Your development director is flying to Phoenix for a conference and wants to fit in a few donor visits while she’s there. The question is simple: which of our prospects live within an hour of downtown? In Altru, getting that answer as a map isn’t as easy as it sounds.
This guide covers what to expect from mapping in Altru’s prospect tools, how to check what your own database can do, and a dependable way to get prospect maps today using a query and a free mapping tool.
Is there a map on the Altru prospects tab?
Altru is built on the same platform as Blackbaud’s larger CRM product, and that larger product has prospect mapping built in. Because of that shared history, people often find documentation, screenshots, or conference slides showing a prospect map and assume it should be in Altru too.
In practice, many Altru organizations don’t see a mapping option in the prospects area at all. Whether it appears can depend on your edition, which fundraising features your organization licenses, and the permissions on your security role. We can’t promise what your particular database includes, so confirm it before you plan around it:
- Check your security role. Ask your Altru administrator to compare your role’s rights with a full system administrator. If an admin sees something you don’t, it’s a permissions issue, not a missing feature.
- Search Altru’s built-in help for “map” or “mapping” and see whether it describes a feature in your version.
- Ask Blackbaud support directly whether prospect mapping is available for your Altru edition. That’s the quickest way to stop guessing.
If the answer is no, and for many Altru users it is, the workaround below takes about an hour to set up and can be reused for every trip after that.
Build a prospect map from a query
The idea is to let Altru do what it does well (filter constituents and output clean addresses) and let a mapping tool handle the geography.
1. Write a prospect query with address fields
Build a constituent query that pulls the people you care about. That might be constituents with an active prospect plan, a certain capacity or giving level, a prospect manager assignment, or a membership level that signals capacity. Include these output fields:
- Lookup ID (so you can find the record again)
- Name and, for households, the addressee or salutation you actually use
- Primary address: street, city, state, ZIP
- Prospect manager or assigned staff member
- One or two context fields: lifetime giving, last gift date, membership level, or a smart field you already maintain
Filter to constituents with a valid primary address and exclude deceased records and anyone marked do-not-contact. Save the query so the next trip only needs a rerun.
2. Clean the export before mapping
Mapping tools geocode addresses, meaning they convert each one to a latitude and longitude. Bad addresses either fail or land in the wrong place. Before importing, sort the export by ZIP and look for blanks, PO boxes (these map to the post office, not the home), and seasonal addresses. If your prospects split time between two states, decide which address the map should use, or run two versions.
3. Pick a mapping tool
You don’t need GIS software for this. Common choices:
- Google My Maps: free, imports a spreadsheet, places pins by address, and lets you color pins by a column such as prospect manager or giving level. It has per-layer row limits, so check them if your list is large.
- Excel or Power BI map visuals: handy if your organization already uses Microsoft 365 and you want to shade regions by total giving rather than drop individual pins.
- Tableau, ArcGIS, or similar: worth it only if someone on staff already knows them.
4. Use the map for real decisions
Once the pins are up, a few uses pay off quickly:
- Trip planning: zoom to a city and see which prospects cluster close enough for a two-day visit.
- Portfolio balance: color by prospect manager to spot gift officers whose prospects are scattered across five states.
- Event targeting: find members and donors within a reasonable drive of an off-site reception venue.
- Gaps: notice areas with plenty of members but no assigned prospects, which may be worth a closer look in your next screening.
Skip the map when a list will do
Sometimes the director doesn’t need a map, just a short list. For a single trip, add a filter for state or a set of ZIP code prefixes to your query and sort by city. Three-digit ZIP prefixes roughly line up with regions, so filtering on a handful of them gets you a “Phoenix area” list in minutes. It’s less visual but entirely inside Altru, with nothing to export.
Handle the data carefully
A spreadsheet of home addresses, giving totals, and capacity notes is sensitive. Treat the mapping copy the same way you’d treat the Altru record:
- Keep shared maps private and share only with named staff, never by “anyone with the link.”
- Leave wealth screening scores and research notes out of the export unless the map really needs them.
- Delete or refresh old exports. A six-month-old map has stale addresses and may include people who have since asked not to be contacted.
- Check whether your organization’s privacy policy or donor promises say anything about third-party tools.
Keeping it current
The weak spot of any export-based approach is that the map is a snapshot. Altru stays current; the map doesn’t. Put a date in the map’s title, rerun the saved query before each trip, and replace the layer instead of adding to it. If people start relying on the map weekly, that’s a sign to automate the refresh or to push again with Blackbaud on native mapping for your edition.
Quick answers
Why do I see prospect mapping in Blackbaud documentation but not in Altru?
Some documentation describes Blackbaud’s larger CRM product, which shares a platform with Altru but includes features Altru may not expose. Confirm with Blackbaud support what your edition includes.
Can I map households instead of individuals?
Yes. Base the query on households or output the household’s primary address, then deduplicate so each home shows one pin.
Do I need latitude and longitude from Altru?
No. Most mapping tools geocode a street address on import. Clean addresses matter more than coordinates.
