It usually starts with a gift. A check arrives on business letterhead, someone at the front desk finds a matching name in Altru, and the payment goes onto a person’s record. Months later you realize “Riverside Dental” has been living as an individual constituent with a first name of “Riverside.” Or it’s the reverse: a sole proprietor was entered as an organization, and now they want a personal membership.
The short version: Altru does not give you a simple “change record type” switch for constituents, as far as we know. Individuals and organizations are built differently under the hood (individuals have first and last names, households, and spouse links; organizations have a single name, contacts, and relationships to people), so moving between them means building the correct record and moving the history over. If you’re not sure whether your version offers a conversion option, check with Blackbaud support or try it in a sandbox before you touch live data.
First, decide whether you really need to convert
Often, what looks like “this person should be an organization” is really “this person should be connected to an organization.” Before you rebuild anything, ask which of these you’re dealing with:
- The record was entered wrong from the start. It was always a business, a foundation, or a school, and it was keyed as a person. This is a true conversion.
- The person gives through their company sometimes. Keep the individual record, create (or find) the organization, and link them with a relationship such as employee or contact. Then each gift goes on whichever record actually paid.
- The person is the point of contact for a group. School trips, corporate outings, and tour operators belong on an organization record with the person attached as a contact. The person’s own visits and membership stay on their individual record.
Only the first case needs real cleanup. The other two are fixed by adding a relationship, which takes a couple of minutes and doesn’t disturb anyone’s history.
How to move a record to the right type
When you’ve confirmed the record is the wrong type, the general approach looks like this. The exact screens vary by Altru version and by your security rights, so treat this as a sequence rather than a click-path.
- Search for a correct record that already exists. It’s common to find the organization is already in the database, entered by someone else. If so, you’re cleaning up a duplicate, not creating anything.
- Create the record of the right type if there isn’t one. Copy over addresses, phone numbers, email, and any constituent codes or attributes you rely on for reporting.
- Write down what’s on the old record. Revenue, memberships, sales orders, event registrations, solicit codes, notes, and relationships. Run a quick query or print the record summary so you have a list to work from.
- Move or re-enter the history that matters. This is the hard part. Some items can be edited to point at a different constituent and some cannot, especially posted revenue. If a payment has already gone to your general ledger, check with your finance team before changing it, and test in a sandbox to see what Altru allows on your setup.
- Retire the old record. Mark it inactive, add a note that says where the real record lives (include the lookup ID), and remove it from mailings with a solicit code. Don’t delete it until you’re sure nothing still references it.
- Rebuild the relationships. If the old “individual” was actually a business, the real person behind it probably needs their own individual record, linked to the organization as a contact.
A note on merging
Merging is the usual tool for duplicates, but it is generally designed for two records of the same type. Don’t count on merging an individual into an organization, or the other way around. If a merge option appears for mixed types on your system, test it on a sandbox copy first and look closely at what happened to revenue, memberships, and addresses afterward.
Going the other way: organization to individual
The steps are the same in reverse, with one extra thing to watch: households. When you create the new individual record, decide whether they belong in an existing household or need a new one, and whether a spouse should be linked. Memberships are the most common reason this comes up. A small business owner who was set up as an organization member may really want a family membership with named cardholders, and that membership should live on the individual and their household.
Keeping it from happening again
- Give desk and gift-entry staff one rule: if the payment came from a business account or the name has “Inc.,” “LLC,” “Foundation,” or “School” in it, search organizations first.
- Run a monthly query for individual constituents whose last name or full name contains those words. It catches mistakes while they’re still small.
- Check new organization records for anything that looks like a personal name with no contacts attached. Those are often individuals entered on the wrong form.
- Note the fix on both records so the next person who searches doesn’t recreate the problem.
Quick answers
Will I lose giving history when I switch record types?
You can, if you delete the old record before moving its revenue. Keep the old record inactive until you’ve confirmed every gift and membership is where it belongs.
Can I just change the name fields and leave the record as an individual?
You can, but it tends to cause more trouble later. Salutations, household logic, and reports that split individuals from organizations will all treat the record as a person. Fixing the type properly once is usually less work than explaining odd results for years.
