Asking guests to add a small amount for carbon offsets when they buy admission sounds simple: one more line in the cart. In Altru, the technical part is the easy bit. The harder decisions are what the money actually is, where it goes, and how you’ll prove later that it went there. Get those right first and the setup takes an afternoon.
As far as we know, Altru has no dedicated “carbon offset” feature. That’s fine. You build it out of pieces Altru already has, and the piece you pick depends on one question.
Decide what the offset money is
Before anyone touches a configuration screen, get your finance lead and whoever owns your sustainability commitments in the same room and agree on one of these:
- A gift to your own sustainability work. The guest is donating to your organization, restricted to something like tree planting, solar panels, or habitat restoration you run or fund. This is a contribution, and it should be recorded as one.
- A pass-through to an offset provider. You collect the money and send it to a third party that retires credits. You’re acting more like an agent than a recipient, which changes how finance books it and may affect whether it’s tax-deductible for the guest.
- A fixed-price product. “Offset your visit: $2.” The guest is buying something at a set price, closer to an add-on sale than a gift.
We can’t tell you which is correct for your organization; that’s a call for your accountant. But the answer drives everything below, including what the receipt says and whether an acknowledgment goes out.
Building it in Altru
If it’s a donation
Set up a designation (or fund, depending on how your organization structures giving) dedicated to the offset program. Most Altru sites already take donations at the point of sale, so the cashier adds a donation line to the sale and selects that designation. Using a dedicated designation, rather than your general fund, is what lets you report on it cleanly later.
Suggest a default amount at the desk so staff aren’t improvising. “Would you like to add $2 to offset the carbon from your visit?” is easier to say, and easier to total, than an open-ended ask.
If it’s a fixed-price item or pass-through
Some organizations set the offset up as a merchandise-style item at a fixed price so it rings like any other add-on and maps to its own revenue account. If you go this route, confirm with finance which GL account it should post to, especially for a pass-through, where the money is likely a liability until you remit it.
Whichever you choose, run a few test sales in a sandbox or during a closed period and check how they appear in revenue, in your batches, and on the receipt before you train staff.
Online sales
Adding the offer to the counter is straightforward. Adding it to online ticket purchases is where Altru gets less flexible. Whether you can attach an optional donation or extra item to your ticketing web forms depends on your form setup, and we’re not confident it works the same way across every form type. Test it in your own environment, or ask Blackbaud support directly, before promising your sustainability team an online launch date.
Train the ask, not just the button
An add-on at the register lives or dies on how staff present it. A few things that help:
- Write a one-line script and keep it next to the register.
- Tell staff what the money does in concrete terms, so they can answer “where does it go?” without guessing.
- Make declining easy. A guest who feels pressured at admissions is a worse outcome than a missed $2.
- Don’t ask on every transaction type. Group sales and member check-ins may not be the right moment.
Reporting back
The offset program will eventually face the question “how much did we raise, and what did we do with it?” Plan for that now:
- Build a query on revenue for the offset designation or item, filtered by date range and sales channel.
- Save it, and share it with whoever reports on sustainability so they can pull numbers themselves.
- If it’s a pass-through, reconcile what you collected against what you remitted on a regular schedule.
- Publish the totals somewhere guests can see them. It makes the next ask easier and keeps the program honest.
One caution: if guests give through a donation, they become donors on their constituent record. Decide whether those small gifts should trigger your normal acknowledgment process or a lighter one. A full tax receipt for a $2 add-on can feel out of proportion.
Offering it in an online checkout
If your online sales run through Social Good’s Upsells in Checkouts, you can present an add-on like a carbon offset in the cart during an online ticket purchase, alongside the tickets themselves. The configuration and accounting decisions above still apply, since the sale data writes back to Altru.
Quick answers
Is a carbon offset add-on tax-deductible for the guest?
It depends on how you structure it. A gift to your own restricted program may be; a fixed-price product or pass-through may not be. Ask your accountant before you print anything on the receipt.
Can we round up the sale total instead of a set amount?
We aren’t aware of a native round-up option at Altru’s point of sale. Confirm with Blackbaud support, or use a suggested fixed amount instead.
