receive emails or SMS messages?

When sending a Custom Message, you may have noticed the following breakdown:

Emails: x
Text Messages: y (0 SMS Sends Available)
Failed Messages: z

This is describing, based on the preferences of the selected recipients, the route the Custom Message will be sent.

Recipient preferences can be to receive the message via email, via SMS text, or to not receive the message at all. Civic Champs determines a destination for each account depending on the following criteria:

Email is preferred when the account:

• Has a verified email address
• Does not have any verified contact information, but an unverified email is on record
• Sets Preferred Contact to Email

SMS text is preferred when the account:

• Has a verified phone number and does not have a verified email address
• Has an unverified phone number and does not have an unverified email address
• Sets Preferred Contact to Phone

Failed Message is preferred when the account:

• Undergoes multiple bounces on previous attempts (the email address is invalid, or is otherwise returned as not accepting messages from Civic Champs)
• Has unsubscribed from a Civic Champs email
• Marks a Civic Champs email as spam
• Sets Preferred Contact to Do Not Contact

Generally, Civic Champs prioritizes emails as a default, because email messages are free to go out (this is also why there is a Send to Email Only option). Becomes SMS texts incur carrier costs, Civic Champs requires SMS credits to be purchased for 2¢/text ($20 for 1000), which is why we try to make it as easy as possible to go through email, but the reciprocal option (such as Send to Text Only) is not currently available.

Preferred Contact information can be updated by the volunteer by editing their profile in the mobile app.