“Can you pull everyone who gave $500 or more last year?” It sounds like a search-box question. In Altru it’s usually a query question, because the everyday constituent search is built to find a specific person by name, lookup ID, email, or address. It isn’t built to filter by how much someone gave or pledged.
The good news is that queries handle this well once you know which numbers you actually mean. Most bad gift-amount lists come from asking the wrong question of the right data, not from Altru being unable to answer.
Decide which “amount” you mean
Before you build anything, pin down the request. “Gave $500” can mean at least four different things, and each one produces a different list:
- A single gift of $500 or more. Someone who made one $500 donation qualifies; someone who gave $100 five times does not.
- Total giving of $500 or more over a period. Here the five-times-$100 donor does qualify.
- A pledge of $500 or more, regardless of how much has been paid so far.
- An outstanding pledge balance of a certain size, which is usually what finance or a gift officer is really after.
Also ask whether memberships count. Membership revenue sits in Altru alongside donations, and a “$500 donors” list that quietly includes dual-level members will confuse whoever uses it. Ask about the date range too: calendar year, fiscal year, or lifetime.
Single gifts or pledges above an amount: start from revenue
When the question is about individual transactions, build an ad-hoc query on a revenue source rather than a constituent source. Each row is a transaction, which makes amount filters behave the way you expect.
- Filter on the transaction amount (greater than or equal to your threshold).
- Filter on the transaction type. Payments and pledges are separate types, so include only the ones you want. If you include both, a donor who pledged $1,000 and has paid $1,000 against it can show up twice.
- Filter on date for the period you agreed on.
- Filter on application or designation if you need to exclude memberships, event registrations, or a particular fund.
- Add the constituent’s name, lookup ID, and contact fields to the output so the list is usable.
Because one person can have several qualifying gifts, expect duplicates. Either turn on the query option to return distinct rows with only constituent fields in the output, or save the results as a selection and use that selection in a constituent query or a mailing. A selection is also what you want if the list will feed communications later.
Pledge balances
For “who still owes us more than $X,” look for a balance field on the pledge rather than the original pledge amount. Field names vary with how your database is set up, so if you can’t find a balance field in the revenue source, preview a few known pledges and compare the fields against what you see on the pledge record itself. If balance isn’t exposed in the way you need, Blackbaud support can confirm whether it’s available in queries for your version.
Total giving above an amount: use smart fields or summaries
Revenue queries are poor at “add up everything this person gave and compare it to a threshold.” For that, start from a constituent query and filter on a value that already holds the total.
The usual tool is a smart field: a precalculated value, such as total revenue or largest gift, stored per constituent and refreshed on a schedule. A smart field can be scoped to certain revenue types, designations, or date ranges, so you can set up one for “total donations, excluding membership” and filter on it directly. Two cautions:
- Smart fields are only as current as their last refresh. If a gift came in this morning and the process runs overnight, that donor won’t appear until tomorrow. Check when yours last ran before trusting a borderline result.
- Date ranges on smart fields are set when the field is defined. A “last 12 months” field and a “fiscal year” field are different fields, so make sure the one you filter on matches the request.
If your site doesn’t have a suitable smart field and you can’t create one, the fallback is to export a revenue query (constituent ID plus amount) and total it in a spreadsheet. It works, but it’s a one-time snapshot, and it’s easy to forget which filters you used. Write them in the file name or a note.
Things that skew amount searches
- Households. A couple giving from a joint account may have revenue on the household or on one spouse. Decide whether you’re counting households or individuals before you mail anything, and check how your organization records joint gifts.
- Recognition credits. If you track gifts credited to someone other than the payer (a gift from a family foundation credited to a board member, for example), the payer-based revenue query and a recognition-based total can disagree. Confirm which one your report needs.
- Adjustments and write-offs. A pledge that was partly written off still shows its original amount. Spot-check a few large pledges on the record.
- Anonymous donors. They will meet your amount filter. If the list is going to a public donor wall, filter them out deliberately.
Save it for next time
Gift-amount questions come back every appeal season and every board meeting. Once a query returns the right people, save it with a clear name that states the rule (“Single donation $500+, FY, excl. membership”), and change the threshold or dates rather than rebuilding it. Before handing the list off, open three or four records from it and confirm each one actually meets the rule. That five-minute check catches most of the mistakes above.
Quick answers
Can I type an amount into the constituent search screen?
Not in any setup we’d rely on. That search is designed to identify people, not filter by giving. Use a query.
Why is my donor count higher than expected?
Usually duplicate rows from multiple qualifying gifts, or payments and pledges both included. Return distinct constituents or build a selection.
Why is a recent donor missing?
If you filtered on a smart field, it probably hasn’t refreshed since the gift was entered.
