Holiday gift memberships are one of the best acquisition tools a museum, zoo, or garden has. A discount that applies only when someone buys a membership for someone else brings in new households without simply cutting the price your current members pay to renew. The catch is in the setup. A promotion attached to a membership level usually doesn’t know whether the buyer is keeping the membership or giving it away, so the “gift only” part has to come from how you structure things around it.
Below is what to check in Altru, the workarounds that hold up in practice, and how to keep the discount from leaking into regular renewals.
Start by confirming what your Altru setup can do
Altru records gift memberships: the purchaser and the recipient are tracked as different constituents. Membership discounts and promotions are generally set up against membership programs and levels. What isn’t clear-cut is whether a promotion can be told to apply only when the transaction is a gift. We haven’t seen a dependable built-in switch for that, and behavior may differ depending on whether the sale happens at the desk, by phone, or on a web form.
Before you plan a campaign around it, test it. Set up the promotion in a sandbox or on a test level, then process three transactions: a gift purchase, a new membership for the buyer, and a renewal. If the discount applies to all three, you need one of the workarounds below. If you’re still unsure, ask Blackbaud support directly how promotions interact with gift memberships in your version.
Workaround 1: a separate gift web form
For online sales, this is the cleanest option. Build a membership web form used only for gifts, set it up so the purchaser enters recipient details, and attach the promotion (or a discounted price) to that form alone. Then:
- Link to it only from your gift campaign pages and emails, not from your main “Join” or “Renew” pages.
- Label it plainly (“Give a membership”) so members renewing for themselves don’t wander onto it looking for a deal.
- Keep your standard join and renewal forms at full price with no promotion attached.
This doesn’t stop someone from buying a “gift” for themselves at the discount. It does make that the exception rather than the default, and the next section shows how to catch it.
Workaround 2: dedicated gift levels or a gift program
Some organizations create gift-specific membership levels, such as “Family – Gift,” with their own price. The discount is built into the level rather than being a promotion that someone has to apply. That’s easier to report on, because every gift sale shows up under a level you can filter by.
The tradeoffs are real:
- Renewals. Decide in advance what a gift level renews into. Usually you want the recipient to renew at the standard level and full price next year, and your renewal setup and communications need to reflect that.
- Clutter. Each extra level adds to the desk’s pick list and to your reporting. Keep the number small, and retire seasonal levels after the campaign ends.
- Benefits. Make sure gift levels carry exactly the same benefits as their standard counterparts, or the recipient will have a different experience at the door.
Workaround 3: desk and phone rules
At the front desk or over the phone, the staff member decides whether a promotion gets applied. If the system won’t enforce a gift-only rule, the rule needs to be written down where staff can see it:
- The gift discount applies only when the recipient is a different person from the buyer, at a different household.
- Recipient name and address are required before the discount is applied.
- Renewals and the buyer’s own membership are never discounted under this promotion, even when they’re bought in the same transaction.
Mixed transactions are where most mistakes happen. Think of a buyer who renews their own membership and buys two gifts in one go. Spell out that case in training.
Audit after the fact
Whichever approach you choose, run a membership query once a week during the campaign. Pull transactions that used the gift promotion or gift level, and show both the purchaser and the recipient. Look for:
- Rows where the purchaser and the recipient are the same constituent, or in the same household.
- Renewals that carry the gift discount.
- Gift memberships with no recipient contact information, which you’ll need to deliver the card and renewal notices later.
Catching these mid-campaign lets you fix the form wording or retrain staff while the promotion is still running, instead of discovering the leak in the year-end revenue review.
Plan for the second year
A gift discount only pays off if recipients renew. Before launch, decide how gift recipients will be invited to renew. Who receives the notice: the recipient, the original giver, or both? At what price? Write it into your renewal communications plan now, while you still remember why those memberships exist.
Quick answers
Can a promo code alone restrict a discount to gifts?
A code limits who knows about the discount, not what it applies to. Pair it with a gift-only form or gift levels if you need real control.
Should gift recipients count as new members?
Usually yes for acquisition reporting. Just keep the purchaser’s credit visible as well, so you can thank the giver and report gift revenue separately.
