Blackbaud Newsroom

Blackbaud’s Altru Adds New Customers, New Features

Arts and cultural organizations large and small embrace cloud-based
Altru for CRM, fundraising, ticketing and payment needs
 

Charleston, S.C. (March 25, 2014) — Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced key new customers embracing its cultural management solution, Altru, including Pittsburgh Zoo, Phillips Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Constitution Center and The Mariner’s Museum. Altru is a cloud-based comprehensive solution that supports general admission arts and cultural organizations’ business needs while providing them a complete view of their operations.

“Altru has really changed the way we approach our business,” said Jen Darley, National Constitution Center’s vice president of operations. “We will now have a much more holistic view of our organization, which will introduce operational efficiencies and allow us to communicate better. Ultimately, this will help us better serve our members and patrons.”

Arts and cultural organizations, both large and small, use Altru for a variety of member engagement needs including: fundraising, ticketing, event management and marketing.

 New Altru Features Include:

  • Mobile check-in for special events – In addition to mobile check-in for pre-registered programs, Altru now offers the ability to use mobile check-in for special events through the Altru mobile app.
  • Refund enhancements – Organizations can partially or fully refund items that were discounted at the time of sale. Fields have been added to make it easier to look up items for refund. The Refund page now shows the discount, price and checkboxes to quickly and easily issue refunds.
  • Ticket exchanges – Altru enables organizations to better serve their patrons by easily changing the date or time of a patron’s ticket for upcoming programs. With the new Reschedule functionality, users can quickly choose from upcoming events, view any price differences and update large groups with a single click.

Key Features for Large Organizations Include:

  • Major gift fundraising – Now includes major gift/prospecting functionality to better manage key prospects and large donations.
  • Front desk notifications – Alert ticket sellers when they interact with certain patrons at the front desk, such as board members or major donors, so they can greet them accordingly.
  • Online order confirmations – Create custom acknowledgement emails based on the type of order to appropriately thank patrons for donations or give additional details about tickets, memberships or event registrations made online.

“We pay less now for one consolidated system than we previously paid for the multiple systems Altru replaced,” said Audrey McAbee, The Mariner’s Museum’s systems administrator. “More than that, we save on time by not having to enter/re-enter data in multiple systems. If you add up all the time we save, it could probably fill another staff position.”

Altru centralizes all information arts and cultural organizations need so they can strategically unite the entire organization, personally engage each supporter and make every visitor experience unique.

“We’re very excited by the growth of Altru as a comprehensive solution for arts and cultural organizations of all sizes,” said Jay Odell, Blackbaud’s vice president and general manager of Altru. “These organizations have unique needs that Altru is designed to specifically address – from managing special events to fundraising to keeping their visitors and members informed. In today’s competitive landscape, efficiency and a complete view of an organization’s operations is key to success.”

To learn more about Altru and how it is helping arts and cultural organizations, visit www.blackbaud.com/altru.

About Blackbaud
Serving the nonprofit and education sectors for 30 years, Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) combines technology and expertise to help organizations achieve their missions. Blackbaud works with more than 29,000 customers in over 60 countries that support higher education, healthcare, human services, arts and culture, faith, the environment, independent K-12 education, animal welfare and other charitable causes. The company offers a full spectrum of cloud-based and on-premise software solutions and related services for organizations of all sizes including: fundraising, eMarketing, advocacy, constituent relationship management (CRM), financial management, payment services, analytics and vertical-specific solutions. Using Blackbaud technology, these organizations raise more than $100 billion each year. Recognized as a top company by Forbes, InformationWeek, and Software Magazine and honored by Best Places to Work, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina and has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.

Media Contact
Melanie Mathos
Blackbaud
843.216.6200 x3307
media@blackbaud.com

Forward-looking Statements
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