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Altru - Giving up a little to gain a lot
April 25, 2018

Altru - Giving up a little to gain a lot

George Buss, Jr. | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Altru

Our museum uses Altru as an institutional constituent database. We chose Blackbaud's product to find a way to merge multiple data points across multiple departments - education, ticketing, reservations, donors, volunteers, shop, marketing and finance. Our goal was to better understand visitor use of our site to develop stronger experiences, target marketing, and philanthropic asks.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
Having used multiple databases to collect data from visitors across all of our points of contact, we found we had information, but no comparison between areas. It was possible to have a volunteer who made a donation, bought a membership, made purchases in the shop, and attended a workshop, but only visited the galleries 1x a year. The result was to have power users without knowing it. While each of the products we had used were fine in their own right, they lacked the ability to tell us what we most needed to know - how often we were used across all of our points of service. Altru gave us that.
Altru shines in capturing constituent data. If you are looking for a product to collect user info and their use patterns then this database works. The challenge is getting the data out in a format usable for decision making and application. Reporting can be a bear. The preloaded key performance indicators and reports are useful but may not fit your need. Every institution is different, and every department has different needs. This product tries to bridge the gaps to create communication between areas, but at a cost. This will not serve any of the departments at 100% of what is wanted out of a database. Altru is a whole institution choice for the benefit of cross-department collaboration.

Using Altru

This product is used across many departments including Sales and Events, Education, Front Desk Ticketing, Philanthropy, Finance, Administration, and Volunteers. The core feature of tracking a user across all points of contact makes this interdepartmental approach work best.
6 - We have an Altru Team consisting of members from different departments within the institution. There should be at least one database manager with background in writing queries and excel to get the most out of the program. A well written data standards guide is a must as well as institutional commitment. Altru provides quality on going training worth taking advantage of.