A longtime member mentions at the membership desk that she has left the museum something in her will. Two years later, an attorney’s letter arrives saying the estate is ready to distribute. Whether anyone can find her original conversation, her stated intent, or even the fact that she was a legacy prospect depends entirely on how you recorded it back then.
Altru is built mainly for admissions, memberships, and annual giving. As far as we know, it does not include a dedicated planned gift record (with gift vehicle, expected maturity, revocability, and so on) the way some of Blackbaud’s larger fundraising products do. If you’re not sure, confirm it with Blackbaud support for your environment before you design around it. The good news is that the pieces Altru does have, used consistently, give you a workable planned giving file for a small or mid-sized shop.
Separate the three stages first
Most of the mess in planned giving data comes from treating every stage the same way. Decide up front how you’ll record each one:
- Intention. Someone tells you they’ve included you, or ticks a box on a survey or reply card. No paperwork, no amount, fully revocable.
- Documented commitment. You have a copy of the will language, a beneficiary designation, or a signed intent form. Sometimes there’s an estimated value; often there isn’t.
- Realized gift. Money or property actually arrives from an estate, trust, retirement account, or insurance policy.
Only the third stage is revenue. The first two are relationship data, and they belong on the constituent record, not in your revenue totals.
Recording intentions and commitments on the constituent
Use an attribute for planned giving status
Constituent attributes are the most flexible tool here. Create one attribute category, something like “Planned giving status,” with a short code table of values such as:
- Expressed intent (undocumented)
- Documented: will/trust
- Documented: beneficiary designation
- Estimate on file
- Realized
- Withdrawn
Put the date you learned of it in the attribute’s date field and a one-line source in the comment (“told docent coordinator at volunteer lunch,” “returned legacy survey”). If you do have an estimated value, consider a second attribute for that rather than burying a number in a note, so it’s queryable later.
Use a constituency for your legacy society
If you run a named legacy society, add it as a constituency with a start date. Keep it separate from the status attribute: society membership is about recognition and permission to list someone’s name, while status is about what you actually know. Not every person with a documented gift wants public recognition, and some society members never send paperwork. Track anonymity or “do not list” preferences explicitly so your recognition lists pull cleanly.
Log the conversations
Record contacts with legacy donors as interactions on the constituent: visits, calls, thank-you letters, the annual society event. Planned gifts can take decades to mature, and the person who took the first call is rarely still on staff when the estate settles. Interactions are what let a successor pick up the relationship. Store a scan of any intent form or will excerpt as a constituent attachment if your security policies allow it, and keep sensitive details out of free-text fields that a wide group of users can see.
Should you enter a bequest as a pledge?
Generally, no. A revocable bequest intention isn’t a receivable, and putting it in as a pledge inflates outstanding balances, distorts revenue and pledge reports, and can trigger reminder letters to someone who never owes you a payment. Talk with your finance team or auditor before recording any planned gift as revenue; irrevocable arrangements can be treated differently, and that’s an accounting decision, not a database one.
When the gift actually arrives
When an estate distributes, a few things happen at once:
- Mark the donor deceased on their constituent record if you haven’t already, so they drop out of renewal mailings and membership solicitations. Check the household too, since a surviving spouse may still be an active member.
- Decide who gets credit. Some organizations create an organization record for the estate and record the gift there with a relationship to the deceased; others record it directly on the individual. Either can work. Pick one and write it down, because mixing approaches makes lifetime-giving reports unreliable.
- Use a distinct designation or appeal for bequest revenue so it’s easy to separate from annual fund in reports. Estate gifts are lumpy and can make a year’s giving look wildly different from the trend.
- Update the attribute to Realized, and keep the earlier entries. The history of when you first learned about the gift is useful for measuring how long your pipeline takes to mature.
- Acknowledge the family or executor, not the donor. Make sure your standard acknowledgment process can’t send a “thank you for your gift, [donor name]” letter to someone who has died.
Queries worth saving
Once the data is consistent, a handful of saved constituent queries cover most needs:
- Everyone with a planned giving status other than Withdrawn or Realized, for your stewardship list.
- Legacy society constituents who are not deceased and have not opted out of listing, for annual report recognition.
- Expressed-intent prospects with no interaction in the past year, so nobody falls through the cracks.
- Long-time members or consecutive-year donors with no planned giving attribute at all. Loyal members are often your best legacy prospects, and Altru’s membership history makes them easy to find.
If you rely on smart fields for things like lifetime giving, decide whether bequest revenue should be included and test the result in a sandbox before you report on it.
Quick answers
Can we record an estimated bequest value?
Yes, as an attribute or note on the constituent. Just keep it out of revenue unless finance tells you otherwise.
What if the donor changes their mind?
Set the status to Withdrawn with a date instead of deleting anything. That history matters if they come back to the idea later.
Do we need a separate planned giving system?
For a modest program with a few dozen legacy donors, the approach above is usually enough. If you’re managing complex trusts, annuities, or many large estates, it’s worth asking Blackbaud what fits better than forcing it into Altru.
