Altru Ideas

We value your unique insight into our products and services and often receive ideas and feedback from our community in a variety of ways. To streamline this process, we’ve created an idea bank where you can post product suggestions, vote for those most important to you, and add comments to existing ideas.

Ability to use Membership installments to pay over time

I think we should be able to do recurring, monthly payments for membership (both new and renewals). Colleagues at larger institutions that offer people the option of paying for their year-long membership in monthly increments (automatically charged to their credit card) report that the largest portion of their on-site sales come from folks using this option. Membership is the way that most people choose to support arts and cultural orgs, and it doesn't make sense to me that Altru offers EFT but doesn't have the functionality to do it for membership.

  • Guest
  • Jan 4 2016
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  • A H commented
    10 Jan 21:42

    What do we want? The ability to process recurring, monthly membership payments!

    When do we want it? As soon as you can, please.

  • Amanda Pleau commented
    10 Jan 21:34

    Please! This would be so useful for our organization!

  • Carlyn Adams commented
    10 Jan 21:10

    As accessibility is becoming more and more a priority for museums, having a recurring monthly payment for memberships set-up in Altru should be a priority. This will help museums grow their membership and help Altru get more clients. People might want to join as members to support an organization, but cannot afford the full amount all at one time. Museums are starting to have these kind of options the standard, so it is very important to improve workflow for ease of use in Altru for behind the scenes and for the customer. It would be a win-win and a no brainer.

  • Scott Steffen commented
    October 10, 2023 17:55

    As our industry normalizes subscription-based membership programs, Altru needs to keep up by offering our constituents the ability to pay in installments. Price of membership can be a barrier to membership. Offering payment plans opens to door to families.

  • Ruth Droescher commented
    August 25, 2022 17:32

    This is a really important feature - the current process of creating a separate pledge record and $0 membership makes entry more time consuming and reporting more complicated. Having the ability to create a single membership record attached to the installment payments is essential to be able to scale and grow this offering to members.

  • Carlyn Adams commented
    April 15, 2022 16:41

    I believe this should be added as a feature as it is very common for our membership programs and it is inconvenient to work around it. Thanks!

  • Rebecca Roche commented
    March 10, 2022 18:06

    This is so common for our programs, and such a pain to work around - please add this as a feature, Blackbaud!

  • Guest commented
    October 25, 2021 20:41

    Altru, this has 190 votes and hasn't been updated since 2016. Can you let us know where you are in the process?

  • Leon Natker commented
    June 08, 2021 18:09

    it would seem monthly payments for membership are a no brainer. We cannot expect every customer will be able to pay all at one time. Without this function we are losing potential customers.

  • Michelle Sweany commented
    May 03, 2021 21:48

    This seems like something that Altru users want, and it also is critical in the museum/art world now. This is a feature we will be looking for now that our contract is ending soon. If Altru can't support it, we will likely change databases.

  • Guest commented
    November 02, 2020 22:08

    Getting this capability for Altru seems especially important now that COVID has deeply impacted the economy and disposable income. Almost everything you buy online can now be done in monthly installments. Anyway this can be moved into a urgent category for development?

  • Ela Zawadzka commented
    February 20, 2020 19:50

    I see it has been four years and still this is not an option? 167 organizations voted for it, I wonder how many more need to voice their opinion... 

  • Sarah Maddux commented
    January 29, 2020 21:54

    Checking back here, wishing for an update.

  • Madison Ramey commented
    November 06, 2019 23:02

    Any update on this functionality? 

  • Guest commented
    July 26, 2019 20:05

    We would love to have a way that membership could pay for their membership on a monthly basis. Altru has the ability to charge donors monthly and has automatic renewal processes in place. This update seems like it would the next natural step and is a capability that our organization is anxious to have.

  • Guest commented
    February 14, 2019 22:00

    I think it is quite silly that in a membership/subscription economy like we are in currently, that this isn't a priority. 

  • Guest commented
    February 06, 2019 19:21

    I manage the membership program at my non-profit and I have a couple of corporations that bought corporate memberships and want to set up a payment plan, however, I am not able to set this up. I have set it up as a pledge and when I run a report it shows under 'donations,' then accounting has to re-code it and put it under my membership revenue, thus causing more hassle and it not conducive for small teams with limited resources and time. It is time to set this up Blackbaud!

  • Meghan Hellenga commented
    July 05, 2018 17:03

    Would love an update on these! Definitely a big problem for us as well.

  • Sarah Maddux commented
    April 04, 2018 13:37

    We would love to hear an update on this! Our development staff and our trustees are asking for this weekly. We have a small selection of higher-level philanthropic members we do this for manually, but it's a labor-intensive process and we want to be able to offer it to everyone. This is a huge priority for our organization! Same goes for auto-renewal options!

  • Lori B commented
    December 19, 2017 18:05

    We only have a couple of members who do this by sending monthly checks.  we have entered them as membership dues by renewing the membership each month and then rolling the expiration date back to what it was.  we also have to remember to NOT print a card for them every month since we are technically renewing them.  also not the ideal method, but it does get counted as membership revenue.

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