How-to
How to Get Alerts for Unresolved Online Sales in Altru
A member renews online on a Friday night. The payment goes through, but the transaction lands in the pile of online sales waiting for staff to match the buyer to a constituent record and finish processing. Nobody looks at that pile until Tuesday. By then the member has tried to use their card at the
Why Merchandise Margin and Markup Aren’t Updating in Altru
You raise the retail price on a plush toy in the gift shop, save it, and the margin figure next to it looks exactly the same as before. Or the markup reads zero on an item you know makes money. Before you assume Altru is miscalculating, it helps to know what those two numbers are
How to Import and Batch Update Constituents in Altru Without a Mess
A list of 400 new contacts from a gala, a vendor file of corrected mailing addresses, or a spreadsheet from the education department that flags which teachers now work at different schools: sooner or later every Altru database needs data loaded in bulk. Typing it in by hand is slow and error-prone. Importing it carelessly
How to Handle Program Category Colors on the Altru Event Calendar
The Altru event calendar color-codes events by program category, which is useful right up until two categories land on nearly the same shade, or you add a tenth category and run out of colors that are easy to tell apart. Then the calendar stops answering the one question staff open it for: “what kind of
Why Removed Prospects Still Show Under the Old Manager in Altru
A major gifts officer leaves, or a portfolio gets rebalanced. You reassign their prospects, maybe end their prospect manager role, and move on. A week later the old fundraiser’s list still shows names that are supposed to belong to someone else, and the new fundraiser’s list looks short. Nobody did anything wrong. The record just
How to Sell Memberships on a Tablet or Self-Serve Kiosk with Altru
A family is in line at admissions doing the math: two adults, three kids, a second visit planned next month. A membership is the better deal, but the line is long and the cashier is busy. A tablet near the entrance where they could join on their own sounds like an obvious fix. With Altru,
How to Use QR Codes with Altru for Tickets, Memberships, and Entry
“Can we just put a QR code on it?” comes up at almost every museum, zoo, and garden. It might be about a sign at the ticket line, a postcard for a membership drive, or the card a member shows at the gate. In an Altru shop those are two different jobs, and keeping them
How to Track Tasks and Follow-Up Reminders in Altru
A school calls to book a field trip for 60 students and promises a deposit by Friday. A donor mentions at a member event that they’d like a call about naming a bench. A vendor needs final headcount for the gala two weeks out. Each of these is a small promise, and each one lives
Is BBCON Worth It for Altru Users? How to Decide
BBCON is Blackbaud’s annual user conference, and every year someone on an Altru team has to decide whether it’s worth the registration, the travel, and several days away from the building. The honest answer: it can be, but less automatically than it is for organizations running Blackbaud’s fundraising-first products. Whether it pays off for you
Altru Membership Renewals: Why Late Renewals Lose Months (and How to Fix It)
A member’s card expired in March. They come back in July and renew. In Altru, the new term often runs from the old expiration date, so their “one-year” membership expires next March. They paid for twelve months and got eight. That conversation usually ends up at the front desk. Most membership teams expect a renewal
