Ask a member to show their card at the gate and watch what happens. One person pulls out a plastic card that expired two years ago. Another scrolls through email looking for a PDF. A third says “I’m under my wife’s name” and steps aside while staff search Altru. None of that is a technology failure exactly, but it adds up to a slow line and a member who feels like a stranger at a place they pay to support.
Digital membership cards, the kind that live in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet next to a boarding pass, solve a specific slice of that problem. This page covers what they are, what to decide before you offer them to Altru members, and what to ask any vendor (including us) before you commit.
What a wallet card actually changes
A wallet card is not the same as emailing members a picture of their card. An emailed image or PDF gets buried in an inbox. A wallet pass sits in an app the member already opens to pay for coffee or board a flight, and it is there without a signal or a login.
For a museum, zoo, aquarium, garden, or historic site, the practical gains are fairly concrete:
- Members carry the card without thinking about it. Phones come along on every visit; wallets with plastic cards often stay in the car.
- Fewer printed cards to produce and mail. You may still want plastic for some members, but you are no longer printing and mailing one for every join and renewal by default.
- Faster check-in. A barcode on a phone can be scanned the same way a printed card can, so staff skip the name search.
- A visible reminder of membership. Seeing the card in their wallet is a small, regular nudge that they belong to your organization.
Decisions to make before rollout
Which number goes on the card
The barcode has to match whatever your admissions staff scan or look up in Altru. Decide which identifier you use today for member lookup and confirm the wallet card carries that same value. If your printed cards and your digital cards carry different numbers, the front desk will notice within a day.
Households and named cardholders
Family and dual memberships are where card programs get messy. Decide whether each named cardholder gets their own card, or whether one card represents the whole membership. Also decide what the card displays: primary member only, all cardholders, membership level, number of admissions, expiration date. Look at how your memberships and households are actually structured in Altru before you settle this, since the card can only reflect what the record holds.
What happens at renewal and expiration
Membership dates change constantly. Ask how a member’s wallet card reflects a renewal, an upgrade, or a lapse, and what the member has to do, if anything, to see the new expiration date. This is the question that separates a card program that stays accurate from one that quietly drifts out of date.
How members receive the card
A common approach is to include the card link in the join or renewal confirmation, and to send existing members a separate “add your card to your phone” message. Plan a one-time launch email to your current membership, and add a short line to your front-desk script: “Did you know you can add your card to your phone?”
Members who want plastic
Not everyone has a smartphone, and some members simply prefer a physical card. Keep a printed option available. Wallet cards work best as the default, not as the only choice.
Reciprocal programs
If you participate in a reciprocal admission network, check that network’s current rules on digital cards. Some partner sites expect to see specific information or a logo on the card. Confirm with the network directly rather than assuming a digital card will be accepted everywhere a printed one is.
Does Altru do this on its own?
Altru holds your membership records, supports printed membership cards, and stores the data a card program depends on. We are not aware of a native Apple Wallet or Google Wallet card feature in Altru, but features change, so confirm with Blackbaud support for your environment before you shop. If Altru does not cover it for you, the card has to come from a tool that reads your Altru membership data, which means data accuracy in Altru matters even more. Duplicate constituents and stale addresses become duplicate or misdirected cards.
Questions to ask any vendor
- Does the card read directly from Altru, or from an export someone has to run?
- How does the card reflect renewals, upgrades, and lapsed memberships?
- Will the barcode scan at our existing entry points, with our existing lookup process?
- How are household and multi-cardholder memberships handled?
- Can we brand the card with our logo and colors?
- How are cards delivered to new members and to our current membership?
- What does a member do if they get a new phone?
Where Social Good fits
Our Digital Membership Cards product issues Apple Wallet and Google Wallet membership cards for Altru members, with Altru remaining where your membership data lives. Bring the questions above to a demo and we will answer them against your own membership setup.
Quick answers
Do we have to stop printing cards?
No. You can keep printed cards as an option and make the wallet card the default.
Do members need to download an app?
Wallet cards open in Apple Wallet on iPhone or Google Wallet on Android, so members do not need a separate app from you. Some Android users may need to install Google Wallet first if it is not already on their phone.
