Auto-renewal is the cheapest retention tool a membership program has. A member on auto-renew doesn’t have to remember a date, find the right web form, or decide all over again whether the museum is worth it this year. The hard part is getting people to say yes in the first place, and most of that comes down to when you ask, how you ask, and whether members trust the charge they’ll see next year.
What follows is what tends to move the number for organizations running memberships in Blackbaud Altru, along with the places where you’ll need to confirm how your own setup behaves.
Start by knowing your real baseline
Before changing anything, build a membership query that shows active members, whether each one is set to auto-renew, and how they joined or last renewed (online, at the desk, by mail, gift). Split it by membership level too. You’ll usually find that the rate is very different by channel. Online joiners may opt in at one rate, desk sales at a much lower one, and gift memberships almost never.
That split tells you where to spend effort. A low desk rate is a training and script problem. A low online rate is a form design problem. Save the query so you can rerun it monthly and see whether changes are working.
One caveat: how auto-renewal is stored and processed in Altru depends on your payment setup and how your membership programs are configured. If you aren’t sure which fields or records mark a member as auto-renewing, or how stored cards are charged at renewal, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before you build reports or promises around it.
Ask at the moment of joining, not later
The easiest yes is at checkout, when the card is already out. Asking afterward (“Would you like to set up auto-renew?”) in an email months later gets a fraction of the response, because now it’s a separate task.
- Online: Put the auto-renew option directly next to the payment fields with one plain sentence about what it means. Whether your Altru web form lets you pre-select the option or change its wording is worth checking on your own form; if it can’t, make the surrounding text do the work.
- At the desk: Give staff one sentence to say, not a pitch. Something like: “Want us to renew this automatically next year so your card never lapses? We’ll email you before we charge it.” Then make the opt-in a required question in their process, so it’s never skipped on a busy line.
- At renewal: Every manual renewal is a second chance. Members who just went through the hassle of renewing by hand are often the most receptive.
Remove the reasons people hesitate
When members decline auto-renew, it’s rarely because they plan to quit. It’s because they’re worried about being charged without warning, or about not being able to cancel. Address both directly.
- Promise a reminder, and keep the promise. Send a notice ahead of each automatic charge with the date, amount, level, and how to change or cancel. Several states have automatic renewal laws that require clear disclosure and advance notice for some kinds of subscriptions. Have your counsel or finance office confirm what applies to you.
- Make cancelling easy and say so. “Cancel anytime by replying to your reminder email or calling the membership office” lowers resistance more than any discount.
- Be clear about price changes. If you raise rates, tell auto-renewing members before their next charge. Surprises here are what turn a happy member into a chargeback.
Give a small reason to opt in
An incentive doesn’t need to be expensive. Options that work well for cultural organizations include a one-time guest pass, a gift shop discount, a price lock for the first renewal, or an extra month added to the term. Keep it modest and tied to the membership, and decide upfront how it will be recorded in Altru so staff fulfill it consistently.
Don’t lose the members you already enrolled
Auto-renew adoption is only half the picture. The other half is failed charges. Cards expire, get replaced after fraud, or are declined. Each failure quietly turns an auto-renewing member into a lapsed one.
- Run a query each month for auto-renewing members whose renewal is coming up, and contact them early if you know the stored card is likely out of date.
- Build a short follow-up sequence for declines: a same-week email with a way to update payment, then a call for higher-level members.
- Ask your payment processor whether automatic card updating is available on your account. It varies, so confirm rather than assume.
Make it easy for members to opt in on their own
Some members will only switch when they’re looking at their own membership: checking when it expires, adding a household member, or printing a card. Giving them a place to see their status and renew online without calling the office creates more of those moments.
That’s where Social Good’s Membership Portal fits: members can view their status, renew, upgrade, and update their profile online against live Altru data, which means fewer renewals depend on a staff member being available to help.
Quick answers
Should auto-renew be the default?
Pre-selecting it can raise adoption, but it also raises the risk of complaints and may run into disclosure rules. If you do it, make the option and the reminder policy impossible to miss.
What about gift memberships?
Don’t push auto-renew on the giver. Instead, ask the recipient to set it up when the gift membership comes up for renewal.
