You’ve built a membership or donation form in Altru, it works, and now the web team wants it to sit inside your own site instead of sending visitors off to a page that looks nothing like the rest of it. The question sounds simple: where’s the embed code? The honest answer is that it depends on how your Altru web forms are delivered, and there are only a few ways to put one on your site. Each has tradeoffs.
First, figure out what you actually have
Altru web forms are hosted by Blackbaud, not by your web server. Each published form lives at its own URL. Before you promise anyone a page that looks native to your site, find out three things:
- The live URL of each form. Open the form as a visitor would, in a private browser window, and copy the address. That URL is what every option below starts from.
- Whether the form is allowed to load inside another site. Some hosted payment pages send security headers that block them from being framed by another domain. You can’t tell by looking; you have to test (more on that below).
- How much styling control you have. Altru lets you apply your own look to web forms to a degree, but the options are narrower than a page your designer builds. Check what your version allows before planning the page design around it.
If you can’t find a built-in “embed code” option for your forms, don’t assume you’ve overlooked it, and don’t assume it doesn’t exist either. Ask Blackbaud support what your account supports before your web team builds around a guess. In the meantime, the methods below work from nothing more than the form’s URL.
Option 1: Link to the form (the reliable default)
The simplest approach is a clear button on your page (“Join now,” “Give today,” “Buy tickets”) that links to the Altru form URL. It’s not technically an embed, but it’s the option least likely to break.
- It behaves well on phones, because the form loads as its own full page instead of inside a box.
- Payment security pages behave normally, since nothing is wrapped around them.
- You can add tracking parameters to the link so your analytics shows which page sent the visitor.
The cost is the handoff. Visitors leave your site, the branding shifts, and you lose most of your analytics visibility once they arrive at the form. Put a short line near the button telling people they’ll complete checkout on a secure page, so the change doesn’t look like a mistake.
Option 2: Wrap the form in an iframe
If you want the form to appear inside your page, an iframe is the usual route. Your web developer adds something like this to the page, with your form’s URL in place of the placeholder:
<iframe src="YOUR-ALTRU-FORM-URL" width="100%" height="1400" title="Membership form"></iframe>
Before you publish it, test carefully:
- Does it load at all? If you see a blank box or a “refused to connect” message, the form is blocking framing. No setting on your side will fix that; go back to Option 1.
- Height. An iframe has a fixed height. Forms grow when someone adds a second household member or opens an error message, and the extra content ends up in an awkward inner scroll bar. Pick a generous height and test the longest path through the form.
- Mobile. Check it on an actual phone. Nested scrolling inside an iframe is where most mobile complaints come from.
- Payment and confirmation. Run a real test transaction end to end. Make sure the payment step completes inside the frame and that the confirmation page appears where people expect it, not trapped in a small box.
- Browser privacy settings. Some browsers restrict cookies inside frames from another domain, which can interfere with carts or sessions. Test in Safari and in a private window, not just your own browser.
If all five pass, an iframe can work well. If any of them fail, a link is the better experience even though it looks less integrated.
Narrow the gap between your site and the form
Whichever method you choose, you can narrow the gap between your site and the form:
- Apply your logo, colors, and fonts to the Altru form as far as its styling options allow.
- Keep the form short. Every optional field you remove helps more than any design tweak.
- Use the same wording for membership levels and prices on your web page and on the form, so visitors recognize what they clicked.
- If your form’s confirmation settings let you add a message or link, point people back to a useful page on your site, like a “what to expect on your visit” page.
Keep a list of where every form lives
Embedded forms tend to multiply: one on the membership page, one in a campaign landing page, one buried in an old event page. When a form changes or gets retired, somebody has to find every place it was placed. Keep a simple spreadsheet with each form’s name, URL, purpose, and every page it appears on. Review it before each season and before any membership price change.
When the form itself is the limitation
Sometimes the testing above tells you the hosted form won’t fit the experience you need, especially on mobile or for a checkout that combines tickets, memberships, and donations. Social Good’s Checkouts is a branded, mobile-friendly checkout that can stand in for Altru web forms for tickets, memberships, and donations, supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, and writes the transactions back to Altru, so your reporting and records stay in Altru.
Quick answers
Can I paste an Altru form directly into my WordPress or Squarespace page?
Only through a link or an iframe. Page builders usually have an “embed” or “custom HTML” block that will accept the iframe code, but whether the form displays depends on the form allowing it.
Why does my embedded form show a blank box?
Most often the hosted page is blocking itself from being framed by another site. Linking to it instead is the reliable fix.
