A major gift officer adds a step to a prospect plan: “Call after the gala, follow up on the naming opportunity.” The expected date is three weeks out. Three weeks later, nobody calls, because nothing in front of them said it was due. The step is still sitting in the plan, technically planned, practically forgotten.
People coming to Altru from Raiser’s Edge often expect a reminder to pop up or land in their inbox for upcoming actions. As far as we know, Altru doesn’t offer that kind of per-step notification out of the box. If you think your version might, check with Blackbaud support or test it in a sandbox before building around its absence. Assuming it isn’t there, the reliable approach is to make upcoming steps impossible to miss using the tools Altru does have: queries, lists, and a routine.
Start with clean step data
No reminder method works if the steps themselves are vague. Before building anything, agree on a few rules with the people who own prospect plans:
- Every planned step gets an expected date. A step with no date can’t show up on a “due soon” list.
- Every step has an owner. If steps default to the plan’s primary manager, say so. If they can be assigned to someone else (a director, a board member’s staff contact), make sure that field is actually filled in.
- Completed steps get marked completed. Otherwise the overdue list fills up with work that was done months ago, and people stop trusting it.
- Status means something. Decide what “planned,” “pending,” and “completed” (or whatever your statuses are) mean at your organization, and keep it short.
Build an “upcoming steps” query
This is the core of the workaround. In Altru’s query area, look for a source view that covers prospect plan steps or the interactions tied to prospect plans. Field names vary, so poke around in a sandbox or ask a colleague who has built prospect reporting before. You want output that includes:
- Constituent name and lookup ID
- Prospect plan name
- Step objective or summary
- Expected date
- Step owner (fundraiser)
- Status
Then filter for steps that are not completed and whose expected date falls within a window, such as the next 14 days. Build a second version, or adjust the filter, for steps whose expected date has already passed and are still open. That overdue list is often more useful than the upcoming one.
If each fundraiser should see only their own work, either build one query per owner or include the owner field so the list can be sorted and split. Save the queries with clear names, something like “Prospect steps due next 14 days” and “Prospect steps overdue,” so nobody has to guess which one to run.
Turn the query into a reminder
A query only reminds someone if they look at it. A few ways to get it in front of people:
Make it the Monday meeting agenda
Many development teams already hold a weekly prospect meeting. Run the overdue and upcoming queries right before it and walk through them owner by owner. This is low-tech, but it works because it creates accountability, and it costs nothing to set up.
Put it where people already look
If your Altru setup allows you to add saved queries or lists to a shared page or a user’s home area, do that for each fundraiser. How much you can customize depends on your configuration and security roles, so check with your Altru administrator.
Push dates into a calendar
Export the upcoming-steps query to CSV and import it into Outlook or Google Calendar. This gives real pop-up reminders, but it’s a snapshot: if a step’s date changes in Altru, the calendar entry won’t update. Treat it as a weekly refresh, not a permanent sync, and keep Altru as the place where steps are actually updated.
Send a weekly digest
One person (often a prospect researcher or development coordinator) runs the queries every Monday morning and emails each fundraiser their list. It’s manual, but it takes minutes once the queries exist, and it’s the closest thing to an automatic reminder without extra tools.
Things that make this break
- Owners who change. When a fundraiser leaves, their open steps need reassigning. Run the queries filtered on that person before their last day.
- Steps logged after the fact. Some staff record a step only once it’s done. That keeps history accurate but means nothing is ever “upcoming.” Encourage entering the next step at the same time the current one is marked complete.
- Too wide a window. A 90-day “upcoming” list gets long enough that people skim it. Two weeks is usually enough to act on.
Quick answers
Can Altru email a fundraiser automatically when a step is due?
We aren’t aware of a built-in per-step notification. Confirm with Blackbaud support for your version; until then, a saved query plus a weekly routine is the dependable option.
Should overdue steps be moved forward or left alone?
Update the expected date only when the plan actually changes. Quietly pushing dates hides the fact that work slipped, which is exactly what the overdue list is there to show.
