A renewal should be one of the simplest transactions you handle. The member already knows you and has already paid once. When renewals stall online, the cause is often not that people changed their minds but that the path from “your membership is expiring” to “you’re renewed” has too many places to stop.
This guide works through the renewal path one step at a time, in the order a member experiences it, and points out what you can tighten inside Altru and what usually needs a different approach.
Step 1: The reminder
Every renewal starts with a message. Look at yours with fresh eyes and ask whether a member could act on it in under a minute.
- Say the date. “Your membership expires on June 30” works better than “your membership is expiring soon.” Pull the expiration date from the membership record through your query so each message is specific.
- Name the level. Members often don’t remember whether they bought Family or Family Plus. Telling them saves a guess on the next screen.
- One button, one destination. A reminder that links to your homepage, or to a general “Support Us” page, adds two or three clicks before the member even sees a price.
- Space them out. A common pattern is a first notice around 60 days out, another near 30, one near the expiration date, and a lapsed notice afterward. Make sure the query behind each send excludes anyone who has already renewed, or you will be apologizing to people who paid last week.
Step 2: Landing on the renewal page
This is often where members stall, so test it yourself on a phone. Click through from a real reminder and count what you’re asked to do.
The biggest friction point is usually identity. If a member has to log in, create an account they don’t remember making, or retype their name and address just to renew, some will give up. Others will check out as a “new” purchaser, which is how you end up with a second constituent record and a membership that doesn’t connect to the first one.
Things to check on your current Altru web forms:
- Does the renewal form clearly show which membership is being renewed, or does it look the same as the join form?
- Can a member see their current level and expiration date before paying?
- How does the form match a renewing member to their existing record? Run a few test renewals using slight variations of a name or an old email address, then look at what happened in Altru. If you’re unsure how matching behaves in your configuration, test in a sandbox or ask Blackbaud support before changing anything.
- Does the page work well on a phone? Many members will open the reminder on one.
Step 3: Choosing a level and paying
Keep the decision small. A renewing member should see their current level pre-selected, with an easy option to upgrade, rather than a full menu that invites them to reconsider everything.
Payment is the other common stopping point. Fewer required fields, saved or wallet-based payment options where your setup supports them, and a clear total before the final click all help. If your form asks for information you already have on file, ask whether you actually need it again.
Step 4: Confirmation and what happens next
The member should finish knowing three things: that it worked, their new expiration date, and how they’ll get into the building. A vague “thank you for your support” leaves people wondering, and some will call the front desk to check. Confirm the new dates in the receipt and the acknowledgment email.
Then check the back end. After a test renewal, open the constituent record in Altru and confirm that the membership updated as you expected, the revenue posted correctly, and no duplicate record appeared. If renewals routinely create duplicates, a periodic duplicate review belongs on someone’s calendar until the root cause is fixed.
Keep the policy simple too
A complicated process online is often a reflection of complicated rules behind it. A few questions worth settling as a team:
- How long after expiration is a payment still a renewal rather than a new join?
- Can members renew early without losing time?
- Are there levels you could retire because almost nobody buys them?
Fewer levels and a clear grace period make every renewal message, web page, and desk conversation easier to write.
A short audit you can run this month
- Pull a query of memberships that expired in the last 90 days and did not renew.
- Pull a second query of members who renewed in that period, split by channel (online, desk, mail) if your data allows it.
- Renew a test membership yourself, start to finish, on a phone.
- Write down every point where you hesitated, typed something you shouldn’t have needed to, or weren’t sure what would happen.
That list is your fix list. Tackle the first item in it before anything else, because a member who drops out early never sees the improvements further down.
When the web form is the limit
Some of the friction above, especially around identity and showing a member their own status before they pay, can be hard to solve with standard web forms alone. That’s the gap our Membership Portal is built for: members can view their status, renew, upgrade, and update their profile online against live Altru data, and Altru stays where the membership lives.
