December is when a lot of donors finally act on the appeal letter they set aside in October. Many of them will do it on a phone, often late in the evening during the last few days of the month. Your job in Altru is to make sure that gift is easy to give, lands in the right fund and appeal, gets the right date, and produces a receipt the donor can use at tax time.
None of that is complicated, but it all has to be in place before Thanksgiving. Below is the order we would tackle it in, from early November through January cleanup.
Early November: decide what you are asking for
Before anyone touches a web form, settle three things with your development lead:
- Where the money goes. General operating, a specific project, an animal care fund, a collections fund? Fewer choices usually means more completed gifts. If you offer a dropdown of eight designations, expect some donors to stall.
- How you will track the campaign. Use whatever coding your Altru setup already relies on (appeals, designations, or a similar source field) so year-end gifts can be pulled into one report. Create the codes now, not on December 20.
- Suggested amounts. Pick amounts that match your actual donor file. Run a query of last year’s December online gifts and look at the common amounts before you guess.
Mid-November: build and test the giving page
Set up a dedicated donation form for the campaign rather than reusing the year-round one. That way the appeal coding is attached automatically and you are not relying on donors (or staff) to pick it.
Then test it the way a donor will use it:
- On a phone. Open the link from an email on an actual phone, not a desktop browser shrunk down. Count the taps and fields between “Donate” and “Thank you.”
- With a real card. Make a small gift, then find it in Altru. Confirm the constituent record, the designation, the appeal or source code, and the payment all look right.
- As an existing donor. Give with the name and email of someone already in your database. Check whether it matched the existing record or created a new one. Duplicates created in December are the ones that cause the most confusion in January.
- With a tribute, if you offer one. Make sure the honoree or memorial information is captured somewhere staff can see it.
If something about the form’s behavior is unclear (how matching works, what fields are required), test in a sandbox if you have one or ask Blackbaud support before the campaign launches. It is much easier to get a clear answer in November.
The receipt is part of the gift
Donors giving at year-end usually care about the tax letter more than at any other time. Review your online acknowledgment email now:
- Your organization’s legal name and tax status language, as your finance team or advisor wants it stated.
- The gift amount and date.
- Clear wording if any portion of the gift received goods or services in return. A pure donation and a gala ticket need different language.
- A real thank-you, not just a transaction confirmation.
If your acknowledgments go out from Altru on a schedule rather than immediately, consider how that looks to a donor on December 31 who is waiting for proof of their gift.
The last week of December: watch the dates
The calendar year cutoff is where online giving gets messy. A few things to confirm ahead of time:
- Which date your gift records carry. For online gifts, check how late-night transactions on December 31 are dated in Altru and in your payment processor, including time zone. Make a test gift late in the evening a few weeks earlier and compare.
- Who is on call. If the form breaks on December 30, someone needs to know how to check it and who to contact. Write the names down.
- Batches and deposits. Agree with finance on when December online revenue will be reconciled, so nobody is closing the year against a processor report that does not match Altru.
January: clean up and learn
Once the rush is over, run a query of every gift coded to the campaign. Look for gifts with no appeal code, new constituent records that look like existing donors, and any declined or refunded transactions that need follow-up. Compare totals by day: that tells you which emails and social posts actually moved people, which is the most useful thing you can bring to next year’s planning meeting.
Also note how many gifts came in on a phone versus a desktop if your tools can tell you. That number tends to settle arguments about whether the form needs work.
If the giving page itself is the weak spot
Some organizations get everything above right and still hear that the donation form is awkward on mobile or does not look like their website. Our Checkouts product is a branded, mobile-friendly checkout that can stand in for Altru web forms for donations, with Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the gift data writes back to Altru. Altru stays where your gift records and reporting live; what changes is the page the donor sees.
Quick answers
Should we use our regular donation form for year-end?
You can, but a dedicated campaign form makes reporting simpler because the appeal coding is built in.
When should testing be finished?
Before your first year-end email goes out, usually around Thanksgiving. Changes made mid-campaign are harder to track and easier to get wrong.
