Name: From Insight to Action: The Next Generation of K-12 School Technology
Uploaded: 2026-08-25T18:40:56.996Z
Duration: 1 h 32 s
Description: From Insight to Action: The Next Generation of K-12 School Technology

Transcript for "From Insight to Action: The Next Generation of K-12 School Technology": Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for today's webinar, From Insight to Action, The Next Generation of K twelve School Technology. My name is Elizabeth, and I'm part of the k twelve marketing team here at Blackbaud. A few call outs as we all get settled. The webinar audio will be broadcast through your computer speakers, so, hopefully, you can all hear me. As always, you will receive the recording to today's session about twenty four hours after the fact. If you need captions, you can hover over the stage and click the CC button on the bottom of the screen to turn your captions on and off. If you encounter any audio or technical issues, such as the slides or your screen freezing, usually a quick refresh of your browser is the best way to get it working again. And worst case scenario, you can leave and log in again. You'll see the chat button. This is meant to encourage engagement and connection amongst our attendees as we attempt to recreate some of the magic of the main stage at the K-twelve user conference. Next to chat, you'll see the docs area. We'll come back to that in just a second. And I also wanna encourage you to use the Q and A on the top right to submit any questions that you might have for the Blackbaud team. We are going to do our best to try to answer questions during today's session. If time permits, we'll have some live q and a at the end. But rest assured that if we don't get to your question, we will follow-up after the fact. You can adjust the settings by using the cog wheel at the bottom of the event space. So I mentioned that docs area, We pride ourselves on being more than just a software provider. And as a former educator, I have to say our resources are top notch. In the slide that you're seeing, I've called out two of the many links in the docs area and I encourage you to give them all a deeper dive. Our k 12 blog is your go to source for best practices. Posts are written by a variety of voices featuring industry thought leaders, partners from the Blackbaud marketplace, Blackbaud product experts, school peers, and more. Speaking of your peers, check out our customer stories for a variety of perspectives, solutions, and mission driven success stories. You'll also see resources related to AI, our total school solution, and more. So here's where we're headed in today's session. We'll start with a brief introduction of Blackbaud followed by our k 12 vision presented by leaders across our team. We'll wrap up with a few resources and, again, time permitting, some questions. So in case you're just getting to know Blackbaud, let's kick it off with a video. Welcome back to the k twelve UC. How excited are you guys? When you first come in, first morning, you're seeing colleagues that you only see as talking heads from Zoom. So there's a lot of energy that goes along with that. It's great to just be around a lot of people who you know are doing the same things that you're doing every day. Everyone speaks the same lines. Language. What's coming next is really, really exciting. It's fundamentally gonna change Blackbaud, and over time, will change your schools and how we approach education. Just the AI component alone, the streamline of different components, I'm just so excited. It's gonna make my life so much easier. Our commitment to AI isn't just about capability. It's about building it responsibly in a way that's human centered, transparent, and accountable. I would definitely say it's important to be here in person being that this is my first conference. I've done the virtual, and I wasn't able to network as well as I am in person. A 100% I would come back next year just for the technical things that I'm getting answered, for the collaboration, and things I hadn't even thought of for my school. Is there gonna be a UC next year? Absolutely. We'll see you in 2027. Alright. Well, that buried some of the lead. But in case you're just getting to know us, we are the leading software provider exclusively dedicated to powering social impact. We're honored to be recognized with the various industry awards shown on this slide. But what's most but what is most important is what they mean for our school partners. They reflect Blackbaud's ongoing investment and innovation and are more than forty years of experience serving private and independent schools in the social good community at large. Everything you see today and everything we're working toward is designed to help your school work more efficiently, create better experiences for families, and advance your mission. A central tenet of our work is helping our schools achieve more with Blackbaud powered by our solutions and supported by our consultative approach. The schools shown above are a small snapshot of our robust k twelve community. And thematically, you'll see schools increasing connectivity and visibility, decreasing manual workloads and processes, and raising more money to help power and support their missions. So as you saw from the video, we are still buzzing with excitement from the return of our K-twelve user conference this past July in Boston. Across three days, more than 600 attendees, some of whom are joining us today, thank you, experienced exciting keynotes and joined over 80 sessions focused on the future of school technology. So what you'll hear today is a modified virtual version of what we announced on our main stage day two of the UC. We hope that you're as excited for the future as we are, and we hope that we see you in person at the twenty twenty seven UC. More specific details regarding dates and location to come, and you can read more about our UC announcements in the newsroom article linked in the docs area. Before I hand it over to our team, I wanted to highlight your opportunity throughout today's session to raise your hand for a personalized one on one discovery call with our team to help discuss how our solutions can help meet your school's specific needs. You'll see the purple button in the upper right hand corner of your screen. I'd like to introduce the Blackbaud k twelve leaders that you'll be hearing from throughout today's webinar. Because we're talking about innovation in education, we thought it was important for you to hear directly from the leaders helping shape our vision, strategy, and solutions for schools every day. You'll hear from Mark Davis, GM of Education Solutions, Ryan Baus, senior manager, product management, Charlie Lytle, senior manager, solutions consulting, Koriek, director, product management, January Hodge, national VP k twelve sales, and Beth Riccardi, managing director of k twelve customer success. And as a quick side note, getting six busy k twelve leaders on the same webinar at the same time may have been one of our greatest innovation challenges yet. So we are especially glad that you could join us for the result. One quick safe harbor note, you'll see a mix of capabilities available today and innovations that we're actively developing. Our goal is to share where we're headed, but future functionality, timing, and availability are subject to change as we continue to learn and build alongside our customers. And with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Mark to unmute to ground us in where we're going and how we're thinking about our solutions. Thanks, Mark. Great. Thanks, Elizabeth. Hello. As, Elizabeth just introduced myself, I am GM of Education Products serving here at Blackbaud, both the k 12 and higher education schools that we serve. And that's me on the on the right welcoming our CEO, Mike Giannoni, to MainStage, at the k twelve user conference, and I'm I'm so excited to provide a little bit of a recap and a summary for those who maybe wanna hear it again, who are there in person, and for those who were not able to make it to this year's conference. And, hopefully, we'll see you next year's conference. So let's get started here. So I'm gonna I'm gonna lay the groundwork for today's discussion for the rest of the team to review. So everything that we do at Blackbaud, every product decision, every investment we make is guided by five key themes. These key themes have evolved over time, but they've remained remarkably consistent. They reflect our North Star. First, our commitment is to a total school solution, a purpose built platform that spans the full life cycle of your school's entire community. Second, the Blackbaud, we aim to build products and solutions that expand access to the education that your schools support in your community by helping families navigate financial aid, application processes, simplifying payments, and ultimately making your institution more accessible to the communities that you serve. Third, we intend to deliver a best in class digital experience increasingly empowered through AI for every user across your community, but especially for your parents, students, and teachers that are actively on the system every day. Fourth is we intend to build an open and thriving partner ecosystem. And through this ecosystem, we want you to extend the value of your investment in Blackbaud through integrations with best in class solutions. And last and certainly not least, is Blackbaud intends to continue to be a trusted partner, helping you manage your risk, protect your data, and meet your compliance obligations. Now these aren't just ideas. They are the key themes that shape what we build and where we invest in our solutions. Now to the center of this, in terms of that first key theme, is something we've been talking about for quite some time, our k 12 total school solution. And we're incredibly proud to say at Blackbaud, we were the first to bring this concept to market, purpose built for independent schools. A single connected experience that supports your school's community from initial application, to enrollment, to the classroom, to financials and business office, and all the way through alumni engagement and giving. As I said before, that vision really hasn't changed, but how we deliver on it absolutely has and continues to do so. And today, that vision is a modern connected platform enriched end to end with Blackbaud AI that is just now enabling new possibilities that are fundamentally different. Capabilities working together, built on shared data foundation, and powered through AI field innovation. And to do this, we are focused on three key strategic areas to bring that vision even further to life. First, connectivity. Our research shows that schools spend days unnecessarily each month just syncing data across the various applications. And in fact, NSU University School says they saved over four hundred and fifty hours annually by switching to our total school solution. That's why we're continuing to strengthen connections across the applications from financial aid into our enrollment process and are recently released in the general availability common records engine that provides a two way sync across our SIS and your razor's edge NXT. Second, expanding our ecosystem. National data suggests roughly one in eight private school teachers lead the profession each year, making it essential to simplify your technology stack, reduce staff burden, and maintain a consistent high quality experience across various products to support your school. At the same time, in order to do this, we are embracing industry standards like one roster and LTI Advantage to make connectivity even easier so that your teachers have easy access to the tools they need in the classroom. The goal is simple. We wanna give you the flexibility to connect the tools you already trust while extending functionality where you need it most without having to worry about complex integrations. Because at the end of the day, it's all about helping you get more value from an open growing network of solutions that actually work the way you need them to. And last and third is building on a foundation of intelligence. Teachers and staff spend over half of their day on administrative work. And at Blackbaud, we're challenging that. We're asking how could technology, especially enhanced with AI, reduce that burden so that you can spend more time on doing what's most important, empowering student success. And we're just not bringing your data together so it can be stored in a system of record. That's great. It's a starting point, as I said, of the foundation. But now we aim to make your data more accessible and actionable as part of a system of intelligence that is delivered in a way that is trustworthy, human centered, and accountable. So that's the foundation, a connected modern platform built on unified data with end to end capabilities, all extended through partners. But what's really changing the game now is what we can do with the data stored in stored in our systems. What we're seeing across the sector is fascinating. About 85% of education and nonprofit professionals are already using AI in their work, but only about 10% feel confident it's delivering true transformative value. That confidence changes as organizations mature and then how they use AI. And in fact, we believe that true AI transformation leads to real outcomes. The opportunity in front of us as educators is how we can use AI to find time to focus on strengthening relationships with students, families, alumni, and donors. And that's where I wanna now hand it over to Ryan to explain that a little bit more. Ryan? Thanks, Mark. Hey, everyone. I really appreciate the time to be with you all. I was, sitting with a bit of anxiety this morning, if you can envision. I've got two kids starting two new schools, a ninth grader and a sixth grader. And as I was watching the folks kind of come into the room, this this kind of weight was taken off me because I realized there's some folks I know in the room and the caring and loving experience you create in all your communities. My sons are in good hands just like all the kids who you're taking care of. So I just wanted to say that I'm getting a lot out of this meeting today. It's taking the first school jitters off of me just by looking at all you, and I see some dear friends that are in the audience. So, first and foremost, I wanna just quickly, talk a little bit about, what's happening in the market. So, I've had the privilege to work with a lot of different schools, a lot of different, shapes and sizes, and we're building out solutions that address the real changes that schools face every day and in the future. And what I'm about to show you is some of the things that I'm most excited about, around the education products. So in general, we're seeing a fundamental shift in how technology is supporting schools. For many years, systems, including blackboards, were designed primarily to store information. That's not law it's no longer enough, and we know that and we see that. We're moving to a system of record, a system that takes action that's powered by human centered approach, leveraging AI that's embedded directly into the platform, and using those AI tools that your teams use every day. The result is really clear from the early, prototypes and work that we're doing is that your teams are getting things done faster. The experience that you're having with software is becoming more personalized. Your users and your community, meaning your parents and students, are actually finding that experience to be better, and you're spending less time on managing systems and more time driving outcomes. And that impacts, everyone across the school, not just one particular office. It could, impact the admissions office, the enrollment sorry, the enrollment management office, depending if they're different, the advancement office, and we know that that is a continued effort that we need to do. So for us, this is about delivering a platform that allows this movement to a system of action. And to do that, we need to really create an intelligence layer. And so one of the key things to unknown sorry, to know is that, having a system in action is really about how can the system provide better insight. And that is usually where AI can be applied. So this includes things like predictions, recommendations, maybe a suggested action. An analysis could be done on maybe your admissions office, and how they've run events and maybe a recommendation of when to run open houses, but a system that helps identify patterns and anticipates what's next and helps your office guide to be the right next steps. Eventually, you will partner with that AI agent or that experience layer to maybe take those actions on your behalf. But we always will have a human involved, and we will always ask, and our software will always want to make sure that we use your expertise in that process. So that's where we come to this kind of concept of having schools are generating more data than ever. That we're turning that data into action, but that gap still remains. And we believe that's a challenge that we are partnering with you all to get there. And but combining those different layers, the connected data, the AI, the intelligence, we believe we can help schools unlock insights to make better decisions and to act with confidence in this new age. It's no longer just about connecting systems. It's more about actually helping your teams get intelligence across those systems to be able to move faster and drive bigger impact. So one of the things that I wanted to just kind of talk a little bit about is how you can tie into those. And so as we do that, we know that it's really important for, us to build a level of trust. We believe it's an honor to be a partner with you all in this effort and this journey, and we take that very seriously. And the schools that we serve are obviously servicing families and communities. And we know that that data, is important, and you are the steward of that data, and we are a partner in that. And we firmly believe that working through a human trust based relationship will get there, in the end. But how do all these layers and how do all these concepts come to life? Well, I wanted to just show show you a quick example. Envision a product that actually can be, a little bit more than just what you've had prior. It can what I'm showing is a prototype, a screenshot. Don't get hung up on any of the details specifically, But this is not just a redesign of our UI. The concept that we're going for is a new approach in how software companies deliver and service their schools, our schools, in the market. So it's an intelligent platform that creates a new experience layer that unlocks insights and recommendations and capabilities that allow you to do your job better that haven't been existing in our current ecosystem of, software providers. So we believe we're leading in this space. It is a software package or an offering that will be responsive to the school seasonality, your roles, your priorities, and the critical actions of things you need get done. It can be seamlessly integrated into human workflows as well as into agentic workflows, so maybe having the agent doing some research and then coming back to a person. We believe that this new centralized hub will be on transform like, transformative. I almost said something else, but, transformative, for our schools to be a human centered control AI platform for the future. So imagine admissions office logging in, not just knowing who that admissions officer is or who they are, but ultimately knowing what's on their docket for today, how they can actually ask a question in natural languages, building reports, taking action, coming to the table with recommendations. I mentioned it early on, but imagine having a system that says, hey. If you wanna optimize your open houses, we've noticed over the last three years that if you do them on Tuesday, you actually get more applicants from those open houses. So the system actually will produce recommendations on when you need to do things and when you shouldn't do things. And so just to tie it out with the kind of the concept I mentioned about trust, you know, our commitment in this space to AI isn't just about capabilities. We're not just trying to do AI things to do AI things. It's about building that responsibility with you. In all ways that I describe this, this is about creating a human centered transparent, accountable way to actually do this. It's about how we use it and the responsibility and thoughtfulness in the way that we earn your trust Because being an AI, platform actually isn't just about the technology. It's about you having trust and confidence in us that we are the partner that you should be working with. So how is that actually showing up in schools, that trust and that relationship? And how is our kind of innovative approach working with schools today? I like to use this slide. I think of it as a spectrum slide and think of, you know, the left hand side of the spectrum being kind of low lift, some AI involved, and to then, on the right hand side, being semiautonomous or even autonomous agents working almost as a, you know, FTE or an employee in your office and doing things on their own. So think of that as that that shared kind of expect, spectrum side. On the left hand side, what we here's just a great example. We're building out something called candidate insights. And candidate insights will be a product that is embedded into our EMS offering that will look at candidates who are applying. Will then give you some predicted metrics or key milestones or key indicators of whether that child would accept your offer. Right? So based on the data that you have in your system, it's not actually doing anything in your behalf. It's just providing you some indicators in the kind of admissions process. And so that is a really interesting area for us to work through. We're really excited about it, but that is kind of on the low, not taking over a process, mostly part of a package. The next one I want to talk about moving from left to right is sometimes you just need faster ways to get answers. It's not another dashboard, but you just need to ask a question of your system. And that's where our Blackbaud AI chat comes in. Think of it as providing answers in real time, guidance, and troubleshooting in seconds. Your team can actually start to do things and less worry about where things are. So imagine if you're in the middle of your season and you need to, onboard a new student and you can't remember exactly what that is. You could actually ask the system, this chat, in a natural language, how do I bring a new student on? And it'll give you the resources and documentation and then the actions you can take to actually bring on that new student. So that's Blackbaud AI chat, which we're really excited about. The next is enrollment contracts. Think of enrollment contracts as being, we're gonna be having this be an EAP in, the fall, but it's actually in flight right now. Think of our enrollment contracts as, you know, we have got an option now for schools to actually send out enrollment contracts. It's seamlessly built into EMS as well as to billing management. But, really, where the AI comes into play is we actually have AI built into the product to help you generate different types of forms that you would use in your contract building. So think of conditional forms, if this, then that. We can actually structure some built in technology around the enrollment contracts that allow you to, deliver a more seamless integration to your family's, you know, reenrollment process. So that's pretty exciting as well. And then as we go to the last section on the right hand side, think of the admissions agent. This is something that we're launching in the marketplace. It's going to come out, the end of twenty twenty six, so the end of this year. And, ultimately, think of this as an autonomous agent that works with your admissions office. They could be assigned follow-up, tasks. They could be assigned, research tasks. They could actually maybe create a list or a report to show you how many people have applied to your school but, not completed their application. And so could I nudge them and give them, you know, a piece of content, or should I call them? And so this admissions agent is our, I guess, the best way to describe it is our kind of agentic experience for you as a school, and it's the first place we're starting. It's not the last place. We it's very similar to something we've done in the, development side, which I'm gonna talk a little bit about in the next couple minutes. The admissions agent is a really interesting concept. So we're starting development under a project we call agents for good, and, specifically, agents for good for education. So all the agents that could kinda roll up into this, you'll see this kinda nomenclature across Blackbaud. But we're starting with admissions, one of the most complex and relation driven areas of every school. And we believe that every interaction that your school does, whether it's from inquiry to enrollment contract, is an opportunity to continue that building of that momentum with your school. So it's hard to scale that, and we know that. And so that's where we wanted to start with the this this admissions agent was helping schools figure out how to use an agentic experience that's built on their platform that's trusted and respected to actually help with emailing those nurture campaigns, help with actually nudging folks, maybe reminding you as the admission director actually to to, take a task or call them on the phone. So it's a really exciting place. The the part that I just wanna highlight is that we're focused on the family journey with this first admissions agent. So a family, you know, inquires, starts their application, doesn't finish. There's these small, kind of friction moments, attending an event. They maybe need to learn more about how they pay for schools. All these areas are ways that, folks who are learning about your program might fall out. And so we wanna focus the admissions agent coming to the market with a skill around what we're calling the nurturer. So you might see that in further kind of documentation is, like, how do we help an admissions office nurture those communities a little bit, more? And that's the problem we're solving. We believe this is a really great way to do this. We believe having a admissions agent focused on those nurture, those skills, is really the best way to go about this. We believe that, you know, it's helping schools manage their complex tasks, the time sensitive actions that need to happen. Coming from the admission space, from years before, I you know, everything has to get done with a certain amount of time, and it's high visibility, high stakes. So we believe this is the first place to start. I just wanted to highlight this if you're familiar with it around our agentic work. We've done the same approach with the development agent for folks that use Raiser's Edge on the on the webinar. We built a development agent that helps with nurturing, different parts of the constituents that are in the market, maybe, say, all of your alums that have given last year but not given this year. We've helped schools release this development agent built right into razor's edge. And so that expertise is actually, coming out very, very well, and that skill based agent, is landing incredibly well in the marketplace. So now I'm gonna channel my inner, data, passion, which you can kinda see behind me as I've got a flag. But, Jesse Walters, who's a product manager on, my team and works for Blackbaud for many years, is heading up our data strategy. And so one of the things I wanted to just highlight here is around our innovation is that we vision reporting, very strategic for both the schools and for our product offerings. K 12 schools don't need technically more systems. The most schools have a lot of systems. What they need is a different connected experience that turns that data into action. The goal isn't just better reporting. It's removing the friction between collecting that data and then reporting out and providing insight on top of it. So it's not just like, hey. How many kids do I have, that are enrolling or, say, in my application funnel? They're actually saying which kids are most likely to drop out of that funnel based off of the data that you have. And so that's where we're going. And that is, of course, we'll have reporting, and that will always be part of it. But providing that less is more type of mentality to give you all the insights that you need to actually take action is where we're headed. The other key part is that we're bringing a series of technologies together. And so this is you may not hear this often, but, because this is a trusted group of folks, we'll say it out loud. We have a data warehouse, option, and we have two data warehouse technologies under the hood, and we're bringing them together to produce what we call the black bot intelligence layer. One of the products that we use under the hood, which is a commercially available product, is called Databricks. You all don't really need to know that, but it's the best in class data warehouse, data lake technology in the world. And just recently last November, Blackbaud acquired the company I founded, which was School BI, which was a small data warehouse built purposely for schools. So those two expertise, having the best in class, data warehouse technology and now a purposeful understanding of a common data model that needs to take place for these schools, we're unlocking this new capability around this intelligence layer. The thing that I wanted to just highlight that is data can be extremely fun to talk about, but it can also be a little bit laborious because it's all about bits and bytes and fields and transformation. But, really, what this means to all of you on the phone is that it's gonna save time and hopefully produce powerful intelligence for your school, and then at the end, allow you to make better decisions. And that's a funny one. That's always one of those ones, like, you know, we're all gonna make mistakes. But if you have data that's backed in your, decisions, your hypothesis, you'll actually make less mistakes or you'll have things that you can recover from faster. So that's our whole goal here is to actually be able to kind of allow you to take reports that used to take maybe minutes or days or weeks in some cases. I know some of you have been struggling with that, that the report takes seconds. Right? Forecasting is automated. You know? If this, then you're gonna have this many. Right? Think about the admissions season. Ultimately, it's an area where we believe because of the rich data that we have in our technology, we can do that. And then last but not least, think about being able to intervene earlier. Think about student success. Think about being able to see somebody who might be struggling with school before they even know it. That's where we're going, and that's the insights that we wanna be able to provide. Yes. We're gonna build out a wonderful data warehouse that you all can take advantage of, but it's those insights is where the magic happens. So now what I'm gonna do is turn it over to Charlie, a dear friend and absolute rock star of a colleague to talk about more of the academics pieces that we are. Charlie, I saw you come on, so now I'm gonna stop talking. Thanks, Ryan. Hi, everybody. I'm Charlie Lytle, and I lead our team of solutions consultants here at Blackbaud, many of whom are former end users like yourself and myself. As that former director of admissions, I know how closely academics and, and the overall student experience are connected. I've had the privilege of walking I have the privilege of walking you through a few of our academic innovations on behalf of our learning management student information system product managers, Mike Morissette and Jacqueline Kocia. Listening to you and delivering needed product enhancement is so important to us. We spend a lot of time listening to you at conferences. We listen to our advisory board. We listen through our support conversations and, of course, the idea bank. Today, we're gonna dig into just a few of our academic innovations focusing on reducing administrative burden so you can spend more time focused on your students. If you want to learn more about specific enhancements, I encourage you to attend our November product update briefings, and our registrations will should open in early October. Let's start with a a few new feature callouts. Parents can now submit absences, tardies, and early dismissals through the portal, and your school stays in control of the entire process. You decide which attendance codes parents have access to. So if you only want parents submitting attendance and tardies but not early dismissals, that's your call to make. When a submission comes in, your administrators review it first right inside their normal attendance workflows. They can adjust the entry so data integrity your school depends on stays intact. We are also focusing on making assignment creation and grading more intuitive, efficient, and ergonomic. Our grading journey, it's at the core, this is about simplifying grading, reducing clicks, improving visibility, and making it easier to manage in ways that fits your school's needs. If you're a long time user, these are big updates. And if you're thinking about becoming a Blackbaud customer, these enhancements means you're getting the best grading process. And as a, proof point to our focus, in 2025 alone, we saw more than 8,000,000 assignments created across our database, making assignments the most used module in our education management suite. So getting this experience right really matters. A few capabilities we're building into products across our education portfolio include our question generator, which is available today, and it saves teachers time by generating questions on common themes. Coming next is our grading comments, being able to generate comments on student performance and progress back based on teacher data already entered. Essay feedback reads and assesses the student's work faster, saving teachers hours of time in getting feedback to the student much more quickly to maximize the impact of that assessment. And analyzing data across course sections. Our AI everywhere approach means we're embedding smart, responsible AI features throughout the Blackbaud education management portfolio. This includes classroom tools that elevate learning, intuitive navigation powered by conversational AI, and virtual agents that support both educators and administrators. Private schools now, more than ever, are being asked to prove their ROI. Competition is tough. It's not just about graduation, but moving kids from adequate to awesome, their thriveability. Student success insights is not just about identifying kids who need help. It's also about finding areas to help our your students take off. Our work here is grounded in identifying where kids could be struggling or helping you find untapped or unrealized opportunities. Student success insights allow schools to create their own risk calculations based upon what matters most to your school community. By analyzing data like grades, attendance, and conduct, schools can identify students who may need support earlier and prioritize intervention efforts. Importantly, despite these calculations, humans, staff remain in control, adding context and adjusting risk levels when needed. The results is early visibility, more informed decisions, and better support for our students, and as Ryan said, that system of action. We're currently in EAP with a tentative goal of general availability in October. We hope you'll join our November pubs to learn more about this exciting feature. Rounding us out, this isn't a report you run at the end of the quarter and hope for the best. It's a living, configurable view that helps your counselors and administrators act early, and this feature will evolve. In the future, student success insights will use the power of data and AI to surface students earlier and allow you to guide them to success sooner. Who doesn't want that? Truly being powerful AI AI insights to to the success journey. And now I'll hand it over to Corey to discuss the business office. Thanks, Charlie. Hey, everyone. My name is Kory Ek. I am a director on the product management team at Blackbaud. My team focuses on the solutions that support the k twelve business office from financial aid to billing to financial operations. Let me advance the slide there. I'm gonna I'm gonna walk you through, some of our business office innovation on behalf of a couple of our k twelve business office experts, Julia Mesic and Julie Jen Haley. I'm sure some of you know them very well. K. Many of you know what it feels like to start that Monday with a huge to do list and a phone to that just won't stop ringing. You know, your families, they're amazing people, but they forget to pay. And when they have questions after hours, they're calling you, not thinking about the fact that, you're not at your desk. Business offices, they're being asked to do more with less every single year. And the tools most schools are using to to manage billing, well, they're they're just not built for those moments. Billing management is our modern billing platform. It's designed from the ground up to work the way schools actually work. And it's not just new. It it is different. Architecturally, billing management lives inside the same platform as the rest of your school from enrollment, admissions, to student information. That's the real architectural decision that we made, and it changes how things work day to day. Here's a simple example. When a family goes through admissions and signs an enrollment contract, that information doesn't sit in a queue waiting for someone to move it over to billing. It just flows. No manual hand off. No process, someone has to own. No. Did you update the the billing conversation? It just happens because the systems are connected. Think about something that happens every day. Let's say, you know, you need to add a uniform eleventh grade, boys' soccer team. In a lot of systems, that's like a whole big thing, lots of steps. But in billing management, you just select the group, add the charge, and you're done. Just a few clicks and that that's it. And when parents go to pay, they're not logging into a separate billing portal that looks completely different from everything else they use at your school. The payment experience is built within the same platform that they're already using. Same look, same login, same feel they already know. We've learned that, you know, that really matters to families, and it matters for your team because fewer confused phone calls, well, that's a win. This is what we mean when we say total school solution. It's it's not just a marketing phrase. It's the actual design philosophy behind how billing management was built. And for those of you using Financial Edge NXT, billing management also eliminates a lot of the manual export and import processes with direct posting to your general ledger. Transactions flow directly to FE NXT and control how often changes in payments are posted, and it has the flexibility to summarize or separate payment types based on your school's needs. And here's a little more, on Financial NXT, automated deposits. Automated deposits eliminate the fragmented workflow by automatically ingesting and consolidating all required reconciliation data directly into FE NXT. The system will support automated creation of deposits once payments are dispersed to the bank, allowing the finance teams to reconcile cash activity more efficiently, accurately, and with minimal manual intervention. Bottom line is it's just less manual work. It's more control, and your billing, development, and finance teams are working from the same data without having without having to move it around. We're also pretty excited about payment assistant. It's our native bill pay solution for Financial Edge NXT. It streamlines invoice payments, approvals, reconciliation, and vendor communications, really helping teams save time and reduce manual work again. One k 12 customer told us it cut their workload in half. Payment assistant is a great example of that automation in action. Let's take a look at the technology, empowering many of these efficiencies, document intelligence. Document intelligence helps eliminate manual data entry by extracting key details from invoices and receipts with your team reviewing and approving every step. It's available today for expense management and expanding across into payables, turns emailed or uploaded documents in the draft records in the Financial Edge NXT ready for review. So the result is really simple workflow. Up upload, review, approve, built on a foundation you can trust. Switching back to billing management. Let's talk about collections assistant, which is coming soon, for the 2627 school year, maybe even sooner. Instead of reacting to late payments, collections assistant helps business offices proactively identify who to contact, when to reach out, and how to engage families more effectively. What makes it especially powerful is the connected platform. Before before reaching out, staff can see the broader family context, helping them make informed decisions and communicate more thoughtfully. It's about more than improving collections and lowering delinquencies. It's about protecting family relationships while improving cash flow and supporting the programs, people, and your mission. And here's another thing we're working on, you know, that after hours phone call that I mentioned, the one the parent that's got a billing question for you. Well, we think AI can actually help with that. Phone, chat, smart assistant that can actually answer billing questions without your team being on the clock. Our pilot program, we actually launched that this month. We've invited schools to join us, so we're building with those schools, not just for them. And before I wrap up, I wanna speak directly to something I know is on some of your minds, because when you're, you know, when you've been using tuition management for years and you hear us talk about this new platform, it's it's natural to to wonder what what does this mean for me? Well, here's what I want you to hear. Tuition management is fully supported. Nothing is going away. Nobody is being handed a hard deadline. You can stay exactly where you are right now, and that is completely okay. When you're ready to explore billing management, whether that's next year or a couple years from now, we'll be right there with you. The transition, it's phased. It's school led, and we are committed to making it smooth and as frictionless as possible for you. Okay? Now let's shift from managing resources to growing them. I'll pass it over to my colleague, January. Thanks, Corey. I'm January Hodge, and I lead a team that partners with k 12 schools every day as they evaluate strategies, challenges, and opportunities for growth. You know, one of the themes we hear most often is capacity. Schools are being asked to do more with the same teams and resources. That's why I'm really excited to talk about how innovation and fundraising is helping advancement offices work smarter, strengthen donor relationships, and expand their impact without adding more to an already stretched team. Okay. So here's a number I want you guys to sit with for just a second. 5,800,000. That's the average amount of untouched giving opportunity sitting inside razor's edge NXT right now. It's not gone. It's not lost. It's just unreached. And it's it's not because your team isn't doing really great work. They are. It's because every development office has more opportunities than capacity. That's the gap we're here to talk about closing. For schools like you, that capacity pressure looks like this. You're managing current parents, alumni, grandparents, community donors, and your team is probably two or three people. 57% of first time donors never give again, and it's not because they stopped caring, but because no one followed up on time. That's the problem AI and RE NXT is built to solve. Blackbaud has been embedding AI in razor's edge NXT for years, from servicing insights to help fundraisers work more effectively to automate automating key workflows. So for example, prospect insights identifies donors most likely to give and services high potential prospects. No query building ever. AI cultivation assistance helps fundraisers create a major gift opportunity, an action plan that's in a single click. And before a call or a meeting, Action Strategies delivers a smart briefing with donor history, recent interactions, and suggested talking points. Together, these capabilities help advancement teams focus their time, personalize engagement, and build stronger donor relationships. And the development agent takes it even further. So as we've discussed, this is a agentic AI. The development agent works on your behalf inside your workflows with minimal hand holding. So think of it as a persistent team member that never forgets a follow-up, never lets a lapsed donor slip through, and never runs out of bandwidth. So for a school with a two person development office, that's equivalent of adding a team member who works around the clock. AI in RE NXT isn't replacing your development team. It's multiplying what your team can do, using AI strategically to support their efforts. The schools that will close the capacity gap aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones putting the right technology behind every prospect, every next step, and every follow through. Raiser's Edge NXT is built for today, and it's ready for what's next. So now I'm gonna hand it over to Beth Riccardi, managing director, k twelve customer success. Thank you, January. Hi, everyone. I'm Beth McCarthy, managing director of k twelve customer success. My team partners with schools throughout their black belt journey, helping them maximize value and achieve their strategic goals. I want to briefly discuss how we're helping schools turn the innovations you've seen today into measurable outcomes in partnership with support and success. First, let's touch on support. Our focus is simple. Faster help, faster resolution, and more proactive support. We're continuing to create an experience that's easier to navigate and better aligned to how schools work. We've expanded global coverage, extended chat hours during peak periods, and ensure twenty four seven support for mission critical issues. We're working hard to get ahead of issues altogether, and we're committed to listening because your feedback sheets what comes next. Speaking of what's next, we're evolving our virtual assistant from one time answers to more intelligent, multistep conversations. It will ask follow-up questions, gather key details upfront, and guide you toward the right next step. So instead of just responding, support helps guide you to the solution. Here's a quick example from Calvert Hall. An athletic director had a simple but urgent question. A student was showing on the varsity tennis roster internally but was missing from the public facing page. Instead of opening a support ticket, a user simply asked why a student wasn't appearing on the public tennis roster. The chatbot identified the issue, pointed them to the correct setting, and explained exactly how to fix it. The result was fast, accurate, and tailored to that specific situation. That's the shift, moving from searching and waiting to guided contextual support when you need it. Now let's touch on success. We're taking success beyond product innovation and bringing it directly to schools Through regional meetups, local user groups, and industry events like Atlas Annual Conference, the upcoming enroll 26 with e three n, NACE, NCEA, and other national and regional conferences throughout the year, we're creating more opportunities for school leaders to connect, learn from one another, and engage with Blackbaud experts. We've also launched programs designed around the moments that matter most throughout the school year, From seasonal tips and trick tricks webinars and executive impact reports to functional experts and peer led community events, we're helping schools maximize their investment, off board new staff faster, and learn from one another. I'm sorry. That was onboard. We don't wanna off board because great outcomes come from more than technology. They come from partnership. We continue to be focused on your feedback and developing solutions and services in partnership with you. One of the ways we do this is through the k twelve executive advisory board. This is a direct line between your schools and what cloud leadership. Collectively, your voice voices are shaping our strategy, our product road maps, and our priorities. And looking ahead, we are just getting started. We've launched a k 12 customer success experience of the future initiative, a ground up redesign of how we support you at every stage of your journey. So in summary, the future of k twelve at Blackbaud is intelligent, connected, and built around you, and your customer success team is here to ensure you receive the full value of your Blackbaud solutions. So here's what I want you to take away from this. You are a community we are invested in with dedicated leadership, dedicated teams, and our roadmap built on your input. We are in this with you. We are here for the long haul, and we cannot wait to show you what's next. I'll pass it back to Elizabeth to wrap up wrap us up. Awesome. Thanks, Beth. And thanks to our wonderful panelists. It is impossibly hard to capture the energy and excitement from three days in person in Boston, but we hope that today's presentation left you excited about what's to come. I think our team did a pretty great job so far of answering, the questions that came in. So, know that we are getting to those. We do have an ask of you. If you are on this call, we would love for you to share out in your listservs with others at your school, with peer schools, and make sure that they get access to this recording as well. We'd love to make sure that as many of our k twelve community are aware of, what's happening as possible. In case you didn't hear, but if you started with us, you did, the k twelve UC will return in 2027, a similar time frame of mid July. We are working on the exact dates and location, and we will announce that as soon as possible. But that said, there is still time to join us at BBCon twenty twenty six. We have three days of innovation, inspiration, networking. If you are a k 12 professional that's focused on fundraising, finance, or advancing your technical expertise, BBCon is where you'll find hands on training, best practices, deeper product education, and you'll join the broader community of Blackbaud users to learn from experts, connect with your peers, and discover new ways to get more value from your solutions. We mentioned it a few times throughout today's presentation. Hot on the heels of BBCon, you won't want to miss our virtual product update briefings, affectionately referred to as the pubs. Across our solutions, the product managers will highlight in greater detail recent releases and upcoming enhancements, in greater detail than we were able to get to today. So go ahead and save the dates for your calendars, November seventeenth through nineteenth. We anticipate that registration will open up in early October. Circling back, because we can't help but talk about AI right now, we have convened the AI Coalition for Social Impact. This brings together organizations, experts, and innovators to help remove barriers to responsible AI adoption, and we are particularly pleased that the Association for Technology Leaders and Independent Schools, ATLAS, has joined us as a part of the coalition to represent the voice of our independent and private schools. This coalition is offering a free certification program. It's designed specifically for the social impact and education community. It'll give your teams a practical way to build foundational AI skills grounded in security, trust, and responsible use. You won't wanna miss this opportunity to learn from some of the leading minds in this space like Ari Kaplan and AI experts from McKinsey. You can scan the QR code, which I think works. If you're at the UC, you get that joke. There's also a link in the docs area, as well. Course one is available. Beth mentioned, all of our different support from our amazing, customer success managers and teams behind the scenes. So if you are a current customer, know that this is also linked in the doc area. Of course, a key event is what we describe our collective response for a busy time for our customers. And, of course, you are in the midst of quite a key event, back to school season. So know that we have a variety of resources to help support you, along the way. So I encourage you to check that out. If you haven't heard, we know schools today are balancing ambitious goals with real budget constraints and timing matters. So we're excited to introduce a new limited time offer to our schools. You can get your first year free, a new Blackbaud solutions. This offer is designed to help remove upfront cost barriers, make it easier to explore solutions that can help your school operate more efficiently, engage your community, and deliver stronger outcomes across every office. We'd love to talk about what this could look like for you and your school. So, again, you can raise your hand if you'd like to learn more with that schedule, a discovery call, but, as I pointed out up there. So I think from what I can see, it looks like our team got through the questions. So thanks for everyone, behind the scenes. I did wanna give a call out that we are working on some of that DASL data for those that are asking. We hope to see you at the pubs. Thank you to our amazing panelists. Thank you y'all for joining us today. You'll receive the recording of the presentation, and we appreciate your time. Have a great one, everybody.