Gonzaga Reimagines School Community Connection with an Innovative Ecosystem of Blackbaud Solutions

Gonzaga first became a Blackbaud customer in the mid-90s with simple database tools. Over the years, Gonzaga’s leaders recognized the need for digital growth to provide an exceptional school experience. They achieved this thanks to innovative, purpose-built software from Blackbaud that could meet their evolving needs.

Blackbaud’s Total School Solution brings together a suite of cloud-based tools designed specifically for schools such as Gonzaga. Scott Blair, Gonzaga’s senior director of advancement systems and analytics, proposed a gradual solution rollout that would connect every aspect of the school—from records, tuition, and enrollment management to fundraising, finance management, and its entire online presence—with a strategic change management approach.

Gonzaga’s administrative leadership supported Blair’s proposal, and Blair and other key personnel, including Gonzaga’s chief operations officer, got to work. “With each successful implementation came more benefits for our community and more confidence in moving to the next Blackbaud product,” Blair said.

Refreshing Gonzaga’s Online Presence

Gonzaga kicked off their digital transformation with a revamp of its “front door”: the website that serves as a virtual introduction to the school. Blackbaud School Website System™, a user-friendly content management system, provided a sleek, responsive website with an easy-to-manage design that uses industry best practices. Gonzaga also hired a senior marketing and communications director—a critical step in building the new website, since it involved front-end marketing and communications as well as back-end data configurations.

With this transition, Gonzaga was able to move its comprehensive summer packet online—saving the school over $20,000 in printing and mailing costs, as well as two full days of staff time. Blair said parents appreciated the option to access content in real-time on their mobile devices, and staff recognized that the cost and time savings would recur each year.

Student applications increased after going live with the new website, a dynamic Blair and Gonzaga’s administration attribute to an improved user experience in terms of both navigation and professionalism. “Our applications were up right away,” Blair said. “I think that professional look and feel—with a more organized, clear presence—was a big part of it. It’s crisp, clean. It keeps you there.”

Simplifying—and Personalizing—Tuition Management

Gonzaga next transformed its tuition management by implementing Blackbaud Tuition Management™ and Blackbaud Financial Aid Management™. This move put an end to mailing statements home, instead offering a seamless portal for parents to make payments online—as well as built-in reminders. In the first few months alone, the school experienced a significant increase in tuition revenue, while delinquent payments decreased as well. “Our delinquencies were way down,” Blair shared. “And, most importantly, it was a great user experience for the families.”

By using a tuition management solution that integrates with their accounting system, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT®, Gonzaga was able to create greater business office efficiency. As a true accounts receivable subledger, Blackbaud Tuition Management easily reconciles data directly to Financial Edge NXT’s general ledger, eliminating double entry of data. The integration between the two systems has also enabled Gonzaga’s business office to post billing and cash application data per GAAP compliance guidelines on a monthly basis.

Additionally, the tools have allowed Gonzaga to be better informed and more transparent when making decisions about financial aid. When awarding financial aid using Blackbaud Financial Aid Management, Gonzaga can have all the details regarding that aid built into the student contracts.

“When a student gets accepted, the family can immediately see what their tuition will be minus their financial aid awards,” Blair said. “Plus, Blackbaud Tuition Management allows schools like us to discount fees by percentages that best align with a family’s financial aid. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to evaluating someone’s financial situation; with Blackbaud, we can make adjustments to better meet the financial dynamic of our community.”

Blair explains that even years after adopting the Total School Solution tuition management tools, Gonzaga continues to see improvements, especially when it comes to delinquent payments. The original decrease in delinquencies Gonzaga experienced in the initial months following implementation has only improved over time, now falling to roughly 70 percent fewer late payments than prior to the Total School Solution. “These are not one-time benefits,” Blair said. “They are residual.”

Streamlining the Enrollment Management Experience

With Gonzaga’s next step—moving to Blackbaud’s updated enrollment management system—the school tore down a digital barrier. Parents no longer needed a separate login for a third-party website to access information from the school but could stay within Gonzaga’s integrated online environment. “Parents tell us this is so much easier and makes us so much more accessible,” Blair said. “It’s a better user experience for families and, in turn, it’s easier on the back end for us.”

As part of implementing Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™, Gonzaga was also able to participate in the early adopter program for Committee Review, a component that digitizes vital parts of the application submission and review processes. The experience was groundbreaking for Gonzaga, since up until that point their admissions application process was physical, with parents submitting forms for their students through the mail or via email attachments.

“We were manually building applications and files for each student and our admissions office wanted a change,” Blair explained. “With Blackbaud’s great implementation strategy, we went digital and paperless practically overnight. We receive around 700 applications a year, so because of this shift, we eliminated 700 paper files as parents submitted everything online. Plus, Committee Review allowed us to review all files on our devices, anytime, anywhere. It was a wonderful experience for both us and the parents.”

Building a Digital Ecosystem

With proven success from its initial phases, Gonzaga next tackled three more stages of its digital overhaul: transitioning its fundraising, general ledger, and academic records to the Total School Solution, which fully connected Gonzaga’s various processes and systems.

Before beginning the migration from Blackbaud’s legacy systems to the Total School Solution, tens of thousands of records needed to be reformatted, including hundreds of thousands of individual data points. “It was daunting and overwhelming at first, and we worried about having to do much of it manually,” Blair said. With the help of Blackbaud’s support team, Blair and his team found a way to work through the challenge and reformat the data in an automated way.

“Over the years, the quality of Blackbaud’s product support has been, by far, the best level of support I’ve ever experienced from any company,” Blair said. “The professionalism of the support representatives, combined with their depth and breadth of knowledge, is remarkable. Blackbaud people really care about helping you.”

Staying Ahead of the Game

With technology and artificial intelligence advancing rapidly, cybersecurity is top of mind for schools like Gonzaga, who are tasked with protecting not only their own data but that of their students and families. Proactive safety measures within the Blackbaud tools, such as required multi-factor authentication, a single login ID to access the school’s online system, and role-based permissions help safeguard the information of all constituents.

“Blackbaud requires industry best practices in terms of security measures and has the resources to secure these systems way more than schools like us could if we were hosting them ourselves,” Blair said. “It’s very comforting as a customer and for our parents and families to know we’re in the good hands of a company like Blackbaud.”

Knowing they have a secure existing foundation to build on, Gonzaga plans to continue to build up their robust Blackbaud ecosystem in the future, integrating solutions wherever they are able.

“Having all our education data coming from one core database saves a tremendous amount of time for our back-end administrators,” said Blair. “And it’s a much better experience for the families, and the teachers. Parents and students have one central login, which makes it easy for them to input their information. That information then flows right to the classroom to the teachers, which minimizes class interruptions. It’s fabulous. The Total School Solution is a one-stop shop that eliminates so much data passing, and it’s been a gamechanger for us over the years.”