A member is deploying overseas for nine months. Another is starting chemotherapy and won’t be visiting for a while. A family is relocating for a semester and plans to come back. They all ask the same thing: can you pause my membership and pick it back up later?
It’s a reasonable request, and most institutions want to say yes. The catch is that Altru doesn’t give you an obvious “hold” or “pause” status for a membership, at least not one we’ve seen in standard configurations. If you aren’t sure about your own setup, look through your membership program settings and ask Blackbaud support directly before you build a workaround. In practice, though, most organizations handle holds with a few tools they already have: the expiration date, an attribute or note, and a query.
Two ways to handle a hold
There are really only two approaches. Pick one and use it every time, because a mix of both makes your records hard to read.
Option 1: Leave it active, extend it later
The membership stays exactly as it is during the hold. When the member comes back, you push the expiration date out by however long they were away.
- Good for: short holds, small numbers of requests, and members you trust not to keep visiting during the pause.
- Downside: while on hold, the member still looks fully active. Their card scans, they get member pricing, and they show up in your active member counts and mailings.
Option 2: Freeze the dates now, restore them later
At the start of the hold, you record how much time the member has left, then change the expiration date to the hold start date so the membership reads as expired. When they come back, you set a new expiration date that gives them the remaining time.
- Good for: longer holds, or when you need benefits to actually stop during the pause.
- Downside: the member will look lapsed. That can put them into lapsed-member appeals and renewal mailings, and it may affect retention numbers or “member since” history depending on how you report on continuous membership. Test how your reports treat this on one record before you adopt it.
Tracking the hold so it isn’t forgotten
Whichever option you choose, the hold has to be recorded somewhere you can query. A note buried on the constituent record is fine for context, but nobody will find it in six months.
- Create a constituent attribute for membership holds, with a start date, an end date, and a comment field for the reason. If your attribute setup only allows one date, use the end date and put the start date in the comment.
- Record the days remaining at the moment the hold begins. This is the number staff will need later, and it’s the one people forget to write down.
- Add a short note on the membership or constituent record explaining what was done (“Expiration moved from June 30 to Feb 1 for medical hold, 150 days remaining”). The next person to see an odd date will know it was deliberate.
- Build a query of constituents with a hold attribute whose end date falls in the next 30 days. Run it monthly and reach out to those members so the restore actually happens.
Keep held members out of the wrong mailings
This is where holds usually go sideways. A member on hold gets a “your membership has expired” letter or a renewal reminder and calls, irritated, because they were told their time was saved.
Add an exclusion for the hold attribute to the queries or selections behind your renewal notices, lapsed appeals, and any automated membership communications. If you used Option 1, you may also want to exclude held members from member-only event invitations, depending on your policy.
Things to decide before you offer holds
- Who qualifies. Medical leave, military deployment, and temporary relocation are common. Decide whether “I’m busy this summer” counts.
- Minimum and maximum length. A floor (say, one month) keeps it from becoming a daily adjustment. A ceiling keeps holds from turning into indefinite free extensions.
- How often. Once per membership term is a common limit.
- Who can approve and enter it. Limit date edits to the membership team. Front desk staff should log the request and hand it off, not change dates at the register.
- Installment or recurring payments. If the member pays over time, a pause on benefits doesn’t automatically pause the payments. Check how your payment schedules are set up in Altru, and test any change in a sandbox or on a test record first.
Put the answers in a one-page policy and share it with everyone who answers member calls, so the same request gets the same answer no matter who picks up.
When the whole site closes
Sometimes the hold isn’t for one member. It’s a renovation, a weather closure, or a temporary shutdown, and every active member is owed time back. Don’t edit those one by one. Pull a query of everyone who was active during the closure, decide on a single extension length, and update the expiration dates in bulk using whatever import or batch process your team normally uses for membership changes. Do a small test group first, confirm the dates and reports look right, then run the rest. Send one clear message telling members their new expiration date.
Quick answers
Will a held member’s card still work at the door?
With Option 1, yes, because the membership is still active. If benefits need to stop, use Option 2 so the record actually shows as expired.
Does moving the expiration date create a new membership transaction?
Editing the date on an existing membership is generally treated as a change to that record, not a new sale. Revenue shouldn’t move, but check with your finance team and run the change on a test record to see how it shows up in your reports.
