Every vendor they asked — Monday.com, Salesforce, FinalSite — said their school-plus-parallel-program model needs two systems. Meanwhile the Summit Resource Center runs its entire pipeline out of a Google Sheet, follow-ups live in Katie's memory, and 85 summer campers plus 50 waitlisted families receive zero ongoing communication.
| Platform | What it does today | Cost / yr | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| FinalSite — websitePublic site + mass email | Website & communications | ~$7,700 | Replace |
| FinalSite — enrollmentex-SchoolAdmin | Inquiry → application → enrollment, parent portal | ~$7,700 | Replace |
| Bloomerang + Qgiv3 modules, separate logins | Donor CRM, fundraising email, event tickets, online auction | est. $5,000+ | Replace |
| TutorBird | Tutor attendance → in-house billing | ~$1,200 | Replace |
| Google Sheets | The entire SRC "CRM" | free | Replace |
| FACTS | Tuition management + financial aid | unknown | Split |
| AlmaSIS of record | Demographics, attendance, schedules, report cards | unknown | Keep + integrate |
| Google Classroom | Assignment grading (middle school) | free | Keep |
FACTS splits: financial aid stays (external reviewers are mandatory — integrate, don't replace); tuition management may move in-house in a later phase. Known spend is already $21k+/yr before Bloomerang's real number.
One custom platform, one login, one database — for less than a single tuition, with hosting and support as the only recurring costs.
Each phase ships usable — departments keep working live while the next division is bolted on. Roles & permissions get a tuning pass at the end of every phase, plus a department walkthrough meeting.
The backbone: contacts, tags, segments, comms, form builder, automations. SRC pipelines (testing, benchmarking, tutoring, summer camp) with scheduler and payments — Katie goes from a Google Sheet to a real system. Website launches alongside; forms embed or link out either way.
Inquiry → applicant → enrolled pipeline, application with uploads and educator questionnaire, acceptance workflow, parent portal with stage-assigned forms, re-enrollment rollover. Retires FinalSite enrollment.
Donor management, capital campaign tracking, event registration + ticketing (golf, Bash, Bingo, community talks), the annual online auction. Retires Bloomerang/Qgiv. Needs discovery with Tiana first.
Tuition management in-house (deposits $3,500/$5,000 by contract date; 1, 2, or 9-payment plans; proration), open-house device check-in, and — only if they ever ask — a scaled-down SIS to replace Alma at ≤150 students.
The part every vendor got wrong. Student-anchored families and standalone donors must live in one model — profile tabs attach per service, navigation between linked people works like Ancestry
.
Staff define trigger → condition → action themselves. The canonical requirement: Katie's Tuesday dashboard says two weeks since you heard from Kassie about testing — call her.
A marketing opt-out checkbox (transactional mail still flows) replaces FinalSite's delete-to-silence. I get hit by a bus tomorrow, they reapply in six months — someone needs to know the history.
Immunization records, psych evals, financial-aid PDFs: encrypted, access-logged, stored apart from typed form data. HIPAA named explicitly. No SSNs in form fields, ever. Student names never appear publicly.
Role presets plus individual toggles; department-scoped visibility; field-level hiding (financial-aid amounts); confirmation warnings on destructive actions — requested by name.