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The outlook for academic institutions includes a now familiar landscape: enrollment, political, and cost pressures are expected to challenge most institutions. In higher ed, revenue projections are lower. State budgets for K–12 are trending flat to down. The pressure for procurement teams to reduce costs can feel unrelenting.
E&I Cooperative Services plays a unique and powerful role in helping institutions overcome these pressures. E&I is the nation’s only member-owned nonprofit sourcing cooperative that focuses exclusively on education, ensuring that every procurement contract, service, and support program is designed specifically for academic organizations.
So, let’s look at the benefits of becoming a member at E&I and how cooperative purchasing saves you time and money.
Membership accessibility remains one of E&I’s most important advantages. Institutions can join at no cost, and there are no minimum purchase requirements. This creates a low-risk entry point for institutions that want to begin benefiting from cooperative purchasing without committing to long-term volume or financial obligations.
No-cost membership is especially valuable for smaller colleges, community colleges, or institutions with limited procurement teams. By comparison, some for-profit buying group models require membership fees or participation thresholds, which can limit adoption or make it more difficult to achieve significant cost savings.
E&I’s nonprofit mission eliminates these concerns.
This model also allows you to experiment with procurement solutions and categories, test supplier options, and expand cooperative purchasing as needed. Over time, you can scale contract adoption and leverage greater cost savings as more spend is aligned with cooperative purchasing.
E&I members gain access to hundreds of procurement contracts that have already been competitively solicited on behalf of the cooperative’s more than 6,000 member institutions. These contracts undergo extensive sourcing, evaluation, supplier vetting, and compliance review before being awarded. This eliminates the need for institutions to run their own RFPs across commonly purchased categories.
Competitive solicitation forms the foundation for procurement services, reducing the labor-intensive process of drafting specifications, convening committees, reviewing vendor contracts, and negotiating pricing. Instead, you can adopt contracts immediately. This level of efficiency becomes increasingly important as universities and school districts deal with both staffing shortages and expanding responsibilities.
In many cases, you can reduce procurement cycle time be as much as 50% with cooperative purchasing through a buying group.
E&I’s breadth of contracts ensures coverage across virtually all institutional needs.
AVAILABLE PROCUREMENT CONTRACTS AT E&I COOPERATIVE SERVICES | ||
Athletics | Facilities and MRO | Financial Services |
Food and Food Services | Information Technology (IT) | Logistics and Travel |
Office and Classrooms | Professional, Consulting, Administrative Services | Research and Scientific |
You can choose which cooperative procurement contracts fit your needs and deliver the most cost savings. In many cases, you can find significant cost savings just from consolidating purchasing with a group purchasing organization (GPO) like E&I. Overall, it’s not uncommon to lower costs by 10% to 15% using vendor contracts negotiated by E&I on behalf of its members.
E&I’s Economic Benefit ModelTM ensures that member value extends far beyond basic price reductions. Economic benefit is delivered through three primary components:
Members often see 4 to 10% economic benefit per contract by combining these elements.
This holistic value reflects both short-term and long-term financial impacts. You lower the purchase price, avoid administrative expenses associated with competitive solicitations, and often benefit from enhanced contract terms such as extended warranties, guaranteed response times, premium supplier service levels, or volume rebates.
Economic benefit also increases as more institutional spend is aligned to E&I agreements.
Members can also take advantage of a no-cost Strategic Spend Assessment (SSA). Data analysts at E&I apply a strategic, consultive approach to helping you find efficiencies. By analyzing spend data, we can uncover opportunities to reduce costs, maximize spend control, and bring more spend under contract.
Using your high-level spend data, a dedicated sourcing consultant and strategic sourcing analyst will also compare your spend to E&I’s cooperative purchasing agreements to find areas where you can see cost savings. You will receive a formal written report with findings, including recommendations that may include areas for supplier consolidation and contract portfolio alignment.
All data is treated as confidential, and no one outside of E&I will have access. Even within E&I, data access is restricted to those doing the analysis. If required, a formal non-disclosure agreement (NDA) can be executed.
This is a free service for members, and there is no obligation to take action. However, many members find new ways to lower costs as part of our procurement services.
Aggregated purchasing power is one of the defining advantages of joining a GPO. Because E&I negotiates on behalf of its entire membership base, vendor contracts reflect the combined purchasing volume of thousands of institutions rather than the spend of any single entity.
This aggregated volume delivers improved pricing, better incentives, favorable freight terms, and more substantial service commitments. Many suppliers offer significantly greater discounts through cooperative purchasing because they see consolidated business as more stable and predictable.
Buying-group contracts allow you to bring more spend under contract, reducing decentralized control and achieving cost savings. On average, every additional dollar brought under contract generates 6 to 12% savings in the initial contract term.
Aggregated purchasing power also creates equity among institutions. Smaller or mid-sized institutions benefit from the same pricing advantages as large university systems, helping reduce disparities in negotiation ability or purchasing leverage.
RFPS are among the most resource-intensive activities for procurement teams. Drafting specifications, evaluating proposals, conducting supplier negotiations, and fulfilling compliance expectations can consume months of staff time. E&I allows members to offload part of the RFP process so that you can redirect internal resources to strategic projects or oversight activities.
By leveraging procurement services provided through E&I, you can significantly reduce your administrative burden. Offloading the RFP process also supports risk reduction. E&I’s supplier evaluations include financial stability assessments, performance reviews, compliance checks, and detailed scoping to ensure that awarded vendor contracts are reliable and well structured.
In education, compliance requirements can be complex, navigating state procurement statutes, grant requirements, and internal governance standards. You have to demonstrate that sourcing decisions are fair, competitive, and compliant.
Because E&I Cooperative Services exclusively serves the education sector, procurement experts understand members’ unique compliance needs when negotiating vendor contracts. All contracts meet the highest standards for public procurement, aligning with the best practices of NIGP, The Institute for Public Procurement, and the updated U.S. Department of Education’s General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR).
E&I supports eProcurement by offering several procurement services designed specifically for educational institutions, including:
As a member-owned buying group, E&I returns financial value directly to its members in the form of rebates and patronage refunds. This is one of the most distinctive benefits of E&I membership, reflecting the cooperative’s commitment to reinvesting in educational institutions.
Instead of distributing profits to investors, E&I Cooperative Services allocates surplus revenue back to member institutions according to contract usage. This model adds significant value beyond initial cost savings and can help you stretch your budget further.
Rebates also provide an additional incentive for you to centralize procurement through E&I. The more contract volume you direct through the cooperative, the greater the return.
Managing supplier relationships requires time, oversight, and performance tracking. E&I helps in several ways, including managing supplier oversight and performance reviews on behalf of members. If issues arise, E&I can coordinate directly with suppliers to resolve problems quickly and protect member interests, minimizing disruptions and ensuring continuity of service. This is especially valuable for institutions with limited procurement staff or extensive supplier portfolios.
E&I’s involvement also increases supplier accountability. Vendors understand that underperformance affects their standing within a community of more than 6,000 member institutions, creating additional motivation to exceed expectations with their procurement solutions.
E&I’s procurement and category experts bring deep knowledge of education-focused sourcing, supplier markets, and category management best practices. This expertise is helpful, especially for specialized purchasing in areas such as scientific equipment, technology, athletics, or facilities.
Built-in procurement expertise also provides strategic value. Member representatives help institutions map spend to cooperative contracts, identify savings opportunities, understand contract options, and strengthen compliance practices. This level of consultative support is rarely available through commercial buying groups or individual suppliers.
The procurement experts at E&I, many whom came from procurement leadership positions in higher education, act as an extension of your staff, providing category specialists who can answer questions, guide sourcing strategies, and recommend procurement solutions tailored to your needs.
E&I membership includes access to the EdPro Hub, a collaborative community designed for procurement professionals across the education sector. Through EdPro, members can access:
The community-centered support system strengthens your procurement capability and fosters shared learning. It also promotes knowledge transfer around topics such as contract management, supplier diversity, process improvement, technology adoption, and more.
Professional development is essential for building strong procurement organizations. E&I’s NextGen Leadership Program, in partnership with Cornell University, provides learning opportunities for procurement professionals at various stages of their careers. The program includes leadership training, development resources, and education focused on future procurement trends.
By investing in staff development, you can strengthen your long-term procurement capabilities and support succession planning. The NextGen program also reinforces E&I’s broader mission of advancing the procurement profession across higher education.
When you combine all of these benefits, you can see how E&I Cooperative Services delivers comprehensive procurement solutions that support cost savings, strategic sourcing, supplier performance management, stronger compliance, and operational efficiency. The GPO structure, dedicated procurement services, and competitively solicited vendor contracts position institutions for long-term sourcing success.
Joining E&I is simple and requires no membership fees or minimum purchase commitment. Institutions can complete the membership application online and begin accessing procurement contracts.
E&I representatives can assist with onboarding, contract mapping, and identifying which procurement services or vendor contracts best fit your institutional needs.
E&I Cooperative Services brings together the power of cooperative purchasing, cost savings, procurement expertise, digital enablement, supplier accountability, and strategic sourcing support in one unified membership program. If you’re looking to strengthen your procurement operations, expand access to best-in-class vendor contracts, and achieve sustainable cost reductions, E&I memberships provide significant value.
How does cooperative purchasing reduce procurement costs?
Cooperative purchasing lets institutions leverage aggregated purchasing power and pre-negotiated contracts to secure better pricing, incentives, and service terms than they could likely negotiate on their own.
What makes E&I different from other GPOs or buying groups?
E&I is the only member-owned nonprofit cooperative focused exclusively on education, which ensures that contracts, services, and support programs are designed for academic procurement needs.
How much can institutions typically save using cooperative contracts?
Most institutions see 10% to 15% savings on commonly purchased categories, with additional economic benefit through cost avoidance, incentives, and value-added contract terms.
Can smaller colleges or school districts benefit from cooperative purchasing the same way larger universities do?
Yes. Aggregated purchasing power ensures equitable pricing, meaning small institutions receive the same negotiated advantages as large systems.
E&I Cooperative Services provides dedicated member representatives who can guide you at every step, helping you find the cooperative procurement contracts and develop procurement strategies to save you time and money. Find your rep today and get started with membership. For existing members, your rep can also help you access your membership benefits.