#1 most frequent
United States of America
99.4%472 installations of 475
Categories & Use Cases
Media
1 / 7
Screenshot of Constituent Record: Get a true 360-degree view of each constituent's activity.
Who Buys & Uses Blackbaud Altru
#2 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
0.4%2 installations of 475
#3 most frequent
Brazil
0.2%1 installation of 475
Blackbaud Altru Review
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are using Blackbaud Altru as a overall museum software to include admissions, ticket sales for events/programming, our museum store, and a CRM for our development team.
Pros
- Daily Admission Sales
- Tracking Donations
- Setting up Programs
Cons
- Tracking inventory for the store along with no POs for ordering product
- Attendance Reports
- Implementation
Return on Investment
- Daily sales have increased and the ease of selling admission tickets
Usability
Other Software Used
Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT
A solid solution
Pros
- Point of sale - Ease of understanding by front staff.
- Membership transactions - Ease of understanding by front staff.
Cons
- Group sales - The process could be more streamlined.
- Reporting - There is not one report that I can tie out to financials.
Return on Investment
- Positive - Improved our ability to pull the data and make informed decisions.
- Positive - Reduced head count by improved understanding of how use the platform.
Alternatives Considered
Axiom Sales Force Development
Other Software Used
Financial Edge, Financial Edge NXT
Altru - a well-rounded POS and CRM database
Pros
- Ticketing and tracking many different types of admission sales including group, facility rental, individual tickets, and class registration.
- Membership management, including membership card mailing, recurring memberships, and renewal reminders.
- Being an all-encompassing database rather than forcing you to use multiple databases.
- Great customer service and client support, including ongoing updates to better the system.
- Has a merchandise inventory management system.
Cons
- Could use more reporting filters rather than depending on us knowing how to build a query correctly.
- Limitations on emailing tickets to patrons.
- Limitations on refunding capabilities if multiple refunds are needed on the same order.
- Could improve outward-facing online forms and the ease with which customers build a shopping cart and update their own account.
Return on Investment
- Improved membership management, growing our program by 100%.
- Improved our attendance tracking and ability to see true patronage.
- Keeps all our data in one place!
Altru - Giving up a little to gain a lot
Pros
- Cloud based database provides access from anywhere we have internet access across our 40 acre campus.
- Constituent tracking provides powerful data tools to understand all points of contact with visitors.
- Basic and in-depth training programs offered, providing staff with the knowledge they need for successful use of the product.
Cons
- Query system not user-friendly for management with limited database background.
- Limited company-to-user support outside of an online community of users. No long term account managers for program.
- No email analysis tools for eblasts.
- Limited merchandise capabiity for shop use, though the program does allow third party programs to work with it.
Return on Investment
- Altru has given us the potential to turn users from multiple entry points into members and donors.
- Through the institutional calendar, we have shrunk our total space use conflicts between departments.
- Increased out mailing list capacity by combining points of contact into one location.
Alternatives Considered
CAM, Financial Edge, The Raisers Edge and Vista
Other Software Used
Financial Edge, Google Analytics
Altru - the good, the bad and the meh.
Pros
- Point of Sales system, which is very user-friendly, and easy to navigate.
- Member Database, which is easy to search through to locate information on patrons.
- Event Calendar and Listings, which is organized and color coded.
Cons
- Not ideal to use for e-blasts. It is difficult to manipulate and code through Altru.
- Registering and managing multi-day events. Altru does not have the capacity to "sell" registrants into multi-session events. You have to work around the system in order to account for attendees in each session of the event.
- Customizing web forms for program registration is a little bit difficult to figure out and to execute.
Return on Investment
- It has become very tedious to account for registrants in each session of a class or camp, because you have to "sell" them into each session in order to have an accurate class roster.
- It is very easy to process payment and entry fees to our Museum and programs.
- It is easy to retrieve accurate information and records of patrons.
