“Dr. and Mrs. Alvarez” on the envelope, “Dear Maria and Tom” inside the letter. Every development office has those preferences somewhere: an old donor database, a gala spreadsheet, a board member’s handwritten notes. Getting them into Altru in bulk, rather than retyping them one constituent at a time, takes more planning than most imports, because addressees and salutations behave differently from ordinary fields like email or phone.
This guide covers how Altru thinks about these values, how to prepare a file, what to test before you load anything real, and what to do if your import can’t set them the way you hoped.
How Altru stores addressees and salutations
In Altru, an addressee or salutation isn’t a single text box on the constituent record. It’s a name format: a type (for example, a formal addressee or an informal salutation) paired with a value. A constituent can have several, one per type, and some formats are calculated from the name fields while others are typed in by hand as custom text.
That matters for importing in two ways:
- The type has to exist first. Your file needs to point each value at a name format type that’s already set up in Altru. Decide your types and spell them exactly as they appear in your configuration before you build the spreadsheet.
- Calculated and custom values are different things. If a constituent’s formal salutation can be built from title and last name, you may not need to import it at all. Importing is mostly worth it for the exceptions: couples who use different last names, honorifics like “The Honorable,” nicknames, or “Friends at the Smith Family Foundation.”
Step 1: Decide what actually needs importing
Before touching the import tools, sort your source data into two piles.
- Records where the default format is already correct. If Altru will produce “Mr. James Lee” and “Dear Mr. Lee” from the name fields, leave them alone. Importing an identical custom value just creates something staff have to maintain later when a name changes.
- Records with a genuine custom preference. These are the ones to load. On most legacy files this is a much smaller group than the full list, which also makes the import easier to check.
It’s also worth confirming your name format defaults are set the way you want for new records. Fixing the defaults first often shrinks the custom pile considerably.
Step 2: Build a clean file
Keep the file narrow. Each row should include:
- The Altru lookup ID for the constituent, so the import updates the existing record rather than creating a duplicate. Matching on name alone is how people end up with two Maria Alvarezes.
- The name format type, matching your Altru configuration exactly.
- The value, typed the way it should print: capitalization, punctuation, and “and” versus “&” all carry through to letters and receipts.
If one constituent has both an addressee and a salutation to load, your import layout will determine whether that’s one row with two pairs of columns or two separate rows. Check that against the import field list before you format the whole file.
Households and couples
Joint addressees (“Mr. and Mrs. Tom Alvarez”) are where imports most often go sideways. Decide whether the value belongs on the household record, on one individual, or on both, and be consistent. If your acknowledgments and renewals pull names from the household, loading a joint addressee onto only one spouse won’t show up where you expect.
Step 3: Test before you trust it
Altru’s import process supports updating existing constituent records, but whether name format types and values are mappable fields in your environment is something to confirm rather than assume. The field list available to you depends on your Altru version and configuration. Here’s how to find out safely:
- Pick five to ten constituents with known custom preferences, including at least one household.
- Run the import with just those rows, in a sandbox if you have one.
- Open each record and check that the new name format landed on the right type, didn’t overwrite something it shouldn’t have, and didn’t create a duplicate format of the same type.
- Run a test letter, receipt, or export that uses those name formats and read the output. That’s the real proof.
If the name format fields aren’t available in the import, or the results aren’t what you expected, ask Blackbaud support directly whether your version can import name formats and which import type to use. It’s a quick question for them and saves a lot of trial and error.
If bulk import isn’t an option
Sometimes the answer is that the import won’t do exactly what you need. A few realistic fallbacks:
- Lean on defaults. Tighten your name format defaults so the calculated values are right for the majority, then hand-enter only the true exceptions.
- Prioritize by audience. Enter custom formats first for major donors, board members, and long-time members, the people most likely to notice a wrong salutation. Everyone else can follow over time.
- Split the work. A sorted spreadsheet and a few volunteers or staff with clear instructions can work through a few hundred records faster than you’d think.
Check the results afterward
Once the load is done, build a constituent query that returns the lookup ID, name, and the name format types you imported. Compare it against your source file for missing rows or mismatched values. Spot-check households specifically. Then save that query: it’s handy for periodic cleanup, such as finding salutations that still reference a deceased spouse or a name that has since changed.
Addressees and salutations are small fields, but they’re the first thing a donor reads. A careful, tested import, or a deliberate manual plan when importing isn’t possible, is worth the extra afternoon.
