Altru doesn’t have a module labeled “camp.” Organizations that run summer camps, spring-break weeks, or after-school series in Altru build them out of the ticketing and constituent tools they already have. That works well enough, but you need to make a few design decisions up front. If you skip them, you end up in late May with rosters that can’t tell you which kids have a peanut allergy or who is allowed to pick them up.
This guide covers those decisions in the order you’ll hit them, and is honest about where Altru tends to fall short for camps.
Decide what a “camp session” is in Altru
Almost every Altru camp setup models each session as a scheduled program, meaning a ticketed program with dates, times, and a capacity, sold through advance sales and, if you allow it, online. The main choice is how fine-grained to make it:
- One program per camp, one event per week. For example, “Junior Naturalists” with eight weekly sessions. Easy to report on and easy for families to understand.
- One program per age band or track. Useful when capacity, pricing, or staffing differs by age. More setup, but your rosters split cleanly.
- Separate programs for add-ons. Extended care, lunch, or a field-trip day can be their own programs so they keep their own capacity and revenue.
Pick the version your camp director would actually use to staff the week. Capacity is what matters most here. If ten counselors can handle 60 children, the session’s capacity has to say 60. Don’t rely on someone watching the count.
Set up pricing before you open registration
Camps usually need more price variation than general admission. Before you build anything, write down every price a family could pay: member versus nonmember, sibling discount, early-bird, full-week versus single-day, scholarship. Then decide which of these become price types on the program and which are better handled as discounts.
A practical rule: if the price depends on who is buying (member, staff, scholarship), a price type or a membership-based discount is usually the cleaner fit. If it depends on when or how many (early-bird, siblings), a discount tied to dates or quantity is usually easier to switch off later. Test each combination in a sandbox or on a test session before families see it. Stacked discounts are the most common surprise.
Deposits and payment plans are where many teams get stuck. Whether your Altru configuration can take a partial payment on a program order and collect the balance later depends on how you’re set up. Confirm with Blackbaud support before you promise families a deposit option, rather than assuming it will behave like a pledge.
Decide where camper information lives
Here a ticket purchase and a camp registration really part ways. A ticket tells you that someone paid for a spot. A camp registration has to tell you who the child is, how old they are, what their medical needs are, who can pick them up, and whether a waiver is signed.
Practical options inside Altru:
- Create the camper as a constituent and relate them to the parent’s household. This keeps siblings and repeat campers connected across years, and it lets you report on “families who did camp” for membership outreach.
- Use attributes on the camper record for structured items you’ll filter on: age group, T-shirt size, photo permission, allergy flag. Keep the list short and controlled. Free text is hard to query.
- Keep detailed medical and custody information out of general notes. Many organizations collect this on a separate form with tighter access and keep only a flag in Altru (“medical form on file: yes”). Check your own privacy obligations before storing health details in a CRM that front-line staff can open.
Whatever you choose, connect the sale to the camper. If a parent buys three spots, you need some way to know which child holds which spot. Decide whether staff enter that at the time of sale or follow up afterward, and give someone that job.
Online registration
You can sell camp sessions through Altru’s online sales and web forms the same way you sell other timed programs. The limitation is the questions you can ask during checkout. Out of the box, the online flow is built for buying tickets, not for completing a multi-child intake form. Many camps handle this in two steps: families pay online, then receive a follow-up form for camper details and waivers. Staff (or an import) bring the important fields back into Altru.
If you go that route, make the follow-up hard to miss. Put the form link in the confirmation email, send a reminder a week before camp starts, and run a query the Friday before to find anyone still missing.
Rosters, check-in, and reporting
Build your rosters as queries, not exported spreadsheets that drift out of date. A useful roster query for each session includes:
- Camper name and age group (from the camper’s constituent record and attributes)
- Parent or guardian name and phone (from the relationship)
- Allergy and photo-permission flags
- Add-ons purchased (extended care, lunch)
- Forms-complete status
Save one version for counselors (minimal fields) and one for the camp director (everything). On the first morning, a printed roster from that query is often more dependable than any device-based check-in. For end-of-season reporting, revenue by program and session gives you the financial picture, and a query on camper constituents tells you how many families came back from last year.
A setup checklist
- Map sessions, age bands, and add-ons on paper.
- Build programs with real capacities.
- Create price types and discounts, then test every combination.
- Confirm deposit or payment-plan behavior with Blackbaud.
- Decide on the camper record structure, relationships, and a short attribute list.
- Set up the follow-up intake form and decide how its data returns to Altru.
- Build and save roster queries before registration opens.
- Run a full test registration as a parent, including a sibling and a member discount.
Quick answers
Can Altru handle a waitlist for full camp sessions?
Not something you should count on without testing. Many teams keep a simple waitlist outside Altru and release spots by hand when someone cancels.
Should campers be constituents even if they’re young children?
Usually yes. The record is what links siblings, repeat years, and the parent’s membership. Just be careful about which details you store on it.
