Adopt-an-animal, adopt-a-tree, adopt-an-artifact: these programs bring in steady money and great storytelling. Altru doesn’t have a dedicated “adoption” module, though. You build the program out of pieces Altru already has, and the piece you pick decides how reporting, renewals, receipts, and fulfillment work for years afterward. So make that decision deliberately before anyone sells the first plush giraffe.
Start with three questions
Answer these with your development, membership, and finance leads in the room. The answers point you to a structure.
- Is an adoption a gift or a purchase? If donors mostly get a certificate and a thank-you, it behaves like a donation. If the package includes a plush, a photo kit, or event access, part of the payment is a benefit with real value, and your finance team will care how that’s recorded and receipted.
- Does it expire? Some programs run for one year and invite renewal. Others are one-time gifts with no term. A term with renewal reminders is a strong signal toward a membership-style setup.
- Who is the “adopter”? Many adoptions are gifts: a grandparent pays, a grandchild gets the certificate. You need to know whether you track the payer only, or the recipient too.
Option 1: Treat adoptions as donations
This is the simplest route and fits programs that are mainly philanthropic. Set up a dedicated designation (or fund/appeal structure, depending on how your organization codes giving) for adoptions, and record each adoption as a donation against it. If you want to report by species or collection, create separate designations per animal or per group, or capture the specific adoptee in an attribute on the revenue.
Works well when: there’s no term, the benefit package is token, and the development team owns the program.
Watch out for:
- No built-in expiration or renewal cycle. You’ll drive “renew your adoption” outreach from queries on gift date instead.
- Benefits. If the package has meaningful fair market value, work out with finance how the deductible amount appears on acknowledgments. Check how your Altru setup handles benefits on donations in a sandbox before going live.
- Designation sprawl. One designation per animal gets unwieldy fast. A single adoption designation plus an attribute for the adoptee is usually easier to maintain.
Option 2: Build it as a membership program
If adoptions last a year and you want renewals, a separate membership program for adoptions gives you levels (for example, a basic certificate tier and a deluxe kit tier), a start and expiration date, and the renewal tools your membership team already uses.
Works well when: adoptions have a term, you want lapsed-adopter lists, and the membership team will run it.
Watch out for:
- Count inflation. Adoption “members” can show up in membership totals and reports unless you filter by program. Agree on this with whoever reports membership numbers to the board.
- Benefit confusion. Make sure adoption levels don’t accidentally grant admission or member discounts, or the desk will start honoring adoption certificates at the gate.
- Revenue split. Membership revenue is often reported differently from contributed revenue. Confirm with finance which bucket adoption money belongs in.
Option 3: Sell the package as an item, plus a gift
Some organizations sell the physical kit as merchandise and record the rest as a donation. That gives clean separation between what was bought and what was given, which finance teams often like. The cost is complexity: two lines per transaction, and staff need to ring it up the same way every time. It’s worth considering only if your adoption kits carry real retail value.
Things to set up regardless of structure
Capture the adoptee and the recipient
Decide where the animal, plant, or object name lives on the record (an attribute is the usual answer) and make it required on the form. For gift adoptions, capture the recipient’s name and mailing address. Whether you create a separate constituent record for the recipient or store their name as a note or attribute depends on whether you want to cultivate them later. If you do, a full constituent record is worth the extra entry time.
Build a fulfillment query
Someone has to mail certificates and kits. Create a query that lists new adoptions since a given date with adopter, recipient, ship-to address, level, and adoptee. Run it on a fixed schedule, export it for whoever packs the boxes, and mark records as fulfilled (an attribute works) so nothing ships twice or gets missed.
Write acknowledgments that sound like adoptions
A generic donation receipt is a letdown for someone who just adopted a red panda. Create an adoption-specific acknowledgment letter or email that names the adoptee, states any deductible amount correctly, and says what arrives in the mail and when.
Decide how online adoptions come in
If you sell adoptions on your website, set up a dedicated web form that captures the adoptee, the gift recipient, and shipping details. Test the full path in a sandbox: submit a gift adoption, then confirm the revenue, attributes, and addresses land where your fulfillment query expects them. Whether a particular custom field can be collected on an Altru web form and written to the record you want is something to verify directly, or ask Blackbaud support, before you promise it to marketing.
Plan for the adoptee leaving
Animals move to other institutions, and objects go off view. Keep the adoptee as data you can query, so you can find every current adopter of a given animal and write to them personally. That letter, handled well, often produces a re-adoption instead of a lapse.
A sensible default
For most zoos, aquariums, and gardens running a modest program, a single adoption designation with an adoptee attribute, an adoption-specific acknowledgment, and a weekly fulfillment query covers nearly everything. Move to a membership program only when renewals become central to the program’s goals. Whichever path you choose, write it down in a one-page procedure so the next development coordinator records adoptions the same way.
Quick answers
Can an adoption count toward a household’s giving totals?
If you record it as a donation, it generally rolls into giving history like other gifts. As a membership, it depends on how your reports treat membership revenue. Test with a sample record.
Should adoption levels include free admission?
Only if you’re willing to treat adopters as members at the door. Otherwise, keep admission out of adoption benefits and promote membership as the upgrade.
