“I can’t get into Altru” can mean two very different problems. One is a staff member who can’t sign in to the Altru application itself. The other is a member or donor who can’t log in to their online account on your website to renew or buy tickets. The fixes don’t overlap much, so start by figuring out which one you’re dealing with.
Staff passwords: it’s a Blackbaud ID question
Staff sign in to Altru with a Blackbaud ID, the same login Blackbaud uses across its cloud products. That has one big consequence: your Altru administrator can’t see or set anyone’s password. They can grant, change, or remove a user’s access to your Altru database, but the password belongs to the person’s Blackbaud ID, and resetting it happens on Blackbaud’s sign-in page.
The basic reset:
- Go to the Blackbaud sign-in page you normally use to reach Altru.
- Use the forgot-password option and enter the email address tied to your Blackbaud ID.
- Open the reset email and follow the link to set a new password. Use the newest email if you requested more than one, since older links may no longer work.
If your organization has set up single sign-on so staff log in with their work accounts, the password isn’t Blackbaud’s at all. In that case the reset goes through your own IT team or identity provider, and the Blackbaud forgot-password flow won’t help. If you’re not sure whether you use single sign-on, look at what happens after you type your email on the sign-in page: being redirected to your organization’s login screen is the giveaway.
When the reset email never shows up
This is where most of the frustration lives. Work through these in order before opening a support case:
- Check the address. The email goes to the address on the Blackbaud ID, which isn’t always the person’s current work email. Staff who changed names, changed domains, or were set up with a personal address years ago often hit this.
- Check junk and quarantine. Many organizations run mail filters that quarantine automated messages before they reach the inbox. Ask IT to search the quarantine and to allow mail from Blackbaud so future resets and verification codes come through.
- Wait a few minutes, then request once. Requesting five resets in a row creates five emails, and often only the latest link still works.
- Try a private browser window. Old cookies and saved sessions can cause odd loops on the sign-in page even after a successful reset.
If none of that works, or the person has lost access to the email address or their two-step verification device, contact Blackbaud support. Those are identity checks your Altru administrator can’t bypass, and you shouldn’t try to work around them by sharing someone else’s login.
A note on departed and seasonal staff
Shared front-desk logins tend to cause reset problems later, because nobody remembers whose email the account is tied to. Give each person their own Blackbaud ID, and when someone leaves, remove their Altru access rather than handing the login to a replacement. It’s cleaner for security and for your audit trail of who processed which transaction.
Member and patron passwords: your website accounts
If the person locked out is a member or donor, the problem sits with the online accounts patrons use on your Altru-powered web forms. Their forgot-password email is typically sent on your organization’s behalf, so delivery can depend partly on your own setup.
Common causes worth checking:
- The email on the constituent record is wrong or outdated. Look up the constituent and confirm the address they’re typing matches what Altru has.
- Duplicate constituent records. If the same email address sits on two records, the patron may be resetting the password for an account that isn’t linked to their membership. They log in successfully and then see no membership. Merging the duplicates is usually the real fix.
- Your sending configuration. If several patrons report missing reset emails at once, the issue probably isn’t on their end. Review the from-address and email settings used for your web forms, and ask IT whether your domain’s email authentication allows Blackbaud to send on your behalf.
- Spam folders. Patron reset emails get filtered just like staff ones. Telling a patron to check junk solves more calls than you’d expect.
Whether staff can directly set or clear a patron’s web account password depends on how your Altru web accounts are set up. Test it in your sandbox or ask Blackbaud support, rather than promising a patron something at the desk you haven’t confirmed.
Cutting down the volume
A few habits make password tickets much rarer:
- Write a one-page internal note: staff resets go through Blackbaud sign-in (or IT, if you use single sign-on), and Blackbaud support handles lost verification devices.
- Give front-desk and membership staff a short script for patron lockouts: confirm the email on file, check for duplicates, then send them to the forgot-password link.
- Run a periodic query for constituents sharing the same email address and clean them up before they turn into login problems.
- Keep Blackbaud on your mail filter’s allow list so reset emails, verification codes, and system notifications keep arriving.
Quick answers
Can an Altru admin reset another staff member’s password?
No. Admins manage access to the database, but staff passwords belong to each person’s Blackbaud ID and are reset through Blackbaud sign-in or, with single sign-on, through your IT team.
Why does a patron’s reset work but they still can’t see their membership?
They likely reset the password on a duplicate record. Find the records sharing that email and merge them.
