NCCS Connects Its Data to Power Smarter Enrollment, Aid, and Financial Decisions

Q: Which Blackbaud products do you rely on daily?

A: My work draws on data from across Blackbaud’s Total School Solution — our enrollment and admissions platform, Student Information and Learning Management Systems (SIS and LMS), Raiser’s Edge NXT, Tuition Management, and Financial Edge NXT — to help our leadership team make informed decisions about enrollment, financial aid, giving, and the overall health of the school.

Q: What kinds of questions are school leaders asking that require connected, reliable data?

A: School leaders are asking things like: Which students are at risk? Is our financial aid actually accomplishing what we intend? Where are we financially exposed? Those questions only get real answers when the underlying data is connected. Because our systems are all Blackbaud—with consistent user IDs from inquiry through enrollment through billing and eventual graduation—I’m not spending my time reconciling who’s who between files. That means I can get straight to the analysis work instead of wrestling with syncing up data from various disconnected systems.

With Blackbaud’s Total School Solution, we’ve eliminated most manual data reconciliation. Automating reporting with cleaner, more reliable information across admissions, financial aid, tuition, and finance frees up team capacity, allowing us to spend more time on strategic work.

Q: What becomes possible when enrollment, academic, and financial data are all connected?

A: Connecting data across enrollment, academics, and finance lets us model decisions before we make them, rather than reacting after the fact. Some examples:

• With student and family data centralized in Blackbaud, we were able to pull it into Microsoft Power BI to create custom Grandparents Day schedules for every student and family. That project was very impactful, eliminating a 2-week, 10-person manual process of building classroom-by-classroom schedules and assembling packets. The team’s time now goes straight into the grandparent experience itself, and the finished product is far more polished.

• I was also able to build a multi-year financial aid planning model with the clean, connected financial aid and tuition data flowing through Blackbaud. The model maps out how many new aid offers we can extend at each entry grade, even accounting for returning students as they move towards graduation.That level of planning is only possible because enrollment, aid, and finance data are speaking the same language in Blackbaud’s systems. It’s changed our budgeting conversations from “what did we spend last year?” to “what can we responsibly commit to next year and the year after?”

Q: What insights can your team uncover faster now than before?

A: A project I’m in the middle of right now is a good example: an expenditure analysis of our incidental fees and our financial aid and tuition remission spending. I pulled the raw data from Financial Edge NXT and built a Google Apps Script to process it.

This analysis allows us to shift the conversation from “what did we spend?” to “where are we spending, and what does that tell us about where we’re headed?” Now our board and finance team can see that information clearly. That work is already reshaping how we project future expenditures, and it’s possible with Blackbaud’s Total School Solution as the reliable source of the underlying data.

Q: How does having everything connected change the experience for families?

A: The family experience is where this really shows up. Because Enrollment Management, Student Information System, Learning Management System, Tuition Management, and the parent portal are all part of the same Blackbaud environment, families get a single sign-on that puts everything they need in one place. With that one login, a parent can complete their enrollment contract, manage and pay their tuition, check their child’s progress reports, fill out forms, and register for events—without juggling separate logins or wondering which system has what they need. And they use that same login throughout their time at the school. That kind of simplicity on the family side is only possible because the systems underneath are actually connected, not just sitting next to each other.

Q: What impact have you seen show up in the numbers?

A: Our parent survey Net Promoter Score rose from 56 to 60 this year and connected data was a real driver of that. Because every office works from the same student and family record, families get consistent, accurate information whether they’re hearing from admissions, the business office, or the classroom, rather than conflicting answers depending on who they ask. That consistency builds trust, and it shows up directly in how families rate their experience with us.

Q: How do schools like yours get a voice in shaping Blackbaud products and services?

A: I sit on the Blackbaud K–12 Advisory Board, which gives me a direct channel to bring what we’re experiencing at New Canaan Country School back to the people building these products. It’s a genuine two-way conversation, not just a suggestion box. I’ve also had the chance to present alongside peers at conferences like AISAP, EMA, and Blackbaud’s annual tech conference bbcon on data topics. That is its own version of that same feedback loop, learning from other schools while sharing what’s worked for us.

Q: Why do you keep choosing Blackbaud, and what are you most excited about next?

A: I say confidently that having a fully connected system makes the job easier for everyone across the journey from inquiry to alumni. We continue to choose Blackbaud because we’re not spending our time and energy stitching disconnected systems together. I talk with peers at other schools regularly who are dealing with exactly that problem, and it takes a real toll on their teams. It limits their time and energy because they’re using their limited resources to migrate data and reconcile rather than to be strategic.

Looking ahead, I’m excited about where Blackbaud’s SKY API is taking us. We’re in the middle of migrating our integrations to it now, and it’s opening new ways to connect our data even further.