A board seat usually comes with a complimentary or board-level membership. That’s easy to set up when the trustee is the person whose name sits on the membership. It gets awkward when the household’s membership has always been under one spouse, and the other spouse is the one who joined the board. Run a board report and the trustee is missing; look at the membership and nothing says “board” on the person who actually holds the seat.
The fix is mostly about deciding where each fact lives. In Altru, “this person is on our board” and “this household has a board membership” are two separate facts, and they belong in two separate places.
Keep board service on the board member’s own record
Board service is a fact about a person, not about a membership. Record it on the trustee’s constituent record, whatever your organization already uses for this: a constituency, an attribute, or both. If your setup allows start and end dates on that entry, use them to match the board term. That gives you a clean answer to “who is on the board right now” that doesn’t depend on whose name is on a membership card.
Doing it this way has a few practical benefits:
- Your board list stays correct even if the household lets the membership lapse or the spouse has no membership at all.
- Board giving, event invitations, and committee mailings can be pulled straight from the people who serve, not from a membership list.
- When a term ends, you close one entry on one record instead of hunting through membership history.
Make sure the two spouses are linked, either in the same household or with a spouse relationship, so anyone looking at one record can see the other.
Decide who should be the primary member
Next, look at the membership itself. You have two reasonable choices.
Option 1: Make the trustee the primary member
If the board membership is a new benefit tied to the seat, the cleanest approach is to issue it with the trustee as the primary member and the spouse as an additional member. Reports, renewal letters, and acknowledgments will then naturally point at the board member. This works well when the household has no long membership history, or when you’re willing to start the board membership as a new record.
Option 2: Keep the existing primary, add the trustee as a member
Many households have years of membership history under one spouse, and they care about their “member since” date. In that case, keep the existing primary member and make sure the trustee is listed as a member on that same membership. Then rely on the constituent-level board flag from the previous section for anything board-related. The membership carries the benefits; the trustee’s record carries the board role.
Whichever you choose, write it down and apply it the same way every time. A board list where half the memberships follow Option 1 and half follow Option 2, with no note explaining which, is hard to report on and harder to hand over to a new staff member.
Mark the membership itself as a board membership
You still want to be able to count and budget for board memberships, separate from paid ones. Common ways to do that:
- A dedicated board or complimentary level in your membership program, so the level name alone tells you why the membership exists.
- A consistent discount, comp reason, or note at the time the membership is added, so the revenue side is clear when finance asks why it was free.
Check whether your membership setup supports attributes or comments on the membership itself. If it does, add one that names the board member, so whoever sees “Board level” on a household where the primary isn’t a trustee knows which spouse it belongs to. If you’re unsure what your version supports, test it in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before building a process around it.
Build the board report from people, not memberships
The most common mistake is a query that starts from memberships and filters on the primary member. That’s exactly the query that drops a trustee whose spouse is primary.
Instead, start your query from constituents who have the board constituency or attribute, then bring in their membership information. Look at all members on the membership, not only the primary. That one change usually makes the “missing” trustees appear. Save it as a shared query so the development office, the executive office, and membership staff are all working from the same list.
It’s also worth a second check query that runs the other way: memberships at the board level where none of the members currently have the board flag. That catches comp memberships that should have been ended when a term finished.
Plan for term changes and life changes
- Term ends: close the board entry on the trustee’s record, then decide whether the household moves to a paid level at renewal or keeps an emeritus benefit. Put that decision in your board onboarding notes so it isn’t made case by case.
- Divorce or separation: the board role stays with the trustee. If the membership was under the other spouse, the trustee may need a new membership of their own. Constituent-level tracking makes this much easier to sort out.
- Death of a spouse: review the membership’s primary member and the addressee and salutation used on renewals, so mail doesn’t go to the wrong name.
- Card names: confirm whose name prints on the membership card. Trustees often expect their own name to be first, even when they’re not the primary member.
Quick answers
Can I just make the membership level “Board” and skip the constituent flag?
You can, but it will fail you the first time a trustee isn’t the primary member, or a household lets its membership lapse. The level tells you why a membership is free; the constituent flag tells you who serves.
Should board giving be credited to the trustee or the household?
That’s an organizational policy question more than an Altru one. Decide how your board giving expectation is measured, then record gifts and any recognition credit consistently so your board report matches what the board chair expects to see.
