Retainer-Based Income Model
At the heart of our sustainable business model is the Advantage Program; a flat monthly fee-for-service plan. Spreading out the cost of our services into equal predictable monthly amounts has some key benefits for our clients and for us.
Our clients can spread out some of the costs associated with the creation of a website, and the costs associated with training and technical support are predictable and easy to budget for. Also, since support is prepaid each month, staff and volunteers feel more comfortable taking advantage of our technical and consulting services, so the websites are better maintained and our organizations get better long-term results from them.
For NetRaising, we benefit from a solid base of steady, predictable monthly income. That means we don’t have the cash-flow issues associated with most small businesses. With a base of reliable income, we make less use of credit, pay less interest and this in turn lowers our cost of operation. We can then pass those savings on to our clients without lowering our profit margin.
Transparent Project Bidding
NetRaising seeks to serve as many nonprofits and schools as possible while maintaining a high level of service for each.
When it comes to pricing our services, our focus is on how little we can charge and still remain a sustainable business. Since we need our net income to remain high enough to sustain the business, we cut out as much of the traditional business overhead as possible. One area where we’ve cut expenses is in how we market our services and bid on projects.
NetRaising has no advertising or sales budget, we don’t respond to individual RFPs (Requests for Proposals) and we post examples of our fee-for-service rates online. Rather than respond to individual RFPs, we include a lot of information about our business and our services online, and in a format that is consistent with many RFPs. Writing individual proposal bids for projects under about $15,000 US dollars is not a cost-effective business practice, yet many nonprofits are still required to obtain at least three bids on any project. We respect and understand why nonprofits need bids on all projects and that’s why we’ve included so much information in our website.
More specific information about our pricing is available in the nonprofit section of this website »