Rise Partnerships

What Rise Partnerships does

RISE Partnerships is a privately held U.S. training and development firm founded in 2000 and headquartered in Albany, New York, exclusively serving the fraternity and sorority market. The company delivers interactive workshops, customized curriculum design, and consulting services to university fraternity/sorority life (FSL) departments, national fraternal headquarters, chapter officers, and volunteer alumni advisors. Its core product suite includes GUIDE (advisor training), Thrive (new member education), EQUIP (officer skills), the EXCEL Summit (executive leadership training), the Interdisciplinary Institute for Hazing Prevention (IIHP), and Prove It! (assessment-focused training), complemented by custom curriculum design and instructional design services. The underlying methodology centers on instructional design, needs assessment, and research-grounded facilitation rather than a software platform — there is no proprietary technology product, API, or app, and the firm is not positioned around AI or automation capabilities.

RISE operates a consultative, sales-led go-to-market: prospective clients request a consultation, receive a tailored pre-assessment, and contract customized programs delivered either in-person or virtually over durations ranging from 60-minute sessions to full-day workshops. Revenue is generated entirely through professional services engagements (training delivery, curriculum design, and consulting), with pricing opaque and quote-based per engagement. Demand is generated through a content-led marketing engine — the long-running GreeksRISE Blog, The Horizon newsletter, regular presentations at the Association of Fraternity & Sorority Advisors (AFA) Annual Meeting, and downloadable resources — targeting a narrow but identifiable buyer base in U.S. higher education. Over 21 years the firm states it has served 300+ university campuses and 100+ fraternal organizations, operating today with 1–10 employees under founder/CEO Dan Wrona and a small, specialized leadership team including VP for Learning Brittany Barnes Deeg.

The business is a niche, founder-led professional services firm: capital-light, no external funding, no disclosed M&A, and recent growth has come from incremental hires (Andrea Starks-Corbin, Julie Dold, Jessica Wilson, Karlee Nuttelman, Chris Brooks) and the layering of new product lines (EXCEL Summit, IIHP, Prove It!) onto the original GUIDE/Thrive/EQUIP franchise. The strategic question for any investor is whether this domain-specialized services model can compound revenue at venture-scale or whether it will remain a profitable lifestyle professional services firm — current evidence points to the latter, with growth driven by hiring and product breadth rather than platform economics or geographic expansion.

Name

Rise Partnerships

Legal name

RISE Partnerships

Website

https://risepartnerships.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

RISE Partnerships is a privately held, Albany, NY-based training and development firm founded in 2000 that exclusively serves U.S. fraternities and sororities, delivering customized workshops, curriculum design, and consulting to university FSL departments, national fraternal organizations, and chapter leaders.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Fraternity/Sorority Leadership Training Services

NAICS

Educational Services (611), Educational Support Services (61171)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Executive Leadership & C-Suite Development (EDABAAAA)

Keywords

• Fraternity sorority training
• Leadership development programs
• Curriculum design services
• Campus student leadership
• Hazing prevention training

Headquarters

HQ city

Albany

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Training Services: Stand-alone training programs for new member education teams, volunteer advisors, and student leaders. Programs are customized to client needs, ranging from 60 minutes to full-day sessions, delivered in-person or virtually.
2. Curriculum Design: Custom-designed training to meet the unique needs of specific communities or organizations, including instructional design, needs assessment, educational strategy, e-learning development, job aids, workshop curriculum, and retreat/conference curriculum.
3. Consulting Services: Expertise and analytics services including facilitated community and program review, grounded practice recommendations, strategic framework development, problem analysis, coaching, strategy implementation, and curriculum implementation support.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

RISE Partnerships is a training and development firm that designs and delivers customized interactive training programs, curriculum design, and consulting services exclusively for fraternities and sororities on U.S. university campuses and at national organization headquarters. Its core offerings include the GUIDE (Advisor Academy), Thrive (New Member Educators), EQUIP (Officer Skills), and EXCEL Summit training programs, plus custom curriculum design, assessment training, and the Interdisciplinary Institute for Hazing Prevention (IIHP). All programs are tailored to client needs and delivered in-person or virtually.

Product overview

Rise Partnerships is a training and development firm exclusively serving fraternities and sororities, offering a portfolio of interactive training programs and professional services. The core offerings include: GUIDE (Advisor Academy) for volunteer alumni advisor training, Thrive for new member educators, EQUIP for officer skills development, and EXCEL Summit for executive leadership. These training programs are complemented by custom curriculum design services, instructional design consulting, and hazing prevention training through the Interdisciplinary Institute for Hazing Prevention (IIHP). All programs are tailored to client needs and can be delivered in-person or virtually.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• GUIDE: Advisor Academy Advisor training program that prepares volunteer alumni advisors to coach students through complex issues in fraternities and sororities.
• Thrive: Preparing New Members for Success New member education training that builds healthy organizations by providing new members with the support they need during the most influential time in their membership.
• EQUIP: Officer Skills Training Leadership development program that strengthens the leadership base by developing interpersonal and management skills in positional leaders.
• EXCEL Summit Executive leadership training for fraternity/sorority department leaders on campuses and at headquarters.
• Custom Curriculum Design Custom-designed training services created to meet the unique needs of specific communities or organizations in the fraternity/sorority space.
• Prove It! Assessment Training Assessment-focused training program that helps fraternity and sorority organizations measure and evaluate learning outcomes and program effectiveness.
• Interdisciplinary Institute for Hazing Prevention (IIHP) Specialized training institute focused on hazing prevention strategies and practices for fraternities and sororities.
• Instructional Design Services Wide range of instructional design services including needs assessment, educational strategy development, e-learning development, job aid development, and workshop/seminar curriculum design.
• Consulting Services Expertise and analytics services including facilitated community and program review, grounded practice recommendations, strategic framework development, problem analysis, coaching, strategy implementation, and curriculum design support for fraternities and sororities.

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• EAB: EAB is a higher-education advisory firm that provides research, consulting, and technology to university administrators. It serves the same campus buyers as RISE but at much greater scale and across a wider portfolio of student-success topics.
• Huron Consulting Group: Huron operates a higher-education practice that advises universities on student affairs, enrollment, and organizational strategy. It is a scaled incumbent whose services overlap with RISE's consulting arm when sold into campus departments.
• Center for Creative Leadership: CCL is a globally recognized leadership development provider with research-backed programs for emerging and executive leaders. It competes for leadership-training budget in higher education and offers programs analogous to RISE's EXCEL Summit.
• InsideTrack: InsideTrack provides coaching, training, and technology to improve student persistence and success at colleges. It overlaps with RISE's leadership development and student-support offerings but serves a much broader population beyond the Greek system.
• Academic Impressions: Academic Impressions delivers professional development, training, and consulting to higher-education administrators. It overlaps with RISE's consulting and curriculum design work but serves a broader set of functional areas across higher ed.

Direct peers

• CAMPUSPEAK: CAMPUSPEAK provides speakers, leadership content, and campus programming to colleges, including fraternity and sorority communities. It competes with RISE for training and curriculum budgets on the same campuses.
• Entangled Solutions: Entangled Solutions provides consulting, training, and research services to fraternities, sororities, and their campus partners. It overlaps directly with RISE's advisory, leadership development, and hazing-prevention practice areas.
• LeaderShape: LeaderShape runs cohort-based leadership development programs for college students and is a recurring presence at AFA Annual Meetings alongside RISE. Its mission to build leadership capacity on campuses directly parallels RISE's EQUIP and EXCEL offerings.
• Phired Up: Phired Up is a fraternity and sorority life consulting firm that delivers recruitment, retention, and member development programming to campuses and chapters. It is the closest direct competitor to RISE's training and curriculum work in the same vertical and customer base.

Others

• Association of Fraternity & Sorority Advisors (AFA): AFA is the professional association for campus fraternity and sorority advisors. It is not a commercial competitor but is the ecosystem in which RISE presents, networks, and recruits clients, and several RISE staff previously worked at AFA.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/GreeksRISE
• Facebookfacebook.com/GreeksRISE

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Rise Partnerships