Public contact information

Email and phone options ranked, with step-by-step setup for org-owned numbers.

Public contact information builds donor trust and meets the expectations of regulators and charity-rating platforms. A charity with no findable way to reach it looks abandoned — or worse, fraudulent. FFC scores contact info per key person, so it’s worth getting right.

Email options, best to worst

  1. Org-domain email (e.g. president@yourcharity.org) — best, and what FFC sets up automatically at launch. Nothing signals legitimacy like email on your own domain.
  2. Org-owned Gmail (e.g. yourcharity@gmail.com) — acceptable as an interim, as long as the organization controls the account, not an individual.
  3. Personal email — a last resort. It ties the charity to one person and disappears when they do.

Phone options, best to worst

  1. Org-specific number — Google Voice for Business, Microsoft Teams Business Voice, T-Mobile DIGITS for Business, or a real PBX. Owned by the org, forwards to whoever is on duty.
  2. Personal cell — workable for a brand-new charity, but plan to move off it.
  3. Landline — fine but increasingly rare.
  4. No phone — scored negatively; donors expect a way to call.

Set up Google Voice with a charity-owned account

  1. Create or use your organization’s Google account (not a personal one).
  2. Go to voice.google.com, choose a number in your area, and link it to the org account.
  3. Set call forwarding to the volunteer or officer currently on duty.
  4. Publish the number on your site and in your intake — calls and texts route to the org.

Set up Microsoft Teams Business Voice

  1. In your Microsoft 365 nonprofit tenant, assign a Teams Phone license (FFC helps eligible charities obtain nonprofit licensing).
  2. Acquire or port a phone number in the Teams admin center.
  3. Assign the number to a shared “main line” resource account or a call queue.
  4. Route incoming calls to the right people via a call queue or auto-attendant.

Set up T-Mobile DIGITS for Business

  1. From a T-Mobile for Business account, add a DIGITS line for the organization.
  2. Share the line across officers’ devices so any of them can answer.
  3. Keep the number with the org account, independent of any one person’s SIM.

How this affects your readiness score

Each required contact (org main contact, President, Secretary, Treasurer) is scored on both phone and email type. Org-specific numbers and org-domain email earn the most; missing contact info for a required role is penalized. Optional officers can only help, never hurt. At launch, FFC provisions org-domain email for you, so that portion of the score lifts automatically. See the methodology page for exact values.

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