# BRD-059 — A unified fundraising short code needs five years of operating history

> A charity seeking a single unified short code for fundraising must demonstrate at least five years of operation.

- **Rule ID:** BRD-059
- **Layer:** Brand (`BRAND`)
- **Checks:** `charity operating history`
- **Severity:** MEDIUM — Usually survives review, but lowers your trust score or invites manual review.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** External record we cannot query — reported as a warning to verify
- **Fix type:** Wait on an external system or a required interval
- **Required by:** CTIA
- **Applies:** Applies when the use case is CHARITY.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-059/

## Why this rule exists

Unified fundraising codes are shared infrastructure with a high abuse value — a fraudulent appeal on a recognised code damages every charity on it — so the entry bar is time in operation rather than paperwork. Newer charities can still message; what they cannot do is join the unified code, and planning a campaign around one is the expensive way to discover that.

## How to fix it

Plan the campaign on a 10DLC number or a dedicated short code where the organisation is younger than five years. Revisit the unified code once the operating history is there; nothing about the registration changes in the meantime.

## Check this yourself

**Has this organisation been operating for at least five years, counting from its incorporation date?**

1. Find the incorporation or determination date on the organisation's founding documents.
2. Under five years, plan the campaign on a 10DLC number or a dedicated short code and revisit the unified fundraising code later — nothing about the registration changes in the meantime.

*What wrong looks like:* A four-year-old charity builds its whole appeal around a unified short code, and finds out at the point of application that the bar is time in operation and there is no paperwork that shortens it.

## Notes

A short-code path requirement rather than a 10DLC one, recorded here because charities plan across both. The user has to check their own incorporation date against the five-year bar before committing to a unified-code campaign — no part of the 10DLC registration will tell them.