A monthly newsletter, a parking notice for a members’ night, a “your exhibit opens Saturday” note. None of these ask anyone for money. Altru’s marketing and communications tools, though, were built mainly around fundraising, so a lot of staff hit the same wall: everything seems to want an appeal attached, and a newsletter isn’t one.
This guide covers why that happens, the three ways organizations usually handle it, and how to keep your appeal reporting clean whichever route you pick.
Why Altru keeps pointing you toward an appeal
In Altru, outbound marketing is closely tied to appeals because the point of tracking a mailing is usually to measure what it raised. That’s useful for a year-end letter. It’s awkward for a newsletter, because an appeal with no gifts against it looks like a failed campaign in your revenue reports.
How strictly your Altru setup requires an appeal depends on which communication tool you’re using and how your database was configured. We aren’t going to claim a blanket rule here. Before you design a workaround, confirm what your version does: try building a test communication in a sandbox or training environment, or ask Blackbaud support whether a non-appeal send is possible in the specific tool your team uses.
Three routes, and when each makes sense
1. Use a clearly labeled “no ask” appeal
The most common workaround is to stop fighting the structure. Create one or more appeals that exist only to hold non-solicitation sends, and name them so nobody mistakes them for fundraising:
- Name them plainly. Something like “Communications – Newsletter” or “Communications – Visitor Info” makes the purpose obvious on a constituent record.
- Use an appeal category (or similar field) to separate them. If your appeals are categorized, give these their own category so you can filter them out of fundraising reports and queries.
- Don’t set goals on them. A goal invites someone to compare results to it later.
- Keep the count small. One appeal per communication type per year is usually enough. A new appeal for every newsletter issue clutters lookups fast.
The upside is that the send still lives inside Altru, attached to each constituent, so anyone looking at a record can see what that person received. The downside is that every report touching appeals now needs a filter, and someone has to remember to apply it.
2. Build the list in Altru, send from an email platform
Many organizations use Altru only to decide who gets a non-appeal message, then send from a dedicated email tool. The pattern is simple:
- Build a constituent query for the audience: current members, recent visitors, households in a ZIP range, whatever fits.
- Filter out anyone who has opted out of email or has a solicit code that should exclude them. This step is easy to skip and it matters most.
- Export the results and import them into your email platform.
- Send from there.
This keeps appeals out of the picture entirely. What you give up is history: unless you record it, Altru has no trace that the person got your newsletter. If that matters, you can log a note or interaction on the records, though doing that for thousands of people by hand isn’t realistic. The other cost is that exports go stale. Someone who unsubscribes or updates their email in Altru after you export won’t reflect in the email tool until the next export.
3. Automate the send directly from Altru data
For recurring, operational messages (eTickets, membership renewals, post-visit thank-yous, upcoming-visit reminders) neither of the first two routes holds up well. A fake appeal for every automated message gets messy, and weekly manual exports eventually get missed. These are the messages most worth automating from a query so the right people receive them without anyone pulling a list.
Whatever you choose, protect the opt-outs
Non-appeal messages still count as email to the people receiving them. Before any send:
- Respect email opt-outs and solicit codes in the query itself, not as a manual cleanup step.
- Decide whether “do not solicit” also means “do not send newsletters” at your organization. Many treat them differently. Write the rule down so staff aren’t guessing.
- Watch for duplicate constituent records. A person on two records can get two copies, or stay subscribed on one after opting out on the other.
A note on reporting
If you go with “no ask” appeals, spend ten minutes now updating the fundraising reports and queries your development team relies on so they exclude that category. It’s much easier than explaining later why response rates dropped after newsletters started counting as campaigns.
Where Social Good fits
The first two routes need nothing beyond Altru and the email tool you already use. For automated, recurring messages, Email Designer sends branded emails such as eTickets, acknowledgments, renewals, and post-visit messages directly from Altru queries, without manual exports, while Altru stays the source of your constituent data.
Quick answers
Will a newsletter appeal hurt my fundraising numbers?
Only if your reports include it. Give non-solicitation appeals their own category and filter that category out of fundraising reports.
Can I send a newsletter from Altru with no appeal at all?
It depends on the communication tool and your configuration. Test in a sandbox or confirm with Blackbaud support before you plan around it.
