A wealth screening vendor sends back a spreadsheet with dozens of columns per person: capacity ratings, estimated giving ranges, real estate totals, philanthropic affinity scores, board affiliations, and a confidence flag on every match. The hard part of getting that into Altru isn’t the import itself. It’s deciding which handful of those columns deserve a home on the constituent record, and making sure each row lands on the right person.
Below is how an experienced Altru admin would approach it, from cleaning the file to checking the results afterward.
First, know what Altru gives you to work with
Blackbaud has offered prospect research tools such as ResearchPoint, and some Altru customers have had screening options tied to their Blackbaud contract. Whether your Altru database has a built-in screening workflow, and what it stores, depends on your subscription and has changed over time. Don’t assume. Ask Blackbaud support or your account manager what your license includes before you build anything.
For results from an outside vendor, the practical route most organizations use is Altru’s standard constituent import, writing values into constituent attributes you set up ahead of time. Attributes are reportable, can be pulled into queries and smart fields, and can be restricted by security role. That makes them a better fit than notes, which are hard to filter or report on.
Decide what to keep before you touch the file
Screening files are wide. Importing all of it creates clutter nobody will read, and some of it is sensitive enough that you shouldn’t store it at all. Sit down with whoever does major gifts or development and agree on a short list. Common picks:
- Capacity rating or range (the vendor’s estimate of what someone could give)
- Philanthropic or propensity score (how likely they are to give to causes like yours)
- Screening date and vendor name, so anyone reading the record knows how old the data is
- Match confidence, if the vendor provides it, so researchers know which results to verify
Leave the raw financial detail (property values, stock holdings, salary estimates) in the vendor’s portal or a secured file. Your development staff can look it up when a prospect is worth a closer look. Altru doesn’t need to carry it for every front desk user who opens a constituent record.
Set up the attributes
Create one attribute category per field you agreed on. A few choices that save headaches later:
- Use a code table (a fixed list of values) for ratings and ranges, rather than free text. “$25K–$50K” typed three different ways becomes three different values in a query.
- Use a date data type for the screening date.
- Decide whether each attribute allows multiple values. For a rating, usually not. You want one current value, not a pile of old ones.
- Check who can see these attributes. If your security roles let every desk volunteer view constituent attributes, think about whether capacity ratings belong there.
Prepare the file so rows match the right people
Matching is where screening imports go wrong. If you sent the vendor a file that included the Altru lookup ID for each constituent, ask them to return it in every row. Importing by lookup ID is far safer than matching on name and address, because Altru doesn’t have to guess.
If you don’t have IDs in the return file, fix that before importing. Join the vendor results back to your original export in a spreadsheet using whatever unique key you sent. Rows that can’t be tied to an ID go on a separate list for manual review, not into the import.
Then clean the values:
- Rename columns so they’re obvious, and delete everything you decided not to keep.
- Translate vendor values into the exact entries in your code tables. Spelling and spacing must match.
- Drop low-confidence matches, or import them with the confidence flag so researchers know to verify.
- Remove rows for deceased or inactive constituents if your vendor didn’t already flag them.
Run a small test first
Import ten or twenty rows before the full file. Open those constituent records and confirm the attributes show up where you expect, with the right values and dates. Altru’s import process typically produces an exception file for rows it couldn’t process. Read it. Each error usually points to a mismatched code table value or a missing ID, and fixing the pattern now saves you from a thousand exceptions later.
If your organization has a sandbox or test environment, use it. If not, keep the test batch small enough that you can fix it by hand.
After the full import
- Build a query on the new attributes to count how many constituents received a rating. Compare that against the number of matched rows in your file.
- Spot-check by hand. Pull a few names you know well and see whether the ratings look reasonable.
- Turn it into a working list. A query of members or donors with high capacity ratings and modest current giving is usually the reason you screened in the first place. Share it with the people who will act on it.
- Plan for the next screening. When you rescreen in a year or two, you’ll want to replace old values, not stack new ones beside them. Note now how you’ll handle that, and keep the screening date attribute current.
A note on privacy
Wealth estimates are inferences, not facts, and donors can react badly to learning they’ve been rated. Keep access narrow, avoid copying ratings into notes or exports that circulate widely, and make sure your practice lines up with your privacy policy and any vendor contract terms about how the data can be stored and used.
Quick answers
Can I import screening results into notes instead of attributes?
You can, but notes are hard to query and report on. Attributes are the better home for anything you’ll want to filter by later.
What if my vendor can’t return Altru IDs?
Match the results back to the file you sent them using your own unique key, then add the IDs before importing. Avoid relying on name-and-address matching for the import itself.
Does Altru calculate its own wealth or capacity scores?
Not that we’d count on. Whether any screening or scoring is available in your database depends on your Blackbaud agreement, so confirm with Blackbaud directly.
