Client Panel- Elevated partnership beyond community

I have been happily using and integrating Blackbaud education, FE, and RE products for quite a few years at 2 different schools now. I believe in the products.  And I follow the process of submitting ideas, and reviewing what the overall community has to say.  My question is: Has Blackbaud ever thought to have a client panel of sorts from their different regions/states that deal with the development team on those ideas and creating/implementing them?


I did this for my previous financial job where I ended up consulting and visiting their developers as they worked to build out and better our systems and feel like it was an integral part of making sure the new build/product truly suited the end users. 


I find there are times when just an idea won't do....no matter the votes it may not be on the map to get done and as a community we don't know why....and therefore we sit and have to deal with work arounds or no solution at all, which depending on the workload of some of our schools, can make or break the buy in to even get the product.  Some things are school specific.....some are state specific, and some are just best practice for any school across the board.


I guess ultimately my question is, from a development standpoint, who makes the call on which is most important? what gets done? I know most of the staff are previous educators and that is amazing, but how are you getting real time feedback and partnership from current schools on not just which idea is most important, but how to make the idea a working/easy reality? I know you create and then have people sign up for the "beta", but some items never even make it to that stage.