Managing Resident Subscriptions

This article explains how resident notification subscriptions work in Civify — what residents can subscribe to, how geographic alert zones fit in, the rules around opt-in/opt-out, and how unsubscribes are tracked. For step-by-step click-through instructions, see the linked walkthrough at the end of this article.

What a subscription controls

Each resident's subscriptions determine which content they get notified about and how. A subscription is really two things working together:

1. What they're subscribed to — the specific projects, posts, headings, or alert categories
2. How they're notified — email, SMS, and/or automated voice calls

Both are set per resident, and a resident can be subscribed to any combination of content types.

Subscribing to content

Residents can be subscribed to individual projects, posts, headings, or alert categories — or to everything at once. Subscribing someone to all Projects and all Headings covers not just what currently exists, but everything published under those headings going forward. This makes it easy to fully onboard a resident who wants to hear about everything your organization posts, without having to re-subscribe them each time something new goes up.

Road Restrictions subscriptions

Organizations with the Road Restrictions add-on have an additional subscription option: a daily email digest of road closures in the resident's area. This works differently from project/post subscriptions because it's geographic rather than content-based — residents subscribe to a Subscriber Group covering either the whole city or a custom-drawn zone on the map, and they'll receive the digest for restrictions inside that area. Subscriber Groups themselves are covered in more depth in the Road Restrictions guide.

Notification types and opt-in requirements

Each resident chooses which channels they want to hear from: email, SMS (text message), and/or automated voice calls. These are compliance-sensitive settings — a resident's stated preference for opting in or out of a given channel must be respected, and the disclosure language on the subscription page needs to be read to the resident when their preferences are being set on their behalf (for example, over the phone or at a sign-up table).

How unsubscribes work

Residents have more than one way to opt out, and Civify keeps their profile in sync automatically no matter which path they use:

• Email: clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email opts them out of email communications.
• SMS: replying STOP to any text automatically unsubscribes them from SMS and unchecks that box on their profile.
• Voice: pressing 1 during an automated call unsubscribes them from voice calls.

Staff can also toggle these boxes directly on a resident's profile.

Restarting a subscription isn't quite symmetrical with unsubscribing. For SMS specifically, re-checking the box on the resident's profile isn't enough on its own — the resident also needs to text START to the organization's sending number. Voice subscriptions, by contrast, can simply be turned back on through the profile with no reply required from the resident.

Where subscription activity is tracked

Every subscription change — whether made by staff or triggered by the resident themselves — is logged to that resident's Activity Log, giving you a record of when and how their preferences changed over time.