The tote bags went out at the spring member preview. The enamel pins went to donors at the gala. Six months later, someone in development asks, “Did the Garcias already get a pin, or should we send one with their thank-you note?” And nobody can answer without digging through a spreadsheet that lived on a laptop that has since been reimaged.
Altru doesn’t have a dedicated “swag” module. What it does have are several places on or around the constituent record that can hold this information, and each one works best for a different kind of giveaway. Picking the right one up front is most of the job.
Start by sorting your swag into three buckets
Before you build anything, separate giveaways by why the person got them. The reason determines where the record belongs.
- Earned by a transaction. A tote with a family-level membership, a mug for donors above a certain amount. The item is tied to something the person paid for.
- Given as a gesture. A pin handed to a volunteer, a scarf for a board member, a hat for a lender who loaned an object. No transaction, just a relationship.
- Handed out in bulk. Stickers at a community day, lanyards at a conference table. You may know who attended, but tracking each sticker per person is rarely worth it.
The first bucket wants to live with the transaction. The second wants to live on the constituent. The third usually wants a count, not a record per person.
Option 1: Membership and gift benefits
If the swag is a premium that comes with a membership level or a donation, look at the benefits options in your membership program and revenue setup. Altru lets you associate benefits with memberships and gifts, and that keeps the item tied to the reason it was given. It also means the benefit shows up alongside the transaction when someone looks at the record later.
How much fulfillment detail Altru tracks on those benefits (for example, whether you can mark a specific benefit as sent and when) is something to confirm in your own database. Set up a test membership level in a sandbox or a training environment, process a sale, and see what lands on the record and what you can query. If the answer is “not enough,” pair it with one of the options below for the fulfillment piece.
One thing to watch: benefits with real value can affect the tax-deductible portion of a gift. Talk to your finance team before attaching a premium to a donation level, and make sure acknowledgment letters reflect it.
Option 2: Constituent attributes
For giveaways that aren’t tied to a sale, attributes are usually the cleanest fit. Create an attribute category, something like “Swag received,” with a code table of the items you actually hand out: tote, pin, mug, hat, and so on. Allow multiple values per constituent so one person can carry several entries, and use the date and comment fields to record when it was given and why (“Board retreat,” “Volunteer 100 hours”).
Why attributes work well here:
- They’re structured, so you can query on them. “Every constituent with a pin attribute dated this year” is a simple query.
- The code table keeps item names consistent. You avoid “tote,” “Tote Bag,” and “canvas bag” all meaning the same thing.
- They can be added in bulk through import, which matters after an event where you gave the same item to forty people.
Keep the code table short and retire items you no longer stock rather than deleting them, so older records still make sense.
Option 3: Notes or interactions
A note on the constituent record is the fastest thing to train staff on, and it’s fine for one-off situations: a VIP who got a signed print, a lender who received a framed photo. The trade-off is that free text is hard to report on. If you expect anyone to ask “how many of these did we give out,” use an attribute instead.
If your organization already logs relationship touchpoints as interactions, adding a gift-in-hand as an interaction can fit naturally into that history. Just be consistent: pick one place per item type and write it down.
Option 4: A zero-price item at the point of sale
Some teams ring giveaways through daily sales as merchandise at no charge, attached to the guest’s constituent record when there is one. That gives you a count of items moved and, when a constituent is on the transaction, a link to the person. It only works if staff reliably look up the guest first, and it adds clicks at the register, so it’s best for items you also want to count against stock. Test how a zero-dollar line item behaves in your reports before rolling it out.
Making it answerable
Whatever you choose, the goal is that anyone can answer “did this person already get one?” in under a minute. A few habits help:
- Build one saved query that pulls constituent name, item, date, and comment from wherever you store swag. Share it with development, membership, and volunteer staff.
- Add the item to your event checklist. If swag goes out at an event, someone owns entering it (or preparing the import file) within a week.
- Check before you send. When planning a mailing that includes a gift, run the query against the list first so you don’t send a second mug to the same household.
- Decide household vs. individual. If a couple shares a household, agree on whether the record goes on one person or both, and stick to it.
Quick answers
Can Altru track swag inventory as well as who received it?
If the items are set up as merchandise, Altru’s point-of-sale side can help with counts. For items you never sell, a simple spreadsheet for stock plus attributes for recipients is often the practical split. Confirm with Blackbaud support if you need both in one place.
What about bulk giveaways at public events?
Track a total in your event notes or a spreadsheet. Per-person records for low-value items usually cost more staff time than the information is worth.
