A longtime member changes jobs, starts using a personal address, and buys timed tickets online with it. Six weeks later her renewal reminder goes to the old work inbox, which nobody reads anymore. She lapses. Her Altru record wasn’t missing the new address. It may even be sitting on the record. It just isn’t the primary email, and the primary email is the one your queries, exports, and email lists pull.
This article covers why the email someone types at checkout doesn’t always become their primary address, what you can control inside Altru, and a simple routine that keeps the newest online address in front.
Why the online email doesn’t automatically take over
When an online order or registration comes in, Altru has to decide whether the buyer is someone it already knows. Roughly three things can happen:
- It matches an existing constituent and the email is already on file. Nothing changes.
- It matches an existing constituent on name, address, or another field, but the email is new. Depending on your settings and how the transaction is processed, the new address may be added as an additional email, or it may not be stored on the constituent at all.
- It doesn’t match, and Altru creates a new constituent with the new email as primary. Now you have two records for one person, and the older one, which holds the membership, still points at the old address.
Which of these you get depends on your web form configuration, your matching rules, and how staff handle online transactions that need review. Don’t rely on memory or on another organization’s setup, since configurations differ. The reliable way to know is to test it: in a sandbox if you have one, or with a staff test constituent in production, place an online order using a new email for an existing record and see exactly where that address lands. If the result surprises you, ask Blackbaud support whether a setting controls it.
Decide what “latest wins” should mean for you
Before changing any records, agree on a rule. “The most recent online email becomes primary” sounds obvious, but it has edge cases worth naming:
- Gift purchases. A grandparent buys a membership for a family and enters their own email. You probably don’t want that to replace the member’s primary.
- Shared household addresses. One spouse buys tickets for both. Decide whether that email belongs on one record, both, or the household.
- Typos. A misspelled address entered at checkout can bounce your next renewal notice if it’s promoted automatically.
- Work vs. personal. Some people deliberately use a work address for tickets and a personal one for membership.
A workable starting rule: promote the new email to primary when the buyer is clearly the same person as the record holder, keep the old address on the record as a secondary or inactive email rather than deleting it, and leave gift and third-party purchases alone.
A weekly routine that keeps primaries current
1. Find records where the newest email isn’t the primary
Build a constituent query that returns people with more than one email address, along with each address, its type, whether it’s primary, and the date it was added or changed if those fields are available in your query view. Filter to records with an online transaction in the last week or two. Anyone whose newest address isn’t primary goes on the review list.
2. Find the duplicates the web created
Run a second query for constituents created in the same window whose only activity is a web transaction. Compare names and mailing addresses against existing records. These are your “didn’t match” cases, and they’re often the bigger problem because the membership history is on the other record.
3. Fix and merge
For single-record cases, mark the new address as primary and keep the old one as non-primary. For duplicates, merge into the record that holds the membership and giving history, then confirm the surviving record’s primary email is the newer one. Merges are hard to undo, so check the pair before you commit.
4. Close the loop with communications
If your renewal and acknowledgment lists come from queries, they’ll pick up the corrected primary on the next run. If you export lists to an outside email tool, make sure the next export happens after your cleanup, not before.
Reduce the cleanup at the source
- Review online transactions that need matching promptly, so staff choose the existing record instead of letting a new one be created.
- Ask members to sign in or look themselves up before buying, where your web setup allows it, so the order attaches to the right record.
- Add a line to renewal emails asking members to reply if the address is out of date. It’s low effort and catches people before they lapse.
Where Social Good fits
The query and merge routine above works with Altru alone. Where it gets slow is volume: once you’re reviewing dozens of near-duplicate records and stray email addresses every week, Deduper is built to find and fix duplicate constituent and email records in Altru, which covers the kind of web-created duplicates described in step 2.
Quick answers
Can Altru be set to always make the latest online email primary?
We’re not aware of a single switch that does this for every online transaction. Test your current behavior and confirm with Blackbaud support before assuming either way.
Should I delete the old email address?
Usually no. Keeping it as a non-primary address helps future matching, since the person may use it again at checkout.
