Short answer: after you donate to a charity, the texts you receive come from three distinct sources. The charity itself (confirmation, tax receipt, fundraising follow-up), its fundraising provider sending on its behalf from a short code or a named sender, and scammers imitating an emergency campaign. You sort them by looking at the sender, the link and the payment method requested — never at the emotion in the message.
Updated 12 November 2026.
You gave €30 in November to a cancer charity, or €20 after a disaster, or you bought two raffle books in aid of a local club. A month later, your message thread holds four fundraising texts, at least one of them from an organisation you don't remember ever contacting.
This isn't a glitch. Donating is one of the few acts that qualifies a mobile number very precisely: someone who has given once is, statistically, the best target for a second appeal. The charity sector knows this and makes use of it — largely within the law. And scammers know it too.
Why does a single donation trigger so many texts?
Because your donation creates a donor record, and that record has measurable value both for the organisation holding it and for its partners.
When you donate online, by phone, or via a paper form with your mobile number on it, you enter a donor database. That database records far more than your number: the amount, the date, the cause supported, the channel used, and sometimes the fact that you asked for a tax receipt (which indicates you are a taxpayer). A mobile number "qualified as a donor" is, in the economics of fundraising, an asset.
Three concrete consequences:
- Follow-up is structured. Large charities organise their year around key moments: end of the tax year (December), emergencies, themed campaigns. Your number is contacted at each of those peaks.
- Fundraising is outsourced. Many charities work through a fundraising agency and a bulk text messaging platform. The message therefore comes from a short code or an alphanumeric sender that isn't the charity's own, which muddies the picture.
- Data sometimes circulates. Historically, the sector has exchanged donor files between organisations. This is now tightly regulated, but it explains some of the "surprise" texts from charities you have never supported.
If you keep records of your donations for tax relief, an expanding file folder for storing receipts and letters from each organisation remains the simplest way to know, the following year, who you actually supported — and therefore who legitimately has your number.
What does the law say about charity text marketing?
The principle is "opt-in": in France, marketing by text message requires prior consent that is freely given, specific and informed. A donation appeal counts as marketing.
The CNIL (French data protection authority) points out that electronic marketing (email, SMS, MMS) in principle requires the person's prior agreement, and that every message must offer an easy, free way to object to further messages. Charities get no special exemption: a donation appeal sent by text without consent is unlawful marketing.
Three practical points follow:
- A pre-ticked box is not consent. If the donation form contained a pre-ticked "I agree to receive information" box, the consent is shaky.
- Consent applies to the organisation that collected it. For another charity to contact you, you must have been informed of that transfer and have accepted it. A mention buried in terms and conditions isn't enough.
- The right to object is unconditional. You can ask for the texts to stop without justifying your request, and the organisation must comply. The GDPR also provides a right of access: you can ask a charity where your number came from.
If you want to put an erasure or objection request in writing, a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt remains the strongest proof, and pre-printed registered-mail envelopes make sending one from home easier.
How can you recognise a genuine charity text?
A genuine fundraising message is plain, clearly identifies the organisation, points to an official domain and always offers a way to unsubscribe.
Here are the markers to compare, message by message:
| Element | Legitimate text | Fraudulent text |
|---|---|---|
| Sender | short code (3xxxx/2xxxx range) or the charity's name | 06/07 mobile number or foreign number |
| Link | the charity's domain, visible and readable | shortened link, lookalike domain (-don, .info, .top) |
| Payment | standard card payment form on the organisation's own site | bank transfer, instant payment link, cryptocurrency, gift card |
| Unsubscribe | a "STOP to …" notice or an unsubscribe link | none, or a "STOP" that does nothing |
| Tone | information, tax deadline, thanks | absolute urgency, countdown, guilt-tripping |
| Amount | open, chosen by you | amount imposed in the message |
The most telling point remains the payment method. A recognised public-benefit charity collects through traceable payment methods, because it must issue a tax receipt under Article 200 of the Code général des impôts (French General Tax Code). A donation appeal asking for a transfer to a private individual's IBAN, payment via an instant link, or the purchase of prepaid cards is never legitimate — this mechanism is set out in our article on fake fundraising pages and bogus donation appeals.
To decode the sender itself — short code, brand name, unknown +33 — our guide to where this text came from gives you the method range by range.
Is a donation text premium-rate?
Not always, but it's one of the rare cases where donating by text really does go through your mobile bill, so the message deserves a careful read.
France has a text-donation scheme: you send a keyword to a short code and a fixed amount (often €5 or €10) is charged to your mobile bill or your prepaid credit. This mechanism is regulated, and the campaigns involved state the exact amount and the number in the charity's official communications.
The problem is that the format is easy to imitate. Three habits:
- Check the number on the charity's website, not in the text you received. If the campaign is real, it will be announced on the official site.
- Never reply to a text asking you to send a keyword to a short code you haven't verified: you could be triggering a subscription, not a donation.
- Check the "SMS+" line on your bill the following month. If a charge appears that you never agreed to, the dispute procedure is described in our article on getting a premium-rate text charge off your bill.
Keeping a record of your donations helps: an A5 accounts notebook kept beside your bank statement lets you match an unexpected charge to a donation you genuinely made in two minutes.
How do you stop donation texts without cutting ties with your charity?
By separating the channels: you can keep the charity and refuse the texts. That is exactly what the right to object allows.
Work through it in this order:
- Reply STOP to the text if, and only if, the sender is a legitimate short code and the instruction appears in the message. On a short code, STOP is mandatory and free; how it actually works is explained in our article on replying STOP to short codes. Never reply STOP to a text from an unknown 06/07 number: you would be confirming the line is active.
- Write to the charity, via its contact form or to its data protection officer, explicitly asking for: an end to text marketing, the origin of your number, and the deletion of any transfer to third parties.
- Specify the channel you do accept. Many organisations will happily switch a donor to "post only" or "email only". You stay a donor, and the phone goes quiet.
- Filter whatever is left. iPhone and Android let you block a sender and sort messages from unknown numbers; the limits of these settings are explained in our article on what blocking a number really stops.
- Report to 33700 any fraudulent message. Forward the text to 33700, then send the sender's number when the service asks for it. The service is free from the main operators and is described on the 33700.fr page. Our dedicated page on reporting text spam to 33700 sets out the procedure.
If the marketing continues despite a written request, there is still the option of a complaint to the CNIL, which has an online form. That is the most effective lever against an organisation that ignores an objection.
Why is December the worst month?
Because tax relief is calculated on the calendar year: a donation made before 31 December gives entitlement to a tax reduction claimed the following year.
As a result, most of the annual fundraising is decided in the final weeks of the year, and reminder texts cluster in that period. Scammers mirror the sector's calendar. In December, a text saying "You have 3 days left to claim your tax reduction" is both the most frequently sent legitimate message and one of the most widely used fraudulent pretexts.
The tax reminder is accurate: Article 200 of the Code général des impôts (French General Tax Code) provides a tax reduction for donations to public-benefit organisations, set out on service-public.fr. But no organisation needs you to donate within the hour, through a link received by text, for an amount imposed on you. Urgency is the scammer's tool, not the charity's.
Two simple habits defuse almost all of these messages:
- Always donate by the same route: you type in the charity's web address yourself, or you use its app. Never through a link you received.
- Write down the list of organisations you support. Three or four names is enough. Any donation appeal from a name that isn't on the list is treated as an unknown solicitation, and therefore ignored.
What about raffles, lotteries and club fundraising sales?
These are the quietest sources of number leakage, because you hand over your mobile on a slip of paper without ever reading what you're signing.
A raffle book in aid of a school, a sports club or a social association asks for a name and a phone number so winners can be told. That's legitimate. But the paper stub gets passed around, is sometimes photographed, often kept long after the draw, and rarely protected. The same logic applies to sign-up lists for car boot sales, charity dinners and village fête lotteries.
What you can do as you fill in the slip:
- ask whether the number will only be used for the draw, and write that on the slip ("draw only");
- don't add an email address when a phone number is enough;
- use a second number for everything that isn't close friends and family — the method is described in our article on compartmentalising with a second number.
For the volunteers who keep those lists, the stakes are the same in reverse: a list of donors is a personal data file, which must be stored securely and destroyed once it is no longer needed. A cross-cut shredder for the paper stubs and an encrypted external hard drive for donor files are, for a small charity, the reasonable minimum. The hijacking of a charity's funds by text message is in fact a documented scenario, which we set out in our article on scam texts targeting charities and clubs.
Frequently asked questions
Is a charity allowed to text me after a donation?
Yes for messages connected to your donation (confirmation, tax receipt), which are part of carrying out what you asked for. For new donation appeals, prior consent is required, as the CNIL treats them as electronic marketing.
How do I find out who passed on my number?
By exercising your right of access with the organisation that contacted you: it must tell you the source of your data. Write to its data protection officer, named in its privacy policy.
Does replying STOP to a donation text work?
On a legitimate short code, yes: STOP is mandatory and free. On an unknown mobile number, no: all you confirm is that your line is active, and you increase the volume you receive.
Is a premium-rate text donation tax-deductible?
The text-donation scheme can give entitlement to a tax receipt depending on the organisation and the arrangement used, but the procedure varies. Check the charity's official website before counting on the tax reduction.
I clicked on a fake donation appeal — what should I do?
Freeze your card with your bank immediately, keep the text, report it to 33700 and file a complaint. The steps and deadlines are set out in our article on the 72 hours after a booby-trapped text.
