Monthly memberships

Nicholas Smith
Nicholas Smith
Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

Hi all!

Our Museum is new to BB Altru and I've been working getting our memberships set up properly. We offer multiple membership levels, and both annual and monthly terms for each. However, I've run into a problem where if you enable both terms on a membership, and someone opts for a monthly auto-renewal, their charge gets thrown into an uncommitted batch due to the tax deductible amount (which is set for the annual term) being higher than the charge amount. When I go into the batch and correct the td amount and then process it, it appears to break the auto-renewal chain entirely, and doesn't try to charge again in the future.

So, after contacting Support, and back-and-forths with Copilot, I've ultimately opted to create separate dedicated memberships for monthly terms only. This makes the webforms look pretty congested and messy, but it's the only thing I can think of. Does anyone have any advice or input on this problem? Thanks!

Tagged:

Answers

  • Micah Nemerever
    Micah Nemerever
    Ninth Anniversary Name Dropper Blackbaud Certified Kudos 1

    This is what my org ended up doing as well — setting up separate membership programs for monthly and annual, but with the same membership level names for each. It has worked all right for us in terms of patron usability because our website links to the Blackbaud form for each membership level and term individually (you can take a look here: https://fryemuseum.org/membership). It required a little more work for the web designer, but saved us from having to use the clunky membership program Blackbaud forms. Good luck with your new system!

  • Nicholas Smith
    Nicholas Smith
    Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
    https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/314437#Comment_314437

    Thank you Micah! I'm relieved to know that it's not just me missing something obvious XD I will discuss with our PR/Comms coordinator re: webform aesthetics. Thanks again!

  • Tamara Christensen
    Tamara Christensen
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant
    https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/314437#Comment_314437

    That looks so nice! I didn't think there was an option to sell monthly memberships online unless they were set up as recurring gifts in a very complicated fashion. We want to have something similar to what you have. Is there a knowledgebase article on how to do this? We currently can only sell our Monthly Memberships at our front desk.

  • Micah Nemerever
    Micah Nemerever
    Ninth Anniversary Name Dropper Blackbaud Certified Kudos 1
    https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/315796#Comment_315796

    We didn't find the recurring membership functionality in Altru very useful, so we ultimately decided to set up a normal membership program where the membership term is 1 month. (Patrons just have to check the auto-renewal box on the web form — to encourage them to remember to do this, we changed the language a little bit.) It's slightly clunky on the back end, but it works! Good luck :)

Categories