You’ve built the perfect ad-hoc query in Altru. It pulls exactly the members, donors, or ticket buyers you need. Now someone on the marketing side, or a board dashboard, or a volunteer coordinator’s spreadsheet, needs those results too, and preferably without anyone opening Altru and clicking export every Monday morning. The natural next question is: can I just point something at an API endpoint and get the query results?
The short answer is that it’s harder than it should be, and for most organizations a true “no coding” API path doesn’t exist inside Altru itself. Here’s what’s realistically available, what to ask Blackbaud, and the workarounds that actually hold up.
What “the Altru API” actually means
People use “Altru API” to mean a few different things, and it helps to separate them before you spend time chasing documentation.
- Blackbaud’s SKY API. This is Blackbaud’s modern REST API program. Its coverage is strongest for Raiser’s Edge NXT and Financial Edge NXT. Coverage for Altru has historically been much narrower, and we’re not aware of a documented SKY API endpoint that returns the results of an arbitrary ad-hoc query you built in Altru. Check the current SKY API developer documentation for Altru before assuming either way, because Blackbaud’s offerings change.
- The underlying platform web services. Altru is built on Blackbaud’s Infinity platform, which has its own web service layer. On self-hosted Infinity products, developers can use it to run queries and data lists programmatically. Whether a hosted Altru customer can reach those services, with what credentials, and under what terms is a question only Blackbaud can answer for your account.
- Exports. Not an API, but the thing most teams fall back on: run the query, export to CSV or Excel, and move the file somewhere.
Even where a web service route exists, it isn’t “no code.” You’d be dealing with authentication, request formats, and paging through results. That’s developer work, and it needs someone to maintain it when something changes.
Questions to put to Blackbaud support
Before you plan anything around an API, get written answers to these. They save weeks of guessing.
- Is there any supported API (SKY API or otherwise) that can return the output of a saved ad-hoc query in our Altru database?
- If so, what permissions does the calling user need, and does it count against any usage limits?
- Are results paged, and is there a maximum row count per call?
- Can the query be run on a schedule, or does something outside Altru have to trigger it each time?
- Is this supported for hosted Altru customers, or only for other Infinity-based products?
If the answer to the first question is no, or “only with custom development,” you can stop looking for an endpoint and move to the options below.
Getting query results out without writing code
Design the query for reuse first
Whatever route you take, the query is the contract. A few habits make it much easier to feed other tools:
- Give output columns plain, stable names. Downstream spreadsheets and mailing tools match on column headers, and renaming a column later quietly breaks things.
- Include a unique ID (the constituent lookup ID is usually the right one) so records can be matched rather than duplicated on each refresh.
- Use relative date filters, such as “last 30 days” or “expires in the next 60 days,” instead of hard-coded dates, so the same query stays correct week after week.
- Keep it lean. Pull only the fields the destination needs. Smaller result sets export faster and expose less personal data.
Manual export on a routine
For a weekly report or a one-off list, exporting the query and uploading the file is fine. Make it someone’s named task, keep the file in one shared location, and overwrite rather than accumulate copies. The weak points are obvious: it depends on a person remembering, the data is stale the moment it’s saved, and CSV files containing constituent data tend to end up in inboxes and desktops.
Check what Altru can schedule natively
Depending on your setup and permissions, Altru may let you run certain processes or exports on a schedule. Capabilities vary, so test this in your environment (or a sandbox, if you have one) rather than assuming. Even when a scheduled export works, you still need a way to move the file from Altru to wherever it’s needed, which is usually where the manual step creeps back in.
Use a connector that reads Altru queries
The cleanest no-code pattern is a tool that runs your saved Altru query and pushes the results to the destination for you. You keep building queries in Altru the way you already do, and the connector handles the moving.
Where Social Good fits
This is the problem Data Bridge is built for. It syncs the results of Altru queries to Google Sheets, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and other tools, so the people who need the data get it without anyone writing API code or exporting files by hand. Altru remains where the data lives and where you build the queries.
Quick answers
Can I call a URL and get my Altru query back as JSON?
Not that we know of through a documented, no-code route. Confirm with Blackbaud for your specific account, since API availability can change.
Is it safe to share query results through a spreadsheet?
It can be, if the sheet is restricted to the people who need it and the query only includes necessary fields. Treat it like any other copy of constituent data.
