20 Years of Salesforce Partnership and Transformation

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Attain Partners celebrates 20 years of empowering colleges and universities to invent the future of education in partnership with Salesforce

As our experts prepare to share insights and client successes at Education Summit 2025, we’re reflecting on an important milestone for our Salesforce practice—we have been creating transformation for higher education and nonprofit institutions for 20 years!

Our company has evolved through a few names, but our Salesforce practice has stood the test of time (and branding!).

  • 2005: ACF Solutions first registered as a partner with Salesforce.
  • 2015: ACF Solutions named HEDA Design and Launch Partner
  • 2016: Attain acquired ACF, absorbing and investing in the growing Salesforce practice.
  • 2021: Attain sold its federal division and rebranded as Attain Partners, doubling down on our service to higher education and nonprofit institutions by leveraging the power of Salesforce.
  • 2022: Attain Partners leads the first implementation of Admissions Connect.
  • 2022: Attain Partners named Salesforce Consulting Partner of the Year – Education.
  • 2025: Attain Partners’ Salesforce practice celebrates 20 years as an official partner.

Celebrating 20 years of impact!

To celebrate the 20-year anniversary of our Salesforce partnership, seven of our longest-tenured employees reflect on their careers specializing in Salesforce technology and the tremendous impact they have created partnering with organizations to innovate and optimize their operations.

We’re also having a party at Education Summit—make sure you’re on the list as we reflect back and plan how we will continue to Invent the Future over the next 20 years!

2017
Dreamforce 2017
Dreamforce 2018
Attain All-Hands 2018
Higher Ed Summit 2019
Dreamforce 2019
Partner Summit 2019
Education Summit 2023
Education Summit 2023
2023
Team 2023
Dreamforce 2023
Team 2023
Education Summit 2024
Northeast Dreamin’ 2024
2024

Deepa Bedi, Principal

It’s been an amazing journey in the Salesforce ecosystem implementing Salesforce solutions for nonprofits and higher education institutions for over 18 years. Having supported over 50 clients in their digital transformations, I have witnessed firsthand the power of the Salesforce platform, its commitment to continuous innovation, and our ability to adapt the platform to each client’s unique needs. This has allowed us to help organizations accelerate change, amplify their reach, and drive meaningful social impact.

I have seen tremendous growth in Salesforce from the early days of CRM in 2007, the evolution of personalized portals, an enhanced user experience with Lightning, and now more recently with AI (Einstein AI, Generative AI, and Agentforce). Leveraging this technology allows us to equip our clients with predictive insights, real time intelligence, improved decision making, and automated recommendations/ responses.

One project that stands out as a success is our recent collaboration with a major education institution to implement a Salesforce Student Success Portal. While the work was done with speed in eight weeks, the initiative streamlined student engagement, resulting in a 15% increase in retention rates just within the first-semester change and improved overall student satisfaction. We provided students with a personalized experience; actions they needed to take all on their mobile devices. Faculty were able to submit mid-term related early alerts to the advisors for early intervention for at-risk students. Now, with the support of AI-driven analytics, advisors can focus on personalized, timely interventions, ensuring students receive the guidance they need when they need it most.

Another project I am really proud of is working with the ALS Association as they work to create a world without ALS and with the ice bucket challenge (first participated with my kids and later the CEO Soak with Phil Agee, COO of Attain Partners). As the ALS Association embarked on its digital transformation journey, it was an incredible experience to work with highly motivated teams at the association as we implemented an enterprise fundraising, event management, email marketing solution, and new website for the Association and its 40 chapters to drive this transformation. Helping our clients achieve their important missions makes our work worth it!

Salesforce implementations are truly unique—every project is a Rubik’s cube—complex, challenging, and rewarding. I am grateful to work alongside brilliant colleagues and an exceptional team, tackling intricate challenges and delivering meaningful impact despite constraints. Attain Partners has provided an incredible environment where I can deeply care about our clients and their success so they can focus on their missions.

Virginia Berkenkotter, Director of Higher Education Delivery

From a project management and client engagement perspective, I love partnering with our clients to help them realize their vision for digital transformation and achieve efficiencies to better serve their constituents. I also love the friendships that have evolved with so many of our clients throughout the years. 

I have spent my entire career serving higher education and very much believe in its mission to educate the next generation and support the opportunities it provides so many for a better future, especially first-generation college students. 

Salesforce continues to reimagine the student experience and provide what once were seen as private sector products to the public sector—AI, Agentforce, and Data Cloud—to name a few. 

I am particularly proud of the projects and relationships I have forged with one of our Ivy League clients. I appreciate that they are always wanting to try the latest technologies—they were one of the first to use OmniStudio to such a full extent. 

Anne Early, Principal

I love that every Salesforce project feels like a puzzle, offering the chance to explore Salesforce’s diverse tools and features to craft innovative solutions that align with the client’s mission. It’s a perfect blend of analytical thinking, creativity, and collaboration—bringing together strategy and teamwork to deliver the best possible outcome.

In the past 20 years, I’ve seen incredible improvements in Salesforce’s technology. The level of customization now possible with Salesforce’s ‘Clicks, Not Code’ approach is truly remarkable compared to 13 years ago when I first became a Salesforce Admin. Tools like Flows, OmniStudio, Lightning Pages, and Experience Cloud empower us to build sophisticated solutions that previously would have required custom code. The ability to create powerful, tailored experiences with minimal coding provides our clients with greater flexibility and scalability. This approach empowers clients to adapt their solutions as their business needs evolve, make quick adjustments without heavy development costs, and maintain their systems with ease—ultimately fostering long-term success.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have found my career working with Salesforce and educational institutions. It’s a true blessing to have discovered something that I’m not only good at but also genuinely love doing. Getting to collaborate with inspiring institutions to support their mission of educating the next generation is a meaningful and rewarding experience.

The projects I’m most proud of are those that include an Experience Cloud site to support applicants, students, faculty, or alumni. I love the ability to create visually appealing and highly functional sites that enhance engagement by delivering tailored experiences based on constituent needs and integrated CRM data. It’s incredibly satisfying to bridge the gap between technology and meaningful user interactions in a way that truly supports the institution’s goals. 

Chris Pifer, Principal and Four-time Salesforce MVP

I love the flexibility Salesforce offers our clients. I’ve personally seen the platform meet the needs of one of the top-tier world marathons to track race operations, an international NGO tracking millions in fundraising, while also meeting the needs of a small 30-person nonprofit to track program operations. It’s almost never a question of, “Can I?” but rather, “What’s the best way to?”

The biggest change I’ve seen in 20 years has been the shift to AI and AgentForce that Salesforce is undertaking today—it is truly striking, like watching an ocean liner turn on a dime.

Earlier in my career, I had to make a choice, I was dabbling in both Salesforce and web development at a small nonprofit, and I had three job offers in front of me: 1) Continuing my web development work on a bigger scale but shifting to work with big commercial clients; 2) Continuing to blend web development with Salesforce in-house in a corporate setting; 3) Take a job with ACF Solutions, going all-in with Salesforce and continue working with nonprofits. I’ve often looked back at that decision as a major turning point in my career. The web development tools I worked with have since fallen by the wayside, but somehow, Salesforce continues to be the tool of choice in the sector. While there may be some criticisms of Salesforce, every time I’ve looked at the alternatives, Salesforce keeps coming up on top.

Salesforce continues to evolve. It is in the middle of the process of bringing a set of industry-specific solutions into their core platform. It’s a technical shift, but it’s a big shift. It changes what we build and how we build when we customize the platform for clients. It has huge risk and huge potential to allow us to provide functionality to clients faster with lower overall effort.

When I think back over two decades of project successes, I’ll always remember my experience implementing Salesforce for the Boston Athletic Association (the organization that runs the Boston Marathon). It was a unique and exciting challenge knowing that nobody in the world had done what we were being asked to do—to customize Salesforce to support one of the major world marathons. I’ll always remember during discovery one of their staff saying, “Fundamentally we are in the data business. If we make a data mistake, you’ll read about it in the Boston Globe.” It asked a lot from me, but I’ve had a lasting relationship with the BAA team and have had the joy of hearing how each piece of the build has worked through many years of successful operations.

Leidy Smith, Business Development Director

In the past 20 years, Salesforce has shown tremendous transformation as it repositioned its offerings for the Education and Nonprofit markets. It began as the Salesforce Foundation that offered discounted licenses as part of Salesforce’s 1:1:1 model of giving back. The Foundation was then spun off as a .org nonprofit that could create tools and build the necessary sales and marketing team to serve the Education and Nonprofit industries.

Salesforce.com then purchased Salersforce.org and followed a proven successful path of supporting unique client needs by creating two new industry Clouds serving Education and Nonprofits. While that new organization and the product offerings have had their growing pains, things have stabilized and it now assures these industries have the full support of Salesforce resources to address their unique needs. Salesforce has also maintained its dedicated team of Account Executives and Solution Engineers supporting these markets across the Salesforce platform of products, which is critical given the market’s unique nature and relationships with clients and partners like Attain Partners that have developed over the decades.

Some of my proudest work includes an Executive Education project where we helped them see the capabilities of a Salesforce-based solution and then we worked closely with their team implementing Salesforce as we migrated them from a legacy CRM and Email tool. We then continued our work with this Ivy League institution in another project, supporting their efforts to bring their Centers into Salesforce, which they led with our support as they expanded their team and capabilities. Now we just stay in touch as they continue to expand on the platform using their own internal team, helping if and when needed. This example is a true success story of our goal to help clients realize their objectives of digital transformation on Salesforce and then become self-sufficient as they move forward.

Kathy Starr, Business Development Operations

For the past 15 years, I have loved working with an incredible group of talented, dedicated people who work tirelessly to help nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions transform the way they operate. What I love most is knowing that our work with clients happens behind the scenes, but the impact is felt in the real world. A donor engages more deeply with a cause or a university. A student gets the right support to stay on track. A medical nonprofit allocates resources more efficiently. I love the focus of our work because it’s about more than just technology—it’s about empowering organizations to create lasting change in our communities.

My entire career has been focused on the nonprofit sector. Before I crossed paths with Salesforce, I worked with the Close Up Foundation, a civic education nonprofit dedicated to informing, inspiring, and empowering students to become more active in our democracy. From there, I worked in international development, where I observed elections in Bosnia and supported small business development initiatives in Central & Eastern Europe. I have always looked for ways to give back in a way that drives meaningful change.

When I transitioned into the Salesforce ecosystem, I appreciated the focus of the 1:1:1 mode of Salesforce.org and its commitment to leveraging technology, philanthropy, and employee volunteerism to support nonprofit and higher ed organizations. Salesforce & Attain Partners are great examples of how the private sector can work hand-in-hand with nonprofit organizations to increase impact.

Over the past 15 years, we have had so many memorable and compelling projects – developing a case management system for a library’s televisit and literacy program, creating an incident response system to report anti-semitism, helping a nonprofit manage playground builds, and supporting national medical organizations with their fundraising efforts. Also, with my own son in college at the University of Colorado, I love our projects on campuses that focus on helping students succeed through improving student advising or more effective student engagement. Seeing technology play a direct role in helping these types organizations extend their reach is why I love this work.

Alanna Steffens, Managing Director and Salesforce Implementation Capability Lead

I love that we bring fresh and creative new ideas to education and nonprofit clients that truly allow them to transform not only how they do business but also how they engage with their constituents. From students to donors, we bring to life tool sets to support their business processes and allow them time to focus on what’s important, their mission. I started as a business analyst learning the clicks not code base and from there fell in love, moving into more hands-on work designing solutions to meet business needs, then creating those solutions, finding third-party add-ons from the app exchange, and eventually moving to project management. It’s been an awesome 14 years starting at ACF Solutions, then Attain, and now Attain Partners. That transition really allowed me to see how important relationship building is for clients, many of whom I’d consider friends, and how we can help them to solve challenges that they face every day, almost always isn’t technology related.

Fourteen years ago, I stumbled into the Salesforce ecosystem having started my career at Northrop Grumman as a software engineer serving commercial and state government agencies. I knew that I needed to establish my technical chops before moving into more functional domain expertise, and finding a business analyst role with ACF Solutions allowed me to do just that. I love serving the underserved business functions that we find in education and nonprofit organizations—knowing that our work has a profound impact on these missions is rewarding.

Salesforce continues to evolve. Three times a year Salesforce has a new release. They’re continually looking for ways to improve their declarative platform and offer ways that allow less technical people to build really great solutions. The education and nonprofit clouds are just one example in the last two years that have enhanced our clients ability to innovate quickly, incurring less tech debt relying on outside third-party vendors to complete a whole solution.

In my work, and the work of our growing teams, I’m proud of not only supporting the traditional student lifecycle use cases, but also those less traditional ones like executive education and faculty management. These are critical areas of institutions that often get overlooked when we think Salesforce solutions and there are a lot of great options that exist to help them run their part of the organization. I think I helped to write all of the early exec ed shop roadmaps, many of which we then turned into fully functioning solutions that still exist today. I love seeing that work continue to make an impact.

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Let’s Connect at Education Summit 2025

Mark your calendars for March 10-12! Attain Partners is proud to be an official Groundbreaker sponsor of Education Summit 2025! Our experts will be at booth #7—please stop by and say hello. We’re collecting predictions on what the next 20 years will look like for higher education and would love to hear your thoughts!

Additionally, we have two sessions, a breakfast panel, and a networking happy hour which we are hosting at Edu Summit. Check out the details below and register for the ones you’d like to attend.

Our happy hour will be an anniversary party as we celebrate 20 years of empowering colleges and universities to invent the future of education in partnership with Salesforce.

Transformation at the Speed of Trust
Tuesday, March 11 | 4p – 4:40p CDT
Stage 4 (Campground, Level 3)

Learn how UT Dallas is transforming student experience with Education Cloud, from building cross-functional consensus on an enterprise vision to making technology & process decisions to scale impact.

Role: Partner, Administrator | Industry: Education | Institution: Public | Product: Education Cloud | Topic: Student Success | Session Type: Breakout | Session Level: Beginner

Learn more

Speakers

  • Jason Belland, Higher Education Executive in Residence, Attain Partners
  • Courtney Brecheen, Interim Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, The University of Texas at Dallas
  • Dawn Owens, Associate Dean, The University of Texas at Dallas

Happy Hour: Celebrating 20 Years of Partnership with Salesforce
Tuesday, March 11 | 6:30p – 8:30p

We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary as a Salesforce partner. Join us at The Chicago Firehouse in the Blue Room Cellar to raise a glass to 20 years supporting innovation and digital transformation for higher ed organizations together with Salesforce.

RSVP

Breakfast Panel: Leading Digital Transformation in Higher Ed
Wednesday, March 12 | 7:45a – 9a

Join us for this breakfast discussion and hear how leaders at prominent institutions are delivering outcomes with Education Cloud across the student experience; from getting aligned on a vision for transformation, to the process of building trust and making decisions, to how data and AI factor into their current work and future aspirations.

Reserve your spot

Speakers

  • Boston University
    • Tim Cerato – Assistant Vice President, CRM, ERP, CRM & Integration
    • Reena Reddy – Director, IT CRM & Admissions, Boston University
  • Marshall University
    • Jodie Penrod – Chief Information Officer
    • Cody Hall – Manager, CRM Solutions
  • University of Texas Dallas
    • Courtney Breechen – Interim Dean of Undergraduate Education
  • Salesforce
    • Margo Martinez – VP and GM of Education

From Legacy to Leading Edge: The Journey to Education Cloud
Wednesday, March 12 | 1p – 1:20p CDT
Room West 375A (Stage 1, Level 3)

Learn about Boston University’s comprehensive migration to Education Cloud, including strategies for balancing innovation with operational stability, and their project to unify the student experience.

Role: Consultant | Industry: Education | Institution: Public | Product: Education Cloud | Topic: Data | Session Type: Theater | Session Level: Beginner

Learn more

Speakers

  • Jason Belland, Higher Education Executive in Residence, Attain Partners
  • Reena Reddy, Director, IT CRM & Admissions, Boston University
  • Tim Cerato, Assistant Vice President, CRM, ERP, CRM & Integration, Trustees of Boston University on behalf of the Student

Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts

No matter if your organization is beginning its Salesforce journey or 10+ years into development, Attain Partners is here to help you achieve your goals. Contact our team today to learn how we can help your organization advance its mission by harnessing the power of Salesforce.

To learn more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our Salesforce experts.

The Benefits of Blueprinting in Salesforce Implementations

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As Salesforce orgs mature at an institution or university, the teams supporting these orgs often find themselves faced with difficult challenges and limited time and resources. Challenges the Attain Partners team has seen with our clients include:

  • Moving to a new org or data architecture, such as an EDA migration to Education Cloud
  • Large amounts of technical debt, hanging on by a handful of custom fields or idly waiting for the opportunity to be purged
  • Unwieldly automation and infringing API limits
  • Redundant fields and data, or disconnected data limiting report functionality
  • Time dedicated to bug fixes and org maintenance overshadowing ongoing innovation and growth

When assessed, the causes of these issues often stem back to decisions made months or years ago that are now seemingly impossible to untangle. For the teams who face migrating an org in this state to a new Salesforce instance or architecture—or for the teams just starting out—blueprinting can provide a helpful guardrail to avoid repeating this vicious cycle.

In the below article, we address how to implement blueprints and the benefits they provide.

What is Blueprinting?

Blueprinting involves future-framing a project implementation to ensure both designs and team resources can scale with your organization’s future roadmap. Creating a blueprint alongside an implementation takes a strategy-forward approach to build, encouraging developers to consider “How else will this be used?” while providing transparency to project managers and leadership on potential risks and opportunities for quick wins.

A blueprint typically exists as a document or series of connected resources in a system like Confluence or Quip Notes (Note: These resources must be connected). This document contains a combination of technical and non-technical language which addresses design decisions and their repercussions.

What is all this for?

What benefits does the practice of blueprinting provide? For those of us staring deep into the pits of a complicated Salesforce org with abandoned customizations and heaps of technical debt, the benefits may seem endless. For others still apprehensive, consider the following:

Solutions become more scalable

  • Avoid unused fields and objects
  • Decrease onboarding time for the next programs
  • Defined security model
  • Clean, concise automation strategy

Considerations for future risks

  • Avoid unused fields and objects
  • Decrease onboarding time for the next programs
  • Defined security model
  • Clean, concise automation strategy

Governance and Maintenance

  • Data retention policies
  • When and what to integrate
  • Delegated Admins
  • Release Management strategies

Future State-of-the-State Framing

  • Define systems working with Salesforce or to be replaced
  • Prioritize based on estimated timelines and available resources

What to Include in a Blueprint

The following lists the recommended sections to include within a blueprint.

Build Assumptions

All teams begin build with what they believe the best solution is based on known information at the time. However, as any team has experienced, realities and the requirements they demand change. Identifying assumptions as part of a blueprint allows everyone to agree on a basic starting point from which more granular nuances may still be managed.

Decision Checklist

This section of a blueprint is intended for use by a project manager in coordination with new staff who will be onboarding to Salesforce. This helps equip project managers and build teams with the required information they need to start a new build.

Note: The decision checklist is not intended to replace a formal discovery with a department. Rather, this helps guide or prepare for conversations that would arise during a discovery.

Build Strategy

The build strategy defines explicitly technical decisions made in response to decision checklist responses and assumptions documented. These should be documented by functional nature ideally, such as defining a sub-section for “Security” where org-wide defaults, sharing rule reasoning, Public Groups, Roles, and Permission Sets are defined in a scalable manner.

Resources

This defines the people resources it took to implement a project and estimates what would be required to expand it to another team or future enhancement phase. This provides the technical team the opportunity to share effort estimates and recommendations for the distribution of work between team members. When delegated administrators or other roles outside of the technical team are involved, this is a great way to set expectations for what will be required.

Deployment and Regression Testing Strategy

Scaling any solution involves regression testing. Planning ahead for regression testing—designated testing sandboxes, timeline implications, and testers—is crucial to success in any deployment. Identifying areas that will require regression testing during the initial build period helps to gather regression testing scripts when it is fresh in the mind of the build team.

Testing is a big part of any project implementation we do at Attain Partners and should be included in your blueprint as well.

Timelines

Identifying a timeline for scaling a product is not a set-in-stone process, but does provide for a helpful planning model. When there are significant unknowns when scaling, it is prudent to consider various time estimates and to document technical limitations that would impact these.

Risks and Opportunities

This section expands upon technical decisions that may either cause limitations or offer enhancements for future implementations. For example:

Risk AreaConsiderations (Examples)
Salesforce LimitsHave you created a significant number of custom fields on a standard object? Check approaching custom field limits.

Significant number of sharing rules on an object? Be aware of criteria-based sharing rule limits in Salesforce.

Using Restriction Rules? Consider functional limits and scalability, including no more than 5 are permitted per object.
Build DecisionsAre custom flows driving business processes? Consider if those business processes will be adopted by future teams who will also use Salesforce.

Are third-party tools installed and license-driven? Consider the time and/or cost for increasing licenses.
Opportunity AreaConsiderations (Examples)
Sunset Systems and StreamlineHave third-party packages been installed that can replace other existing systems?

Does the implemented solution replace an existing process within Salesforce? Identify chances to remove technical debt if the current implementation (or timeline) did not account for replacing or removing unnecessary customizations.
Implementation ProcessWhat went well? What can be more easily expanded upon than others?
Future Phase EnhancementsWhat feature enhancements were requested or could be recommended for a future phase?

Recommendations

Often when a solution is implemented, ideas come up that don’t quite make it to go-live. Documenting recommendations here allows for these ideas to not get lost in the fray (i.e., the immediacy of go-live support or the constant attention you’ll be receiving after your implementation).

These may or may not be technical in nature. For example, a recommendation could be implementing a data retention policy, identifying “super users,” or creating opportunities for end users to submit a survey or share their feedback three to six months after their go-live.

If your technical team is using a tool such as Jira, Apsona, or something else for task management, ensure these recommendations are tracked in a place that is visible to not just the technical team, but also easily accessible to other stakeholders.

Continue Learning

Read part two, Blueprinting for Salesforce Case Management Implementations.

Blueprinting for Salesforce Case Management Implementations – Attain Partners
attainpartners.com

Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts

Regardless of where your organization is in its Salesforce journey (or if it’s yet to start!), Attain Partners is here to help you achieve your goals and serve your community. Contact our team today to learn how we can help your organization advance its mission by harnessing the power of Salesforce.

To learn more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our Salesforce experts.

About the Author

Jamie Sohngen is a Principal Consultant at Attain Partners. She brings 7+ years of professional experience across multiple industries including higher education, K-12, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors. Jamie has implemented several Salesforce products such as Student Success Hub (SSH), Outbound Funds Module (OFM), Program Management Module (PMM), Education Cloud, NPSP, and EDA in addition to designing custom architecture solutions.

FAQs on the NIH's Flat Rate for Research Overhead, February 2025

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Attain Partners’ Gil Tran, former OMB Senior Policy Analyst, answers FAQs on the NIH’s Indirect Cost Rate Cap

The NIH’s recent policy (NOT-OD-25-068) to immediately cap the indirect cost rate at 15% for all new awards and existing awards at universities has left researchers with more questions than answers. How can research institutions navigate this situation while trying to fill the funding gaps and maintain essential support for groundbreaking research? Attain Partners is here to help.

On February 12, we hosted a live panel discussion with over 3,000 attendees from the research community. Now available on demand, this session analyzes the new policy, breaks down the immediate and long-term impacts of this funding cut, and explores strategies to adapt and respond to the evolving landscape. Our team also collected over 350 questions submitted by participants. Read on to hear Gil Tran’s answers to the top seven questions regarding the NIH’s flat rate for research overhead and watch part two of our discussion from February 26, 2025.

on-demand

Discussion Part 2: NIH’s Flat Rate for Research Overhead – Continuing to Adapt and Respond

Watch now

Q: With the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in place, what do research institutions do now? Do the IHEs continue with the rate agreements that they had in place prior to the NIH February 7th policy guidance, or do they start using the  15% indirect cost rate on February 10th?

A: For non-IHEs organizations, the new rate will only apply to the new NIH grants, so there are no immediate actions required until you receive the new award.  For IHEs, the policy applies to current grants.  However, due to the TRO issued on two lawsuits on February 10th, the NIH policy is technically on hold and you should continue operating under your current rate agreements.

However, the TRO only goes through Friday, February 21. For now, start preparing but don’t implement any new rates until we have more clarity from the lawsuits. This is a call to action—while it is business as usual in that you continue operating under your current rate agreements, you should begin a readiness process to ensure that you are ready to adapt. At the minimum, you should calculate the financial impact if the new rate is implemented. 

For grant proposal submissions on or after February 10, 2025, current NIH guidelines require that proposals include the organization’s Rate Agreement with each proposal, which displays the negotiated IDC rates. Continue following this practice and request the negotiated rate until further notice from NIH. Indicate that you are using your negotiated rate as the new rate is not effective at the time of submission and that if it becomes effective, your organization will comply.

Q: Some universities may need to recreate each grant in their system with the updated Indirect Cost rate, which could be a significant logistical challenge. Should we advise to hold off and see how the lawsuits progress?

A: Yes. Universities may want to plan for implementation but hold off until we have more clarity on the outcome of the lawsuits.

Q: Does this apply to existing grants, or only future grants?

A: Both new and existing grants are subject to this policy change. Effective February 10, 2025, all existing grants at colleges and universities, as well as any new grants issued to all grantees (including at research hospitals), will be capped at a 15% indirect cost rate. Note that the policy is on hold until February 21 due to the TRO. 

Q: Does the 15% indirect cost cap apply to all types of funding and agreements?

A: It does not apply unilaterally across the board. See the below list for different applications:

  • Subawards: Yes
  • Contractors (e.g., 1099s): No
  • Vendors: No
  • Contracts (vs. Grants): The cap applies to grants, but not to contracts.
  • Cooperative Agreements: Yes

Q: When does the 15% rate take effect for Letter of Credit drawdowns?

A: The policy states that the 15% rate is effective as of February 10, 2025, for existing grants at IHEs. Any drawdowns after this date by IHEs can only include expenses with an applied rate of 15% of Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC). Note that the policy is on hold until February 21 due to the TRO, so continue to use the current rate agreements for drawdown until the resolution of the lawsuits. 

Q: Can costs be shifted between direct and indirect cost categories?

A: There are two key considerations when deciding between direct and indirect costs:

  • Rebudgeting from indirect to direct cost categories within the total budget with a grant: This is generally allowed as long as the total amount rebudgeted is less than 25% of the total budget and the scope of the project remains the same (pending confirmation from NIH).
  • Shifting indirect costs to direct costs for future rate determination: This is permissible as long as the change is applied consistently across all grants, regardless of the funding source, to ensure compliance.  For those universities that are required to maintain the DS-2 due to the CAS-covered contracts, the changes in charging methodologies must be documented and approved by the Federal Government. 

Q: In the announcement from the NIH, it stated that all IDC for NIH grants will be 15%. Is this the case for grants that have historically allowed a lower IDC such as the K awards or awards to foreign organizations that have a cap of 8%?

A: No, the policy is not raising the current lower standard rate of 8%. The policy is replacing the negotiated rates with the 15% and not the lower standard rate (e.g., 8%) that are not negotiated. The lower standard rates are not based on actual costs and represent NIH allowance to grantees to recover some of the administrative costs incurred by the project. 

Contact Us

With decades of experience in the research ecosystem, Attain Partners is ready to help your institution navigate these changes. Reach out to learn how we can support you. Contact us today.

About the Author

Gilbert Hai Tran is Senior Specialist Leader, Grants Management within the Attain Research practice. Previously, he served as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM).

A 27-year veteran of OMB, Gil has often served as a go-to field expert and is a sought-after presenter who has earned a reputation as a source of knowledge and an engaging industry speaker. Among his contributions in shaping the financial assistance landscape for future generations are: helping reduce the audit burden for both auditees and federal government oversight agencies; playing an integral role in the development of the Uniform Grant Guidance (UGG) and consolidating cost principles in the guidance; and, in 2005, leading the development of the first-ever government-wide waiver to provide relief to grantees caused by natural disasters.

Gil’s professional contributions have been recognized with several awards including the OMB Robert Damus Award, the National Grants Management Association (NGMA) Newton Award, and the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) Frank Greathouse Distinguished Leadership Award all in 2022 as well as the National College and University Research Administrators Association (NCURA) Joseph F. Carrabino Award in 2015. He is widely recognized as an outstanding leader in the grants management field.

Gil received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from George Mason University, Virginia. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Additionally, he chaired the Diversity Committee for the U.S. Tennis Association (Mid–Atlantic Section).

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Blazing New Trails, Together

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Jason Belland, Salesforce alumni and newly announced Higher Education Executive in Residence at Attain Partners, shares his vision for innovation, trust, and data-driven impact in higher education

After some time away from the Salesforce ecosystem leading the SparkED education program for Alteryx, providing analytics education to over 250,000 learners around the world, I’m excited to return to the Salesforce community to partner with college and university leaders to transform the student experience—making sure every student is seen, heard, valued, and given every opportunity to succeed and realize their dreams.

With Salesforce Education Summit just weeks away, the timing is perfect for me, and for all of us, to reconnect with our community, reflect on all we have accomplished together, and envision new pathways we will create as an industry.

Education Summit has always been a special time for me, starting with my first summit experience in 2013 at Arizona State University. At the time, I was working at Columbia Business School and presenting to a few dozen attendees at a customer breakout session on how we were using Marketing Cloud and Sales Cloud in support of admissions and program management for executive education programs.

I had serious imposter syndrome giving that presentation but was comforted by some friendly faces in the front row, as well as the sense that for so many of us, we were at the beginning of something very special, and we were all figuring it out together.

Fast-forward a few years later to Education Summit in Washington, DC, and I found myself as a main speaker on the keynote stage as the product leader for Salesforce Education Cloud, presenting our vision for Salesforce in education and launching new student success products for the industry supported by our open-source data model, EDA.

I was still dealing with imposter syndrome getting on stage in front of a few thousand people, but I remember the moment I hit the stage I could feel the supportive energy of the room and of the moment. I was not alone on stage in the spotlight, I was part of a rapidly growing movement of education professionals who thought differently, were committed to making an impact, and wanted to take action—Trailblazers.

By working collectively as a community and supporting individual excellence, we have established creating a connected student experience as a foundational goal for any college or university. But going into this year’s summit in Chicago, many of us are grappling with real challenges that are well beyond connecting the dots across student touchpoints, and really getting to, “How do we invent something new that doesn’t simply improve what exists today but fundamentally changes the game and accelerates our opportunity for impact?”

Here’s what’s top of mind for me as we head toward our time together in March.

Evolving from “supporting the whole student” to “supporting the whole university”

I’ve been encouraged recently by university leaders talking about how the days of “lift and shift” are over, giving way to a more design-thinking-oriented approach to reimagining the student experience all the way from online support services to academic programs and in-person interactions.

What’s really getting me excited about the future is leaders who are leaning into this moment of uncertainty to think through how we can strengthen our institutions by taking a “whole university” approach to innovation. This means reimagining the student experience and the experience for faculty, staff, research, facilities, and beyond.

It’s often said that universities are treasure troves of data that just need to be harnessed. This is true, and what’s also true is that universities are treasure troves of amazing humans who want to make an impact. What happens when we harness the collective power of that energy?

Next time someone suggests reimagining the student experience, try an exercise to imagine designing a small city instead. It’s an interesting thought activity that can yield surprising pathways to innovating across the university community.

Enterprise vision requires enterprise data strategy

But getting back to data…

I recently had the chance to connect with a few customers at large universities who shared their vision for connecting data across colleges at the university. This is exactly what is needed now more than ever.

As we look to strengthen our institutions as pillars of an equitable society, we need to embrace data as an enterprise resource that will not only empower personalized individual experiences but also, and maybe more importantly, empower leaders with insights to drive the strategic direction of the university.

As most of the workforce is looking to upskill or reskill, having a robust, agile approach to supporting alumni and lifelong learners through their careers is not optional—it’s imperative for institutional survival.

Institutions that see AI and data strategy as a competitive edge, not simply a component of implementation, are going to lead the way and help up-level how our industry is seen in terms of ROI on the degree. They will partner more closely with employers, use data to inform program offerings and experiences, and move well beyond chatbots to agentic assistants that, yes, connect one-to-one to help learners at every stage but also serve to guide and support in the flow of work for faculty, staff, and administrators.

Trust doesn’t come from a waterfall

“The outcome is less important than the process.”

I remember the first time I heard that during a class at Columbia with Professor Joel Brockner. At first, I was skeptical, but time and time again I’ve seen projects go off the rails where outcomes were valued over doing the hard work of process and trust-building as part of getting to those outcomes.

It’s exciting to work in an environment that has a bias toward action—it’s fun to get things done—but it’s critical that we are planful and deliberate about how we innovate, using more discovery-driven processes that allow for quick innovation while building support toward a larger vision.

The other day, I spoke with a university that is rolling out Education Cloud across the enterprise. They have an ambitious vision that will strengthen the financial stability of their institution by transforming the university experience. And what was most exciting for me, was to hear them talk about how closely they are working with faculty as part of their technology initiative.

As we all know, faculty are not just educators; they are mentors, researchers, and thought leaders who are inextricably linked to student success. Student success doesn’t happen without faculty success, and any enterprise vision for transformation should embrace the power of their faculty.

At the end of our conversation, the customer told me that building trust isn’t about taking a waterfall approach where we get everyone together and then no one hears from us for a few months. It’s about the process and the actions we take every day to be inclusive and keep people involved in building a vision together. No one will ever agree on every aspect of a transformation project, but they will always remember the feeling of being heard, valued, and included in the process.

Let’s Connect at Education Summit 2025

I’m thrilled to be going back to Education Summit, and I can’t wait to see everyone there to discuss these topics and many more. Please join me and Team Attain in Chicago March 10-12 as we celebrate 20 years of empowering colleges and universities to invent the future of education in partnership with Salesforce.

Learn more about Salesforce’s 2025 Education Summit.

Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts

No matter if your organization is beginning its Salesforce journey or 10+ years into development, Attain Partners is here to help you achieve your goals. Contact our team today to learn how we can help your organization advance its mission by harnessing the power of Salesforce.

To learn more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our Salesforce experts.

About the Author

Jason Belland serves as Higher Education Executive in Residence at Attain Partners, committed to serving the industry with a focus on envisioning outcome-driven solutions that care for the student journey over a lifetime of learning. Jason has spent over two decades working at public and private higher education institutions in roles ranging from online learning and instructional design to marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), bringing together innovative ideas with new technologies to support student success.

In addition to his roles in higher education, Jason served an eight-year tenure at Salesforce, ascending to Vice President of Go-To-Market for Education Cloud, leading teams to create solutions that would empower colleges and universities to engage, retain, and support every learner over the course of a lifetime of learning. The products and solutions created under Jason’s tenure at Salesforce have been implemented by thousands of colleges and universities globally and set the foundation for today’s Salesforce Education Cloud. Jason received his bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature/Letters from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and holds an Executive Education Certificate in Business Excellence from Columbia Business School.

Ryan Hartley Joins Attain Partners as Managing Director

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Attain Digital Welcomes Ryan Hartley to Bring Data Services Expertise

Attain Partners is excited to welcome Ryan Hartley as a Managing Director in the Attain Digital practice. In his role, Mr. Hartley will lead Data Services, delivering innovative and scalable solutions to empower clients to unlock the full potential of their data for operational excellence and strategic growth. With over 15 years of experience in data integration, master data management, data quality, and governance, Ryan brings a wealth of expertise and a proven track record of driving transformative outcomes across diverse industries.

Attain Partners Welcomes New Managing Director: Ryan Hartley

Known for his innovative approach, collaborative leadership, and ability to align technology with business strategy, Ryan is passionate about helping organizations unlock the full potential of their data. Get to know Ryan better by reading his interview with Attain Partners below.

Attain Partners (AP): Why are you passionate about helping organizations reinvent Data Services to better meet their needs?

Ryan Hartley (RH): I’m passionate about helping organizations reinvent Data Services because I believe data is the foundation of innovation, growth, and informed decision-making. Throughout my career, I’ve seen firsthand how well-architected data services—such as integrations, data quality frameworks, and governance strategies—can transform businesses, enabling them to overcome challenges and unlock new opportunities.

This passion drives me for several reasons.

Data is a strategic asset. Many organizations struggle to leverage their data effectively because of siloed systems, poor data quality, or outdated practices. I find immense satisfaction in helping businesses turn their data into a strategic asset by designing solutions that are scalable, reliable, and insightful.

Data empowers decision-making. Accurate and accessible data allows organizations to make better, faster, and more confident decisions. I’m driven by the opportunity to create systems that empower leadership and teams with the tools they need to succeed.

Impact across industries. Whether it’s healthcare, higher education, retail, or manufacturing, the potential for data services to drive innovation is universal. I’ve worked across a wide range of industries, and I thrive on tailoring solutions that address unique challenges and create meaningful impact.

Building for the future. Reinventing data services is not just about solving today’s problems but preparing organizations for tomorrow. I’m passionate about creating forward-thinking strategies that embrace new technologies, enable agility, and ensure organizations remain competitive in an ever-evolving landscape.

Collaboration and growth. I love the collaborative aspect of this work—partnering with diverse teams to tackle complex problems and build solutions that align with their goals. It’s incredibly rewarding to see teams grow in their confidence and capabilities as we implement solutions together.

Ultimately, helping organizations reinvent their data services is about enabling them to tell their story with integrity, efficiency, and impact. Seeing the tangible results of our efforts—better outcomes, happier clients, and streamlined operations—fuels my passion for this work.

AP: What brought you to Attain Partners?

RH: Attain Partners stood out to me as a dynamic and innovative organization that is deeply committed to transforming how businesses and institutions operate through strategic solutions and cutting-edge technology. A few key factors brought me here:

  • Alignment to my expertise
  • Mission-driven culture
  • Opportunity for impact
  • The people and the vision
  • Shared purpose

I am genuinely excited about the direction we’re heading and the possibilities ahead. Attain Partners is uniquely positioned to make a significant impact—not only within our own organization but across the industries we serve.

Attain Partners is not just building solutions; we are building trust, driving transformation, and enabling our clients to thrive in a data-driven world.

AP: What is your vision for your role with Attain Partners?

RH: As I step into my new role, I see my direction anchored around three core pillars.

Innovation and excellence. I will focus on staying ahead of the curve, embracing the latest tools, methodologies, and strategies in the data space. Whether it’s delivering seamless integrations, enhancing data quality, or implementing MDM solutions, I’ll ensure our work is at the cutting edge and delivers measurable value.

Partnership and collaboration. Building a strong practice isn’t just about the technology—it’s about people. My goal is to foster an environment where we work collaboratively, leveraging each other’s strengths, sharing knowledge, and growing together as a team.

Impact and growth. The work we do doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Our data services will drive real-world impact, helping our clients and stakeholders solve complex challenges, achieve their strategic goals, and unlock new possibilities. And in doing so, we’ll elevate our practice, growing not just as individuals but as a team of trusted advisors in the industry.

AP: What are the biggest areas of opportunity in Data Services right now?

RH: The biggest areas of opportunity in Data Services right now lie in addressing emerging challenges and leveraging innovations to unlock new value for organizations. Here are the key opportunities I see currently:

Data Integration and Interoperability

Many organizations operate in silos, with disparate systems that don’t communicate effectively. There’s a growing demand for seamless integrations between platforms (e.g., CRMs, ERPs, cloud systems, and analytics tools). Modern integration platforms like Boomi, MuleSoft, and Informatica enable real-time data flow to create a unified data ecosystem.

Integration ensures better decision-making, reduces redundancy, and improves operational efficiency.

Data Quality Management

Poor data quality costs organizations in missed opportunities, inefficiencies, and lost trust. Automating data profiling, cleansing, and validation processes with advanced tools (e.g., Informatica IDQ, Ataccama, Boomi) helps organizations maintain high-quality, trustworthy data—the backbone of analytics, compliance, and customer trust.

Master Data Management (MDM)

Organizations struggle with fragmented views of key entities like customers, products, and students. MDM drives efficiency, improves customer engagement, and enhances data-driven strategies—implementing MDM systems provides a single source of truth to create consistency and enable advanced use cases like personalized customer experiences and predictive analytics.

Data Governance and Compliance

Strong governance ensures compliance, reduces risk, and builds trust with customers and stakeholders. Increasing regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA demand robust data governance frameworks—organizations need to implement clear policies, roles, and accountability mechanisms for data usage. Emerging tools and AI-driven governance solutions can make this more efficient.

Leveraging AI and Advanced Analytics

AI transforms raw data into actionable insights, unlocking new business value. For organizations struggling to operationalize AI/ML models effectively, data services can integrate AI-driven insights into business workflows, enabling use cases like predictive maintenance, customer segmentation, and fraud detection.

AP: What do you like most about the work you do?

RH: What I love most about the work I do is the impact it creates. Data is foundational to every organization and having the opportunity to transform how businesses and institutions leverage their data to solve problems, drive growth, and innovate is incredibly fulfilling. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing customer experiences, or enabling better decision-making, I take pride in delivering data solutions that make a tangible difference. I also enjoy the challenge of solving complex problems—untangling integrations, improving data quality, or designing governance frameworks—and turning them into effective, scalable systems that empower teams to work smarter and make confident, data-driven decisions.

Equally rewarding is the collaborative and forward-thinking nature of this work. Partnering with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to co-create solutions builds lasting relationships while ensuring alignment on goals. I thrive on continuous learning and innovation, staying on the cutting edge of new technologies and methodologies to deliver creative solutions that meet today’s needs and prepare organizations for the future. Ultimately, helping uncover insights that tell a story and setting organizations up for long-term success is what drives my passion for this field.

AP: How do you want to leverage your new role with Attain Partners to create an impact?  

RH: In my new role with Attain Partners, I aim to create a transformative impact by building and leading a world-class Data Services capability that not only addresses our clients’ immediate needs but also positions them for long-term success in a data-driven world. By leveraging my experience in data integration, data quality, master data management, and governance, I plan to develop tailored, innovative solutions that empower organizations to make better decisions, operate more efficiently, and achieve their strategic goals.

I see this role as an opportunity to drive meaningful change by aligning technology with business objectives, ensuring that data becomes a true strategic asset for our clients. Through collaboration with internal teams and external stakeholders, I want to establish a culture of excellence and innovation within the practice, enabling us to tackle complex challenges with confidence. Whether it’s improving operational efficiencies, enhancing customer experiences, or enabling compliance with regulatory requirements, my focus will be on delivering measurable outcomes and building lasting value for both our clients and Attain Partners.

AP: Which of our seven core values speak to you the most?

RH: Several core values make me excited to make an impact at Attain Partners.

The one that speaks to me the most is Invent the Future. This value resonates deeply with my passion for driving innovation and creating transformative solutions that empower organizations to achieve their goals. I firmly believe in looking beyond immediate challenges and working collaboratively to build a breakthrough vision for the future, which aligns perfectly with my approach to leadership and data services. The idea of combining purpose with diligence to deliver tangible results inspires me to continuously push boundaries and embrace bold, forward-thinking strategies.

Execute with Discipline is another value that aligns with my professional philosophy. I have always believed that great ideas are only as good as their execution. Leading with intensity, precision, and accountability is key to delivering impactful and sustainable outcomes for clients and organizations alike. Together, these values encapsulate my commitment to innovation, excellence, and creating meaningful change in everything I do.

Be Bold speaks to my belief in tackling tough challenges head-on while maintaining optimism and focus on the end goal. Data services often require confronting complexity and navigating uncertainty, and I thrive on embracing these challenges with courage and unwavering determination. This mindset not only drives meaningful results but also inspires those around me to think creatively and approach obstacles with confidence.

AP: What do you enjoy outside of work?

RH: Outside of work, I find immense joy in traveling and exploring both local areas and other countries. Whether it’s immersing myself in the vibrant cultures of distant destinations or uncovering hidden gems closer to home, traveling allows me to gain new perspectives, experience diverse cuisines, and connect with people from all walks of life. I also love attending events around the city, from live music and art exhibitions to festivals and sports games, as they provide a unique opportunity to celebrate the energy and creativity of the community.

Supporting local causes is another passion of mine, as I believe in giving back to the communities that enrich our lives. Whether it’s participating in charity events, volunteering for local initiatives, or simply supporting small businesses and local artisans, I find great satisfaction in contributing to a greater good. Traveling and engaging with my community are not just hobbies—they’re ways for me to stay connected, inspired, and grounded.

Learn more – Ryan Hartley

Ryan Hartley is a dynamic and results-driven IT executive with over 18 years of experience leading transformative data services initiatives across diverse industries, including healthcare, education, retail, and manufacturing. With deep expertise in data integration, master data management, data quality, and governance, Ryan has a proven track record of aligning technology strategies with business goals to drive innovation, operational excellence, and measurable growth. A trusted advisor and strategic leader, Ryan thrives on solving complex challenges, empowering teams, and creating scalable, forward-thinking solutions. His passion for turning data into a strategic asset fuels his ability to deliver impactful outcomes and inspire collaboration across organizations.

Interested in speaking directly with Ryan? Fill out this form to be connected!

Jason Belland Joins Attain Partners to Share Student Experience and Enrollment Management Expertise

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Attain Digital Welcomes Jason Belland to Serve as Higher Education Executive in Residence

We are thrilled to have Jason Belland as our new Higher Education Executive in Residence. Jason joins nonprofit expert Sterrin Bird as part of the firm’s Executive in Residence program, which enhances Attain Partners’ extensive strategy, management, and technology expertise with real-world tested insights from industry leaders.

Jason Belland Joins Attain Partners as Higher Education Executive in Residence

Known for his work leveraging cutting-edge technologies to foster student success at both public and private higher education institutions, he will be collaborating closely with Doug Barrow, Managing Director and Higher Education Lead at Attain Partners. Mr. Barrow and his team are part of the Attain Digital practice, led by Partner Reshma Patel-Jackson, which houses the firm’s strategy and technology offerings under one collaborative structure, creating a unique value proposition of holistic support for our clients.

“I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with Jason, and he is the perfect addition to our team of higher education all-stars. Jason’s infectious passion for education, equity, and student success, combined with his extensive industry experience, enables him to evaluate the business problems of institutions while also applying a lens of empathy and understanding that only an industry insider can bring.”

Headshot photo of Doug Barrow

Doug Barrow

Managing Director and Higher Education Market Lead

Learn more about Jason in his interview with Attain Partners.

Attain Partners (AP): How did you become passionate about helping higher education institutions? 

Jason Belland (JB): My original vision for my career was to work in broadcasting, and through someone I met at my first internship at a local TV station in Boston, I was introduced to the world of education technology.

I had never even thought of this as a career option before, but I was invited to start working on a satellite TV program to help K-12 educators in Massachusetts maintain their teaching certifications, and this sort of lit a fire in my mind about how I could take everything I had learned about technology and broadcasting and apply it toward education and making a real impact.

From that point on, I never looked back, and that’s because this path I chose has afforded me an opportunity to see first-hand, and through the stories of students around the world, how education can change the lives of individuals, families, and communities. It’s also really demonstrated for me how powerful an individual voice and or individual idea can be when given the right opportunity or the right vehicle to advance.

This industry has an incredible community and a spirit of sharing even amongst competitors for the greater good of serving students and helping make the world a little bit better every semester. I’m grateful to have found my voice and my calling in Higher Ed and to be included as part of this community as we advance our collective work together.

AP: What did you do before joining Attain Partners, and what brought you here?

JB: I’ve spent my entire career working in Higher Ed, focusing about 15 years on campus in roles at public and private universities, and the last 10 years working at technology companies, including Salesforce, where I led the team that built the first-ever commercially available Salesforce products for Higher Education.

I’m grateful that I’ve had the chance to work on both the academic and administrative side of institutions, and to work with colleges as a technology vendor. This experience has provided me with an opportunity to appreciate a wide range of perspectives, ideas, and goals as I’ve worked with university leaders around the world on digital transformation initiatives.

When I first started talking with the team at Attain Partners about joining the Executive in Residence program, I was struck by our shared vision, the depth and breadth of the team they’ve put together, and, most importantly, their unwavering commitment to doing what’s right for the client. In any business, there’s really nothing more important than the success of customers, and to hear Greg Baroni, Reshma Patel-Jackson, and Doug Barrow really articulate their firm commitment to investing in customer success is what got me excited about the trajectory of Attain Partners and the future we could create together.

I really believe having the right partners is key to any digital transformation initiative—and with the team here, I’m excited to Invent the Future of Higher Education alongside some incredible customers at leading colleges and universities.

AP: What are the biggest areas of opportunity in student experience and enrollment management right now?

JB: Hands down the biggest opportunity is data. Access to data, getting actionable insights from data, empowering staff, students, and faculty so they are data literate to make informed choices, and leveraging data to drive AI engagement as we create the next level of student services.

Institutions are collecting data every day but unlocking that and making sense of it in real time is a great opportunity for institutions that want to get ahead on recruiting and enrolling students as well as making sure those student don’t just graduate on time, but do so having had a delightful student experience that builds loyalty and invites them to come back as their learning and career needs evolve over the course of a lifetime.

AI is going to play a huge role in all of this, both in terms of external communications with students as well as internal processes between departments where an AI agent can be deployed to deal with administrative tasks to free up staff to do the impactful work of connecting with students and forming real relationships that may just transform an academic, career, and life journey.

We’ve all talked about a connected campus for years, and I think at this point that idea is foundational table stakes for institutional survival. Going forward our opportunity is to build upon the foundation of a connected campus toward a more integrated, anticipatory experience for students along with empowered staff and faculty who are unbound from cumbersome administrative work to focus on delivering real experiences that bring to life the spirit of the campus in ways big and small every day.

AP: Which of our seven core values speak to you the most?

JB: Invent the Future is the one that immediately resonated with me. Nothing great happens without thinking big, writing down a breakthrough vision of a future state and getting everyone excited about the journey.

Invent the Future also puts the power in our hands. We are not simply following the rules and implementing the future someone else told us about—we have the power to INVENT it! This is a very powerful and freeing idea that can unlock innovation from unlikely places across any college campus.

This moment right now in Higher Ed is our moment to think bigger than ever before. The current and future students of the world are counting on us, and we have the ability to harness the best of our ideas to reimagine and reinvigorate our industry as an even more vital part of the fabric of a more equitable world.

“This moment right now in Higher Ed is our moment to think bigger than ever before. The current and future students of the world are counting on us, and we have the ability to harness the best of our ideas to reimagine and reinvigorate our industry as an even more vital part of the fabric of a more equitable world.“

AP: What do you like most about the work you do?

JB: I started my career working on campus for about 15 years, and I’ve never lost my love of just being on a campus, taking in all of the sights and sounds, and feeling the energy of the students, faculty, and staff. Every institution has incredible history, energy, and stories to tell—it’s hard to not feel hopeful about the future when you’re on campus working on something meaningful for the school.

I’m in this industry because I truly believe that equality begins with education, and every time I’m on a campus, I meet people that remind me I am not alone in that belief—in fact, there are thousands of people just like me working together in ways big and small to change the lives of individuals, families, and communities around the world.

AP: What are the biggest ways you’ve seen digital transformation initiatives impact higher education institutions?

JB: I’ve seen so many amazing outcomes during my time at Salesforce.

  • Schools implementing new admissions marketing strategies that helped connect a first-gen student who never thought she would go to college with a great admissions counselor
  • Students graduating in a major they had never even considered thanks to technology helping them find a new student group
  • Colleges literally rebuilding their campus after a disaster thanks to generous alumni they were able to reach through new methods and tools

All of these stories are from different institutions and different contexts, but what they all have in common is a change in culture on campus. A change from siloed data and thinking to stewardship and care for the whole student. A change from “business as usual” to thinking “How might we…?”. And a change from an exclusively top-down vision to a more inclusive democratization of ideas where every staff member of campus has a voice and the tools at their disposal to make a real impact on the institution.

We often talk about how we can give students a sense of belonging. In addition to that important work, these stories and outcomes make sure that every staff member feels that they belong and are not just included but integral to create a future vision for the campus.

AP: What do you enjoy outside of work?

JB: I love going to live music shows, and I enjoy everything from classical to opera to rock music. I love getting dressed up for a night at Lincoln Center seeing La Traviata just as much as I enjoy the vibe of a Patti Smith show in downtown Manhattan at Bowery Ballroom.

I also love to travel. I make sure to get to Tokyo every year and have really enjoyed some recent trips to Bangkok and Hong Kong, as well as a great trip I took a few months ago to Siem Reap in Cambodia to see Angkor Wat—everyone should put this on their bucket list!—it’s absolutely breathtaking at sunrise.

And when I’m not enjoying live music or traveling, I can often be found at Citi Field in Queens supporting the New York Mets. Let’s go Mets!

Learn more – Jason Belland

Jason Belland serves as Higher Education Executive in Residence at Attain Partners, committed to serving the industry with a focus on envisioning outcome-driven solutions that care for the student journey over a lifetime of learning. Jason has spent over two decades working at public and private higher education institutions in roles ranging from online learning and instructional design to marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), bringing together innovative ideas with new technologies to support student success.

In addition to his roles in higher education, Jason served an eight-year tenure at Salesforce, ascending to Vice President of Go-To-Market for Education Cloud, leading teams to create solutions that would empower colleges and universities to engage, retain, and support every learner over the course of a lifetime of learning. The products and solutions created under Jason’s tenure at Salesforce have been implemented by thousands of colleges and universities globally and set the foundation for today’s Salesforce Education Cloud. Jason received his bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature/Letters from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and holds an Executive Education Certificate in Business Excellence from Columbia Business School.

Interested in speaking directly with Jason? Fill out this form to be connected!

Three Key Ways to Improve Donor Retention

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The advent of technology has forever changed every industry, including nonprofit.

Back in 1993, when I first started in this field, the approach to donor communication was a lot like throwing spaghetti at the wall—one message for everyone and hope something sticks.

That worked in the days of direct mail and early digital campaigns, but 30 years later, things have changed. Donors expect personalized engagement, and even organizations with small budgets can’t afford a one-size-fits-all approach anymore.

Recently, I worked with a school whose gift officers had overlapping portfolios.

Some donors were receiving multiple, conflicting messages, which was both confusing and ineffective! They were losing donors left and right and weren’t sure why.

This is what happens when wires get crossed and your message gets lost: You lose donors and hamper your efforts.

I was brought in to clean things up and address their donor retention issues. Here’s the knowledge I imported to them.

Personalizing Your Fundraising Effort

Donor retention is deeply needed in fundraising, especially when it comes to major gifts. But if we want donors to stay, we need to know them.

What does this look like in practical terms?

Let me share three principles that, in all honesty, I wish I had understood way back in 1993.

1. It’s Not About the Money or Metrics

Whenever an organization expresses interest in working with me, I emphasize that my focus doesn’t solely lay on the money or the metrics.

When we consider the 5 I’s of Fundraising, we focus on identifying new donors. But for donor retention, the most critical aspects are informing, involving, and inspiring.

When looking at donor retention—especially with major donors—you need to ask yourself: Are you only reaching out when you want their next gift, or are you engaging with them continuously, keeping them informed and inspired by your mission?

Fundraising is often compared to dating, and the same principle applies to donor retention. Just like a relationship, you can’t take your donors for granted.

You must constantly nurture the connection, continually “till the soil,” and communicate with them in a way that feels personal and meaningful.

Remember, it’s not about you; it’s about them.

2. There’s More Than Just the Close

In this industry, the focus can easily get placed on the close.

However, this approach has its limitations. If we exclusively focus on the close, we may limit our ability to see the bigger picture.

For example, if you lose two donors who give $100 each, but one of your other donors increases their contribution from $100 to $400, then you’ve recovered more than you lost.

Oftentimes, we can fall into the trap of trying to “save the deal” and never lose any donors. But in reality, donors come and donors go. Our response will decide how well we handle those moments.

When someone says no or asks for more time, I highly recommend asking: “Can I follow up with you in a month or two with more information?”

Just by asking this, you keep the conversation going, giving you the opportunity to find more ways to inspire and inform them before asking again.

3. There’s No “One Size Fits All” in Fundraising

Like I highlighted earlier on, “one size fits all” doesn’t fit with today’s marketplace.

Fortunately, the technology at our fingertips opens new doors for personalization and communication. However, it’s incumbent on us to educate ourselves and use it properly.

First and foremost, we cannot assume that our messaging will resonate with everyone, even if they are in our ecosystem already. For example, differences in age, corporate affiliation, tenure, background, and more can all have a monumental effect on the efficiency of your messaging.

Personalization has never been more important than it is today.

When was the last time you did an audit of what your messaging is and how well they will resonate with these organizations? I recommend making these audits a consistent practice. You’ll quickly learn what’s working, and what isn’t.

So, what’s working in your industry? What isn’t? Are you allowing for time and not forcing the close? Do you understand what your donors need in their life cycle?

The better you understand the answers to these questions, the more you’ll reach your audience and nail your fundraising.

Want more strategies to improve donor retention? Let’s chat!

Attain Partners – Your Partner in Driving Meaningful Impact

At Attain Partners, we’re familiar with the unique challenges facing mission-focused organizations and use our extensive experience to help nonprofits leverage Salesforce to increase their fundraising efforts, improve communications, manage the entire program lifecycle, and measure impact. Our work with hundreds of leading nonprofits across the country represents Attain Partners’ understanding of adapting technology to meet diverse missions and functional use cases along with complex data migrations and system integrations. Contact us today to learn how we can serve your organization.

For more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services for nonprofits, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our experts.

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About the Author

Headshot photo of Sterrin Bird

Sterrin Bird is a global fundraising leader and transformative figure in the nonprofit community, universally recognized for her nearly three decades of exceptional dedication to philanthropy. Her expertise spans the future of fundraising, building robust teams, and mastering the art of relational fundraising. With a keen focus on breaking down silos and fostering human-centered change, Sterrin excels in leveraging technology in support of mission outcomes and is an advocate for utilizing AI for fundraising innovation.

Prior to her tenure as a development officer, Sterrin catalyzed growth as a development consultant for three notable international consulting firms, where she blossomed into a cross-functional leader. In 2010, she founded her own consulting practice, orienting her approach around uncommon coaching and leadership mentoring. Throughout her multifaceted career, Sterrin has orchestrated over three dozen capital campaigns across the globe, cumulatively raising more than $5.5 billion, securing her reputation as a global fundraising leader.

In her professional journey, she has held pivotal leadership roles at prestigious nonprofit giants such as Duke Medicine, the University of California, the American Red Cross, the March of Dimes, and United Way. Sterrin also spent four years as the in-house nonprofit expert with the global team at Salesforce.

Sterrin holds an Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is also a True North Leadership Fellow and was named to the Advisory Council of Rogare, a fundraising think tank in the UK at the University of Plymouth.

Her extensive experience with C-suite executives, nonprofit directors, and leadership across complex organizations speaks to her ability to exceed funding objectives while leading teams and managing the ever-changing nonprofit industry. A distinguished cross-functional leader, Sterrin navigates the intersection of fundraising, marketing, brand positioning, and program advancement with ease.

Originally from Short Hills, New Jersey, Sterrin now calls the Bay Area home, living with her two children, Thomas and Mary. She is a prolific public speaker and is also deeply invested in her community, she sits on the board of Maimoni Valley Preserve, One Life Counseling, and the Young Men’s Service League, embodying the spirit of engaged and impactful citizenship.

Why Your Team Should Consider CRM Analytics

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Overcoming the Limitations of Standard Salesforce Reporting

Whether due to integrating multiple systems or a departments’ reporting needs constantly changing and seemingly increasing in complexity, your team may have outgrown the out-of-the-box reporting capabilities of Salesforce. So, why should your team to consider looking beyond the standard reporting features and expand into CRM Analytics (CRMA)?

Actionable Insights

A key difference between CRM Analytics and Standard Reporting is that while Salesforce reports can explain what happened, CRM Analytics can explain why something happened.

With regards to data, CRM Analytics offers four advantages over standard Salesforce reporting.

Advantages of CRM Analytics

Expanded connected objects

Standard Salesforce report types only allow users to connect up to four related objects within a report. CRMA allows users the ability to extend beyond that limitation by connecting the object data together into a Data Set via Recipe.

External data sources

Additionally, CRM Analytics can be configured to pull data directly from external systems. This greatly expands your company’s reporting capability to include ALL the data in your organization, not just the data in Salesforce.

Data transformations

Unlike with standard reporting, CRM Analytics provides the ability to make complex transformations of the data via Recipes. As an example, in CRMA, full Outer and Inner joins of data are permissible, which is not possible in standard reporting.

Connected visualizations

CRM Analytics offers premium dashboards that allow faceting of the data visuals. As a user changes one thing in the dashboard, the surrounding data will automatically adjust accordingly. This is not a simply a filter on the dashboard that changes all the corresponding data point, rather as a user selects a specific data point, the dashboard will adjust accordingly to reflect the surrounding data specific to the data point selected.

Example of Faceting

One of the most compelling reasons to consider CRM Analytics is the ability to access and truly manage all your organization’s data in one place. Of course, CRM Analytics works natively with Salesforce, but what about the data that may live in a legacy system or some other complementary system outside of Salesforce? Traditionally, pulling this data and connecting it all together can be challenging, and it becomes even more of a lift depending how frequently the data changes. Fortunately, CRM Analytics allows users to either upload data manually or more conveniently via scheduled syncs with outside systems. This capability greatly increases the accuracy and freshness of the data.

Advanced Security

CRM Analytics honors the record security that is established on the data that originates from the Salesforce org. In short, users will not see records in CRM Analytics that they would not have access to in Salesforce.

For data originating outside the Salesforce org, CRM Analytics also provides additional security access which can be used in conjunction with or in lieu of the standard Salesforce security. This expands how an organization can share data with both internal user and external users outside of your organization such as Customers or Partners. The advanced security allows any key in the data along with any attribute on the User record to be leveraged for access. For example, if the underlying data set had a column denoting a department tied to particular records, the security predicate could be built to allow any User with the matching department to gain access to the data.  

Whether it is a component on a record page, or a dashboard displayed on an Experience Cloud Site, your organization can present insightful, interactive data to all constituents. CRM Analytics’ security tools ensure that each audience can only see the data that’s appropriate for them.

Interactive Dashboards and Lenses

CRM Analytics gives users more tools to help bring their dashboard components to life and allows users to glean useful insight or actionable information. Whereas a filter can change what is reflected on a dashboard based on a certain set of criteria (Open/Closed, Dates, etc.), CRM Analytics takes that to a more granular level via data faceting. When a user clicks on a component on the dashboard, the underlying data will adjust accordingly so a user can better see and understand how the surrounding data is affected or how that data impacts the selection the user made. As a user selects a particular data point within the dashboard, the surrounding components will adjust accordingly.

This expands beyond traditional dashboard filters and allows the connected data to change to reflect selections a user may have made on the dashboard itself. A user can immediately see impacts of a particular event or opportunity record relative to other areas of the business or performance indicators upstream or downstream. Ideally the “explorations” of the data uncover a data point or insight that would not have been easily discernible in a tabular report format.

“Lenses” are another great exploratory feature of CRM Analytics. Similar to how an individual can create a standard report in their Salesforce org, a CRM Analytics user can create a “Lens” to explore the underlying data sets and make their own charts, graphs or data tables using all the tools of CRM Analytics (Data Transformation, Advanced Graphs). Furthermore, the creation of “Lenses” does not affect any of the existing dashboards or the underlying data sets and they can be saved and shared to foster follow up actions and/or collaboration.

Example of creating a Lens—selecting a Data Set and exploring the data

Versatile Applications

There are myriad manners in which CRM Analytics can be deployed and utilized ranging from being a powerful tool employed internally by an Analytics or Impact team to present findings and potential opportunities to teams within an organization. The other end of that spectrum is to make the data you want available externally to Portal users either end Customers and/or Partners.

For internal applications, there are of course various levels of access or functionality you can provide to users that can allow them to further self-explore the data via the dashboards via Lenses. Aside from all the CRM Analytics tools being available in the Analytics Studio workspace, Analytics components can be embedded directly onto Salesforce Lightning pages to allow a user to engage the enhanced data within their typical day-to-day operations thereby eliminating the need to toggle to a different area or page within the system.

In short, CRM Analytics makes all of your organization’s data visible, personalized, and actionable in one spot and can be applied almost anywhere within Salesforce.

Key Takeaways

CRM Analytics offers a sophisticated solution for organizations outgrowing standard Salesforce reporting. By providing insights into not just what happened but why, it addresses the complexities of evolving reporting needs. Its advantages include connecting to external data sources, facilitating complex data transformations, and offering connected visualizations.

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Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts

Regardless of where your organization is in its Salesforce journey (or if it’s yet to start!), Attain Partners is here to help you achieve your goals and serve your community. Contact our team today to learn how we can help your organization advance its mission by harnessing the power of Salesforce.

To learn more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our Salesforce experts.

About the Author

Carlos Figueras has over a decade of experience in Salesforce consulting, project management, and business analysis. He has earned 14 Salesforce certifications, including Education Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud and the Tableau CRM and Einstein Discovery certifications. At Attain Partners, Carlos is a Senior Consultant with nonprofits and universities, specializing in data modeling, analytics, and process automation.

Why Universities Should Transition from Student Success Hub to Salesforce Education Cloud with Omnistudio

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Benefits of Moving from Student Success Hub (SSH) to Salesforce Education Cloud with Omnistudio

Many universities that have previously implemented Student Success Hub (SSH) are on the fence about when, or if, they should make the jump to Education Cloud. 

The conversion of previously delivered Student Success Hub (SSH) is now converted into the use of Omnistudio components that can be replicated, modified, and customized for each organization’s unique needs. This powerful change gives universities the ability to roll out a phased approach depending upon their deployment needs and abilities.  

Client Success

While working with clients, Attain Partners has been able to find new ways to expedite the roll out of information. We have set up integrations using Omnistudio Integration Procedures and delivered APIs from Ellucian Banner, Blackboard Learn, and many other systems to display real-time data.

With the Omnistudio capabilities, we can mix locally sourced data with what is needed to bring back any API available data. Limiting the needs for a lift and shift of data to only moving data that makes sense for Salesforce to house allows for an ease of keeping data in the system of truth.

Data loads can be prioritized to ensure that actionable data is moved into Salesforce. 

From an implementation perspective, Education Cloud with Omnistudio is a powerful tool that allows for continued building upon the Salesforce foundation. For continued SSH customers, what does this mean? Salesforce does offer Omnistudio as an installable product to existing SSH customers that are not ready to make the leap to Education Cloud just yet. 

Making the Leap

Omnistudio does have a bit of a learning curve, and it may take time for internal support representatives to familiarize themselves with the ins and outs of what it can do. The benefits of what is possible with Omnistudio, however, is what makes learning the tool worthwhile for organizations.

Our team has become very familiar with Omnistudio since the release of Education Cloud. Building items in a method to allow them to be called from an Experience Site or from an internal Salesforce record to ensure people see what they are meant to see. We understand the importance of approaching issues that used to be a screen flow may now be done in an OmniScript or a Flex card. Understanding what the best solution is for a requirement can make the end user experience more seamless.  

The end goal is ensuring that students, faculty, staff, and any other required stakeholders have their needs met. The great part about Omnistudio, Flows, and Salesforce is that they can be optimized for the best user experience. Allowing for an easy-to-use platform can bolster student engagement, encourage staff to use the tools provided, and give administrators the data they need to do their jobs in a single location. 

Attain Partners – Salesforce Experts

Regardless of where your organization is in its Salesforce journey (or if it’s yet to start!), Attain Partners is here to help you achieve your goals and serve your community. Contact our team today to learn how we can help your organization advance its mission by harnessing the power of Salesforce.

To learn more, check out our Salesforce Innovation services, read case studies about our transformative work, and explore blog posts from our Salesforce experts.

About the Author

Christopher Wray is a Senior Specialist at Attain Partners. He has worked in higher education for over 11 years, both on the university side and as a consultant. With an extensive background in Information Technology, Chris has worked with a number of different applications, security needs, and areas of infrastructure and has a deep understanding of the education markets he serves.

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Library Cost Studies: A Tool to Document and Communicate Library Value

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A Library Cost Study is a powerful tool for universities to strengthen their indirect cost rate proposals—an important component of recovering research-related costs. By conducting a Library Cost Study, a university can gain vital insights into how its library advances university research and reveal institution investments into research infrastructure. Additionally, librarians can gain valuable insights into library resource allocation and service development that can inform library impact assessments and budgetary planning. 

Attain Partners’ newly modernized Library Cost Study accounts for the evolving nature of library support for federally funded research with improved workflows for data collection and analysis. The return on investment for a Library Cost Study goes beyond the recovery of research-related costs and includes:  

Aligning the Library with University Strategy, Organizational Structure, and Costs

The Library Cost Study provides a comprehensive understanding of how the library serves the university mission through its collections, services, facilities, and staff. By linking the impact of library use, services, and resources, library leaders can articulate how they serve their institutions’ mission, goals, and objectives and the social benefit they generate through key service areas. 

Clarifying Costs by Library User Type and Purpose of Library Use

One of the primary benefits of a Library Cost Study is understanding how library costs are allocated by the purpose of use (research, education​, or patient care​) by library users’ college/school affiliation and user type classification. For instance, library resource costs may vary significantly depending on whether resources are acquired and used by undergraduate students, graduate students, or faculty engaged in research. A Library Cost Study enables libraries to break down and understand these costs, giving clear insights into who benefits most from library resources and which services are most valuable to different user groups​, departments, or disciplines​.

Evidence-Based Library Decision-Making for Programmatic and Budgetary Planning

The results of a Library Cost Study offer insights that can inform programmatic decisions about how collection and staff resources are allocated and used. By understanding campus resource demands, libraries can make data-informed decisions to enhance or modify services, especially to support research more effectively. With this clear view of costs, library leaders can make decisions that directly benefit research faculty and students.

Demonstrating Library Impact on the Academic Research Mission

Libraries play a critical role in supporting the university’s research mission, and a Library Cost Study showcases the scale of this impact. By enumerating the library’s contribution to the research enterprise, the Library Cost Study makes it easier for university administrators to understand and appreciate the library’s value. In demonstrating the essential role the library plays in campus research, the data supports future growth and innovation.

Facilitating Library Budget Discussions with Empirical Data

A well-documented Library Cost Study supports budget discussions by grounding them in data. When it comes to budget requests, especially for research-related initiatives, being able to present precise numbers helps make a strong case for library budgets. Highlighting the library’s contributions to research can strengthen the library’s position when discussing funding priorities with university leadership, underscoring the library’s centrality to research success.

Enhancing Library Partnerships with Campus Research Administrators

Collaboration between libraries and campus research administrators during a Library Cost Study creates a valuable partnership. Research administrators are often deeply invested in the cost-recovery process, as indirect cost rate proposals support the university’s ability to secure funding for essential research projects. By working together on a Library Cost Study, libraries can better align with institutional goals and make a case for the resources they need to maintain high standards of support for research initiatives. This partnership enhances the visibility of the library’s role in the institution’s research ecosystem. 

A Library Cost Study isn’t just a budgeting exercise; it’s a strategic tool that brings clarity to the library’s role in supporting research, deepens partnerships within the university, and strengthens budgetary negotiations. If your library hasn’t conducted a Library Cost Study, or it has been a while, now is a great time to explore its benefits. Attain Partners’ modernized Library Cost Study could enhance the impact of your library on campus and support your institution’s research goals. 

Learn more about our Library Planning and Strategy services. 

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About the Authors

Hilary A. Craiglow leads our team of library strategists to strengthen library systems. With extensive experience leading academic and research libraries, Hilary has a deep understanding of college and university systems. She is a strategic and visionary administrator, melding rich library traditions with innovative forward-thinking services. As a data and mission-driven leader, she employs proven evaluation and assessment methods and creates organizational transformation through empathy and partnership.

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe is a Professor and the Coordinator for Research Professional Development in the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also a Specialist Leader at Attain Partners, bringing her industry knowledge and thought leadership of libraries, assessment, scholarly communications, innovation, and program evaluation practices to library consulting.  
 

Martha Kyrillidou, Ph.D. is the President of Quality Metrics, LLC where she consults in strategy, planning, and assessment with a focus on improving library services. She was the original architect of the StatsQUAL suite of services at the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) where LibQUAL, ClimateQUAL, and MINES for Libraries were developed. Martha is a Research Associate at the iSchool at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Consulting Associate with Attain Partners. She has been a consultant for the Library Cost Study methodology for more than ten years. 

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