Case Study: Elijah Institute — Connecting the Dots Between LMS, CRM, and Accounting
How we’re helping an education nonprofit connect Thinkific, Bloomerang, and QuickBooks — without replacing a single tool.
The Organization
Elijah Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to training therapists in spiritually-integrated mental health care. They offer continuing education courses to clinicians across the country, delivered through an online learning platform.
The organization is founder-led. Rebecca Brubaker built it from the ground up — curriculum development, instructor recruitment, student enrollment, donor relations, and all the technology in between. The mission is clear: train more therapists who can treat the whole person, not just the presenting symptoms.
That mission is working. Revenue has grown year over year. The course catalog is expanding. Instructors from across the US are recording sessions remotely. Students are earning CE credits and applying what they learn in clinical practice.
But the technology holding it all together? That was held together with willpower and browser tabs.
The Challenge
Elijah Institute’s tech stack wasn’t broken. Each tool was doing its job. The problem was that none of them knew the others existed.
Here’s what the environment looked like:
- Thinkific — Learning management system for delivering CE courses
- Bloomerang — Donor CRM for managing supporters and fundraising
- QuickBooks Online — Accounting and financial reporting
- GoDaddy — Email and website hosting
- Riverside — Remote recording platform for nationwide instructors
- Various tools — Zoom, Adobe Sign, and several AI platforms for research and content development
Each platform had its own login, its own data, its own logic. When a student enrolled in a course, that information lived in Thinkific. If that same person made a donation, that record lived in Bloomerang. If money changed hands, QuickBooks needed to know about it separately.
The result: manual data entry. Copying names between systems. Exporting CSVs to reconcile records. Hours spent being a human middleware layer between software platforms that should be talking to each other.
On top of the integration problem, there were security gaps. No multi-factor authentication on critical accounts. No formal backup strategy. Email deliverability issues — messages to students and instructors were landing in spam because the domain wasn’t properly authenticated. No documented credential management.
And no IT budget. Because when you’re a founder running a growing nonprofit, “hire an IT person” doesn’t make the priority list until something breaks badly enough to force the issue.
Rebecca was doing everything herself. Not because she wanted to manage technology — because there was nobody else to do it.
The Approach
When we started working with Elijah Institute, we didn’t show up with a product pitch. We showed up with a question: What’s actually costing you time?
That’s how every FIT engagement begins. We call it the discovery phase, and it matters more than the technical work that follows.
Discovery Session. We sat down with Rebecca and her board treasurer (who happens to have an IT background — helpful for validating that we weren’t overselling). We mapped every tool, every workflow, every pain point. Not just “what software do you use” but “walk me through what happens when a student enrolls” and “what does your month-end look like.”
Tech Audit. We inventoried every platform, every subscription, every login. This is where you find the waste — duplicate services, overpriced plans, tools that have nonprofit pricing you never applied for. It’s also where you find the risk — accounts without MFA, no backup strategy, email configurations that are actively hurting deliverability.
Integration Mapping. Once we understood the data flow, we mapped where the connections should be. Where does student data need to go after enrollment? How should donor records sync with financial reporting? What triggers should create automated follow-ups? This map becomes the blueprint for everything we build.
Security Baseline. Before we connected anything, we hardened what was already there. MFA on every critical account. Email authentication configured properly (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Credential vault established so passwords aren’t living in sticky notes or shared spreadsheets.
The key word in all of this is partnership. We’re not a vendor that disappears after setup. Rebecca has a phone number she can call when something is confusing. She has a team that understands her mission, not just her software. We attend quarterly reviews. We think about her technology strategy so she can think about training therapists.
The Solution
We’re currently in the onboarding phase with Elijah Institute. Here’s what we’re building:
System Integration
The centerpiece of the engagement is connecting the platforms that were operating in isolation. Using Zapier as the integration layer, we’re building automated workflows that move data where it needs to go:
- Student enrollment flows — When someone enrolls in a Thinkific course, relevant data flows to Bloomerang and QuickBooks without manual entry.
- Donor-to-student alignment — When a donor is also a student (common in education nonprofits), both records stay in sync.
- Financial reconciliation — Course revenue, donations, and expenses route to QuickBooks with proper categorization, reducing month-end reconciliation from hours to minutes.
The goal isn’t to build something complex. It’s to eliminate the manual copy-paste that was eating Rebecca’s week.
Microsoft 365 Nonprofit Migration
Elijah Institute qualifies for Microsoft’s nonprofit program, which provides Business Basic licenses at no cost. We’re migrating them from a paid GoDaddy email setup to Microsoft 365 Nonprofit — better email security, better deliverability, better collaboration tools, and a significant cost savings that goes straight back to the mission.
This also fixes the email deliverability problem. Proper Microsoft 365 configuration with authenticated sending means messages to students and instructors actually land in inboxes, not spam folders.
Security Hardening
We’re implementing foundational security practices that should have been in place from day one — but never were, because there was no one to set them up:
- Multi-factor authentication on all critical platforms
- Proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC records)
- Credential vault with documented access management
- Backup strategy for critical data
- Security incident response guidance
This isn’t enterprise-grade security theater. It’s practical, right-sized protection for a small nonprofit that handles student data and donor information.
AI-Assisted Operations
We’re configuring Claude as a purpose-built AI assistant for Rebecca’s daily operations — trained on Elijah Institute’s context, course catalog, and organizational needs. This means Rebecca has an AI that understands her organization, not a generic chatbot. It helps with drafting communications, researching curriculum topics, preparing board reports, and handling the administrative tasks that used to consume her evenings.
Ongoing Managed Services
After onboarding, Elijah Institute transitions to monthly managed services. That includes:
- Help desk support with same-day response
- Vendor coordination when platforms act up
- Security monitoring and maintenance
- Quarterly business review calls to align technology with mission goals
- A single point of contact for all technology questions
One number to call. One team that knows the whole picture.
Key Takeaway
Here’s what we want other nonprofits to hear: you probably don’t need to replace your tools. You need to connect them.
Elijah Institute wasn’t running bad software. Thinkific is a solid LMS. Bloomerang is a capable donor CRM. QuickBooks is the industry standard for nonprofit accounting. The tools were fine. The problem was that each one was an island.
Connecting those islands — automating the data handoffs, securing the accounts, fixing the email deliverability — doesn’t require a massive budget or an enterprise IT team. It requires someone who takes the time to understand how your organization actually works and builds the bridges accordingly.
If you’re a nonprofit founder toggling between five browser tabs, manually copying data between systems, and wondering why your email keeps going to spam — that’s not a technology problem. That’s an integration problem. And it’s fixable.
You started your organization to serve a mission. Not to manage software. You deserve IT support that understands the difference.
Elijah Institute’s onboarding is currently in progress. We’ll update this case study as the engagement matures.
Matt Stoltz is the founder of Flower Insider Technologies, providing managed IT services for small businesses and nonprofits. If your organization is running disconnected tools and you’re tired of being the human middleware, let’s talk.
Contact: matt@flowerinsidertechnologies.com | 507-308-0032
Web: flowerinsidertechnologies.com
Managed services with a covenant vibe.