A garden membership gets used differently from a museum membership. Members come back often, sometimes weekly in spring, usually on a whim, and often without the plastic card that’s sitting in a kitchen drawer. A card that lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet fits that pattern far better than one that has to be printed and mailed. This guide covers what a wallet card for an Altru-based garden should do, what to decide before you launch, and where the work actually is.
Why gardens feel the pain of physical cards more than most
Three things make plastic or paper cards a poor fit for many botanical gardens:
- Visit frequency. A member who walks the grounds every Saturday morning will forget the card at some point. Each time, staff look the person up by name, which slows the line and makes the visit count harder to track.
- Seasonal spikes. Membership sales often cluster around spring bloom, a plant sale, or a holiday light show. Printing and mailing cards in those windows adds up fast, and new members frequently arrive before their card does.
- Benefits beyond the gate. Shop discounts, plant sale previews, class pricing, and reciprocal admission at other gardens all ask a member to prove status somewhere other than the main entrance.
A wallet card doesn’t change your membership program. It changes how reliably members can show proof of it.
What the card should carry
Keep the front of the card simple enough to read at a glance from a few feet away:
- Member name (and, for household memberships, whose card it is)
- Membership level
- Expiration date
- A barcode or QR code tied to the member’s Altru membership
- Your garden’s name and logo
The back of the pass is a good place for things people look up but rarely need at the gate: hours, guest pass rules, parking notes, and a link to renew. If you take part in a reciprocal admission network, check that network’s current rules on what partner gardens expect to see. Some partners look for a specific mark or wording on the card, and you want the digital version to satisfy that before members start traveling with it.
Decisions to make in Altru first
Most of the effort in a wallet card rollout is cleaning up and confirming membership data in Altru, not designing the pass.
Which number goes in the barcode
Your entry scanning, whether at a gate, a visitor center desk, or a shop register, needs to recognize whatever the barcode encodes. Confirm which membership card number or ID your current scanning and lookup process uses, and make sure the wallet pass uses the same one. Test it with a handful of real members before launch, not just a sample record.
How households are handled
Family and dual memberships are common at gardens. Decide whether each named cardholder gets their own pass or the household shares one. Separate passes are easier for couples who visit separately; one shared pass is simpler to manage. Either way, check that the cardholder names on the Altru membership are complete and spelled correctly, because those names end up on the pass.
Email addresses and duplicates
A wallet card is delivered by email or link, so it only reaches members with a usable email address on their constituent record. Run a membership query for active members with no primary email, and a separate check for duplicate constituents. Duplicates matter here: two records for the same person can mean a pass with the wrong level or an old expiration date.
What happens at renewal
Members will expect the card on their phone to show the new expiration date after they renew. Ask how a provider updates the pass when the Altru membership changes, and what a member sees if their membership lapses. A card that keeps showing an active status after expiration creates exactly the gate conversation you were trying to avoid.
Scanning at an outdoor entrance
Garden entrances aren’t always a desk under a roof. Before launch, walk the entry point with a phone-based pass and the device you plan to scan with:
- Try it in full sun. Screen glare can make codes hard to read, and members may need to turn up brightness.
- Check cell or Wi-Fi coverage at the gate. If coverage is weak, ask how your scanning setup behaves offline.
- Decide what staff do when a scan fails: look up by name in Altru, or wave the member through and note it. Write it down so seasonal volunteers handle it the same way.
Rolling it out
- Pilot with staff and board members who are also members.
- Send passes to new and renewing members first, since they’re already expecting something from you.
- Then send to all active members, with a short explanation and a note that plastic cards still work, if that’s true.
- Tell your shop, education, and events teams the date, so they accept the digital card everywhere a member benefit applies.
Whether to keep mailing physical cards is a separate decision. Some members, especially longtime ones, will want plastic. Offering it on request is a reasonable middle ground.
How Social Good can help
Our Digital Membership Cards create Apple Wallet and Google Wallet membership cards for Altru members, with Altru staying the place where membership data lives. The data checks above still apply, and they’re worth doing before any rollout.
Quick answers
Does Altru create wallet passes on its own?
We wouldn’t assume so. Altru manages memberships and card numbers, but if you’re unsure whether it offers native wallet passes today, ask Blackbaud support or check current Altru documentation before planning around it.
Do members need to download an app?
Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are built into most phones, so members usually just add the pass from a link.
