When School Systems Can’t Support the Future You’re Building
Change is rarely about novelty. For school leaders, it’s about purpose.
Across independent schools, there’s a familiar moment when leaders pause and ask a hard question: Is our technology helping us do our best work—or are we adapting our work to fit the technology?
That question often leads schools to reassess their tech stacks and, ultimately, to realize that they have outgrown what their current systems can deliver.
In a recent Blackbaud webinar, leaders from St. Mary’s Hall, Tilton School, and Green Acres School shared what led them to move from Veracross to Blackbaud—not because one solution failed, but because their schools needed to move forward with intention, operate sustainably, and unlock future possibilities. Across the conversation, they spoke to challenges that show up in every corner of a school—advancement, admissions, academics, and finance—even when the starting point looks different at each institution.
We Had Ambitions—But Not the Infrastructure
When Jim Bob Womack became Assistant Head of School for Advancement at St. Mary’s Hall in San Antonio, TX, he stepped into a school with big fundraising aspirations and strong philanthropic support. The challenge was the behind-the-scenes technology.
“I realized how limiting it was for our development work,” Womack explained. “My head of school asked me if I had the tools to be successful. And the answer was no.”
Once he started digging in, the problem came into focus—not a lack of effort or talent on the team, but the lack of support for long‑term donor acquisition and retention. The school didn’t have a system to help identify prospects, capture donor notes, structure stewardship, or provide any relationship context over time. To solve those pain points and give them the tools they needed to succeed, they switched to Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT.
What we’re really doing is setting our school up for decades to come.
Jim Bob Womack
St. Mary’s Hall
“Immediately, we’ve seen an impact… we’re really tracking and managing our work versus it being kind of passive. I think what we’re really doing is setting our school up for decades to come.”
The decision to change systems wasn’t about short‑term gains. It was about building infrastructure that could nurture pipelines, moves management, and donor stewardship—not just for one campaign or one leader, but for the school’s long-term financial sustainability.
We Needed Reports Without the Bottleneck
At Tilton School in New Hampshire, data existed across admissions, academics, development, and billing, but it wasn’t connected. Leaders didn’t have ready access to all the information they needed, and cross‑functional collaboration was difficult.
“We were preparing board reports and trying to figure out what our tuition revenue is, and when you’re on different systems, you need somebody from the business office to pull the data for you,” said Bobbi Krein, Assistant Head of School for External Operations.
By switching to Blackbaud’s connected systems, the school brought those data points together. Leaders now spend less time chasing down numbers and more time acting on them.
“Now we’re all on the same system and we’re all looking at the same reports, which makes it much easier,” Krein continued.
From the finance perspective, Glen Waring, Tilton’s Director of Finance and Operations, saw the results clearly—especially in billing and enrollment workflows.
Staying where we were would have cost us more, not less.
Glen Waring
Tilton School
“Staying where we were would have cost us more, not less,” Waring explained. “I’m already seeing that this is a system that can be managed much more easily than it was with Veracross… and we can very easily gain the efficiencies of not only shared data, but accurate data and timeliness across all of our departments.”
Shifting to Blackbaud reduced reporting bottlenecks, lowered administrative strain, and enabled more consistent decision‑making across Tilton’s leadership team.
The System Had to Support Our School’s Future
For Green Acres School, a small, progressive PK–8 just outside Washington, D.C., the need for change was shaped by real‑world pressures: enrollment shifts, staffing transitions, and the challenge of rebuilding processes that could endure. Technology had to be part of that conversation.
“The programs and systems we needed for 350 students were very different than for 200 students. And, obviously, 200 students meant a different budget,” said Julia R. Martin, Assistant to the Head of School and a former elementary educator.
We were able to move our entire system to Blackbaud, and now it’s being run by me, a non-tech person.
Julia R. Martin
Green Acres School
Green Acres moved to Blackbaud’s Total School Solution to bring academics, enrollment, fundraising, and financials into one connected system. The payoff was practical: less dependence on external consultants, better cross-departmental workflows, and greater resilience during changing times.
“When we were with Veracross, we had a technology-based consultant who did all our database management—and charged what you would expect,” she continued. “We were able to move our entire system to Blackbaud, and now it’s being run by me, a non-tech person.”
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A Shared Realization: Schools Work Better When Systems Are Connected
Across all three schools, leaders described a similar shift. Systems supporting cross‑departmental work—with connected workflows and shared visibility—empower leadership teams to move faster, collaborate more effectively, and trust the information in front of them.
“At any point, I can see where we stand financially,” Tilton’s Krein said. “That changes conversations at the leadership level.”
For Green Acres, connection also improved the experience for families and students, who now interact with one consistent environment across roles and grade levels.
And for St. Mary’s Hall, connected data transformed advancement work from reactive to strategic—capturing actions, stewardship history, and progress in ways that compound over time.
Choosing a Partner, Not Just a Platform
None of these leaders framed their decision as simply switching vendors. Instead, they focused on alignment—between mission and systems, leadership priorities and tools, and short‑term needs and long‑term sustainability.
“We didn’t make this change because something was broken,” Waring said. “We made it because we knew we could operate better.”
That insight may resonate with many school leaders facing similar crossroads. Modern schools need technology to support faster and more confident decision-making, continuity through changes, and consistent information across offices.
Transformation doesn’t begin with technology. It begins with asking what needs to be true for your school to do its best work—not just today, but years from now.
For these schools, answering that question meant choosing a partner built to grow with them.
