The year-end appeal list went to the mail house on Monday. On Wednesday, the development director forwards three names: a new board member, a lapsed donor who just called, and a family whose address was wrong. Can you just add them to the appeal mailing in Altru? And while you’re in there, what happens to the mailing now that you’ve cleaned up the query it was built from?
The honest answer depends on one thing: whether the mailing’s recipient list is still open or has already been finalized. This article walks through both cases, what you can reasonably do in each, and how to set up the next appeal so late additions stop being a scramble.
How an appeal mailing gets its list
In Altru, an appeal mailing pulls its recipients from a selection, which usually comes from a constituent query. That’s worth keeping in mind, because it explains most of the confusion:
- The query is a live definition (“donors who gave in the last 24 months, with a valid address, not marked do-not-solicit”).
- The selection is what the mailing reads. A dynamic selection re-runs the query criteria; a static selection is a frozen snapshot of IDs from when it was saved.
- The mailing itself, once processed or finalized, records who was actually included. That record is what ties recipients to the appeal for response tracking.
So “updating the appeal list” can mean three different things: changing the query, refreshing the selection, or changing who the mailing recorded as recipients. Only the first two are routinely editable, and only before the mailing is finalized do they reliably flow through.
Case 1: The mailing hasn’t been finalized yet
This is the easy one. If you haven’t processed the mailing, you can usually change the source and let it pick up the new people.
- Find out why the person is missing. Open their constituent record and check them against your query criteria. Common culprits are a solicit code, an inactive or seasonal address, a deceased or inactive flag, or a household rule that sends the piece to the head of household instead.
- Fix the record, not just the list. If the address was wrong, correct it on the constituent. If they were wrongly excluded by a solicit code, remove or adjust the code. That way the next appeal gets it right too.
- If they don’t fit the criteria but should be included anyway, don’t bend the query. Put them in a small static selection or query (for example, “Year-end appeal manual adds”) and combine it with the main list, or add an “include these IDs” condition. Name it so someone a year from now understands what it is.
- Refresh and re-check the count. If the mailing uses a dynamic selection, the change should appear when the mailing is processed. If it uses a static selection, you’ll need to re-save it or point the mailing at a new one.
Run a quick before-and-after count. If you added three people and the count jumped by forty, something in your query edit was broader than you meant.
Case 2: The mailing is already finalized
Here’s where expectations need adjusting. Once a mailing has been processed, editing the underlying query or selection generally does not rewrite who that mailing included. The mailing’s recipient record reflects the moment it ran. We’re not aware of a supported way to append individuals to a finalized appeal mailing, but this is the kind of behavior worth confirming in a sandbox or with Blackbaud support before you tell your development team it can’t be done.
What you can do instead:
- Run a small supplemental mailing. Create a second mailing under the same appeal, sourced from a static selection of just the late additions. Give it a clear name (for example, “Year-end appeal, late adds”). Because it sits under the same appeal, gifts and reporting still roll up to the appeal, and you can see the add-ons separately if anyone asks.
- Credit responses to the appeal directly. A person doesn’t have to be on the mailing for their gift to be coded to the appeal. When the check comes in, staff apply the appeal on the revenue record as usual. The trade-off is that your response-rate reporting for the mailing won’t count them, since they weren’t technically mailed.
- Leave the mailing alone and fix the data. If the issue was a bad address or a wrong solicit code, correct the constituent record now. The finalized mailing stays historically accurate (it shows what was actually sent), and future appeals benefit.
Resist the urge to delete and rebuild a finalized mailing just to slip in a few names. If any revenue has already been tied to it, or if the mail house has already used the export, you’ll create a mismatch between what Altru says was sent and what actually went out.
When the question is really “how do I sync my changes back?”
Sometimes the list was edited outside Altru. Someone exported the mailing to a spreadsheet, the development team crossed names off and added a few by hand, and now the spreadsheet is the “real” list. Altru has no idea those edits happened.
Treat the spreadsheet as a to-do list, not a source of truth:
- For every name removed, find out why. If it’s “do not mail this person appeals,” that belongs on the constituent record as a solicit code, or it will happen again.
- For every name added, check whether a constituent already exists before creating one. Hand-added names are a reliable source of duplicate records.
- For every address corrected, update the constituent’s address in Altru.
- Then decide, using the two cases above, whether the mailing itself needs a supplemental piece.
Setting up the next appeal so this is easier
- Build in a manual-adds selection from day one. An empty static selection that the main query includes gives the development team a sanctioned place to put “please include” names before the mailing runs.
- Set a list-freeze date and share it. Tell the development director and board liaison the date the list locks. Changes after that go into a supplemental mailing, not the main one.
- Review the list inside Altru, not in a spreadsheet, where possible. If reviewers need a spreadsheet, have them mark changes in a column rather than editing rows, so you can work through them one by one.
- Keep a naming convention for appeals, mailings, and selections. Six months later, “Year-end 2026, main” and “Year-end 2026, late adds” will save someone an afternoon.
Quick answers
If I change the query, does the finalized mailing update?
Generally, no. The query and selection feed the mailing at processing time. After that, the mailing reflects what was sent. Test in a sandbox if you need certainty for your setup.
Can a gift count toward the appeal if the donor wasn’t on the mailing?
Yes. Staff can apply the appeal on the revenue record. It just won’t appear in that mailing’s response numbers.
Should I add someone to the appeal by hand on their constituent record?
Only if you understand how your reports use that link. A supplemental mailing is usually cleaner, because it records when and how the person was actually solicited.
