A couple who have been family members for six years move across town. One of them calls to give the new address. A month later the renewal notice goes to the old house, addressed to the other spouse, and the membership card in the kitchen drawer still shows a name that changed after a wedding last spring. None of that is one big mistake. It is three small record updates that each landed in a different place.
Updating people in Altru is mostly about knowing which record owns which piece of information. Some details live on the individual constituent, some on the household, and some on the membership. Once your staff know which is which, most updates take a minute and stop causing follow-up problems.
Know what belongs to the person and what belongs to the household
In Altru, a household is its own constituent record that groups individual constituents together. That structure is useful, but it means a single real-world change can touch more than one record.
- Individual constituent records hold the person’s name, email, phone, birth date, preferences, and their own contact information.
- The household record ties those people together and is often what your mailings and recognition use, depending on how your organization set up addressees, salutations, and mailing rules.
- Membership records list the members on the membership and who the primary member is. Changing someone on the household does not automatically rewrite the membership, and the reverse is also true.
A useful habit: before editing anything, open the person’s constituent record and look at their household and membership relationships together. Thirty seconds of looking saves a lot of untangling later.
Common updates and how to handle them
Address change
Update the address on the constituent who called, then check every other adult in the household. Depending on your version and configuration, Altru may offer to apply an address change to other household members when you save it. If you are not sure whether your setup does this, test it on a sample household in a sandbox or a test record before relying on it. Mark the old address as former rather than deleting it, so you keep history and can explain where earlier mail went.
Name change
Edit the name on the individual record and keep the previous name as an alias if your organization tracks them, which helps staff find the person when they give the old name at the desk. Then look at the household name and any addressee or salutation values. If those were typed by hand rather than generated from a format, they will not change on their own.
Adding someone to a household
Search first. The new spouse, partner, or adult child may already exist as a constituent from a past ticket purchase or donation. Adding a second record creates a duplicate that will split their giving and visit history. If they exist, add that existing record to the household. If they are joining the membership too, add them on the membership separately.
Removing someone from a household
Divorce, separation, or a grown child moving out all call for removing a member rather than editing names. Remove the person from the household so they keep their own constituent record, history, and contact details. Then decide on the membership: does the membership stay with the remaining household, and does the departing person need their own? Write that decision in a note so the next staff member doesn’t reverse it.
A household member passes away
Mark the individual as deceased on their constituent record rather than deleting anyone. Then review the household name, salutations, and membership card names so the surviving member does not keep receiving mail or cards with both names. This is the update where getting it wrong hurts most, so it is worth having one written procedure and one or two people who own it.
Primary member or head of household changes
If the person who usually handles renewals and receives correspondence changes, update the primary member on the membership and check which household member your mailings are directed to. These are separate settings, and organizations often fix one and forget the other.
When you have dozens or hundreds to update
One-at-a-time editing is fine for phone calls. For a list, such as returned mail from a campaign or a vendor address update file, look at Altru’s batch options for constituent updates rather than having staff retype each change. Run a small test batch first, review the results, and only then commit the full set. If you are unsure whether a given field can be updated through a batch, ask Blackbaud support or try it with a handful of test records.
Afterward, build a constituent query to confirm the changes landed, for example households where adult members have different primary addresses. That same query is worth saving and running monthly as a cleanup check.
Habits that keep household data clean
- Search before you create. Most household mess starts with a duplicate constituent created at the point of sale.
- Use generated name formats for household names and salutations where you can, so name changes flow through instead of needing hand edits.
- Keep history. Mark addresses as former and keep old names as aliases instead of overwriting.
- Leave a note on any non-obvious change, such as a split household or a membership moved to one person.
- Give staff a one-page reference for the five or six updates above, with who to ask when a case does not fit.
Quick answers
If I change one spouse’s address, does the other update too?
Not necessarily. It depends on how your Altru is configured and what you choose when saving. Always check the other household members after an address change.
Should I delete a household when people separate?
Generally no. Remove members from the household so each person keeps their own record and history. Deleting records loses giving and visit history you may need later.
Does updating the household update the membership?
No. Household and membership are separate. Review the membership members and primary member whenever the household changes.
