The NetRaising Experience
Bethany Walmsley
What’s your NetRaising experience?
Overnight, I swear we built so many followers and things because people noticed us. They started noticing what was happening and there was no more mystery. We were no longer embarrassed to say to all of our partners and to our board members, and to our supporters, please share this [website].
I have some very strong opinions about this because I’m a real stickler for… If you want to be taken seriously as a professional, worthy – “I want to give my money to this nonprofit and support your cause” – I personally think you have a responsibility to have a professional face, have… Look like you know what you’re doing for goodness sake and make it easy for people to do that. So, impact for me, number one was if I’m the layperson looking at your website for the first time, and you’re a nonprofit that is sort of building on the backs of fundraising and donors, would I want to give to this organization? And the impact is… you need to be able to make that impact that says, “Wow, look at this.” They seem like they have their act together. Oh, I found the information I needed.
One of the things that I remember about working with Kurt was… and NetRaising, was that they have, frankly, the group of them have an amazing talent, which is that Kurt individually, but also his team are able to communicate with you and not sound like an IT person. Not sound like that person that speaks a different language than you do. I always had the feeling working with them that they got it in terms of what it was like for you on the other side. And he has an amazing ability to sort of translate what’s happening IT, [into] what they need so that you can understand it and get it implemented on your end. He has a really incredible talent, he can just kind of meet you where you are and talk about it in your language versus you feeling like, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
He was very good at reminding you that you need to structure this in a way so that you have the end goal in mind. You’re kind of reverse-engineering it if you will. What I remember about working with him was he would sort of pull out of you, well, what do you want this to look like when you’re… When a veteran comes to look for services at RVP, what are the things that are most important for them to see? He would start with that end goal in mind. And I think that that allowed us to be able to… Or me as the leader, be able to kind of distribute the work plan in a way that would work best for the people on the team. That was why I think it felt more achievable because you could see that even though you had this long trail to get there, you at least knew where you were going to land.
Number one, it is a different world, a different language, and he understands it. And number two, it’s affordable. He sets it up for you in a way that you can budget for it. You know that it gets maintained, you know that it’s going to be updated on a regular basis.
Most of all, you know that when you pick up the phone and say, or write an email and say, “We’re struggling with this, can you help us?” They will be there. That’s the other thing about Kurt and his team that I have to say is that you are never, ever left hanging out in the wind feeling like no one’s there. They’re there and they answer your questions. To me, that’s the amazing thing about NetRaising is that I never worry that he wouldn’t be there. I never worry that there wasn’t going to be somebody there. He was always, always there. And you can depend on that. And I think that he probably has as many clients as he does because of that as well.
All I ever heard from anybody on the team was, he’s always there. He answers the question, if not, gives me three different options. And I, yeah, I, they were just loaded with information. There was no mystery to the process. So it just, he was a great partner.
The other thing that I appreciated about Kurt was that he also was so well-versed in the… That’s taking it too far realm. He was able to put guardrails up for you and protect [the website] from me, from myself. When you’re in the nonprofit space, all you can really think about is, where… How do I get more donations? How do I communicate more effectively about our mission? How do I get more volunteers? How do I whatever… And sometimes you get kind of crazy on the… Crazy idea train about, “I think we should try this, or we should try that.” Kurt could protect you from yourself when you wanted to take that just a little bit too far. He wasn’t shy about saying, the reason you don’t want to do that is because this could happen, and that’s way more of a problem. You’re going to make more problems than solve more problems by going down that road.
He would always try to come up with a recommendation for, well, we can’t do it exactly like that, but we can do it this way. Would that be okay? Will it accomplish the same thing?
NetRaising will always stand out for me because they will always be on the other end of the phone. They will not leave you hanging. Kurt was incredible at getting back to you. We never went for long without figuring out what the issue was. He was willing to work tirelessly to be there for his clients. And, he had no idea how many of those he was going to get a day. So, I think the customer service with NetRaising really can’t be undersold. I mean, he, he’s at the top of the pile in terms of customer service in that way. The other thing I would say is, he speaks your language, not some weird [IT] language that you don’t understand.
I’ve worked with other vendors in the past. They were almost, they were almost disparaging. Like, “Why don’t you understand what I mean?” Kurt never, never, never made you feel like that. He always made you feel like the important person, and they were there to assist you. But if you can’t understand what the heck they’re talking about, you’re nothing but frustrated. We were never, ever frustrated that way. That’s why I didn’t hesitate when RVP needed a website. I’m like, I know who to go to. I know who I’m going to work with because they speak your language and they are always there for you.
He makes it affordable without you feeling like, Well, I had to give up this and then I had to give up that. And you don’t feel like you had to sell parts just to get what you wanted. This structure that he offers in terms of design work upfront, and then you basically work it out so that he’s dealing with you in terms of supporting the software on an ongoing basis. The fact that you as a nonprofit executive director can budget for that, know what to expect, all of that, and not have to get hit with, okay, at the end of this it’s going to be $15,000. He makes it affordable. It makes you feel like you have something that is going to be built to last, but you were able to afford to get there.
I think Kurt really has his heart… How do I say this? I think he does it because he wants these nonprofits to succeed. I don’t think he’s doing it because, well, I know he has talent, he’s an IT person, he has a team, all those things. But honestly, I think the reason it works is because the small to medium nonprofits are looking for someone who… they’re not big ships. They’re smaller ships that have to be able to be nimble and navigable and Kurt can just kind of get on that ship with you and sort of ride away and kind of help you along the way. I think Kurt is in this for the same reason that the nonprofit are, I think he just really wants to give back to this space and this is how he does it.
Kurt has really come up with something that I think is viable in the nonprofit space. NetRaising makes building a new website affordable without it being the cheap way out. And I think that’s so great that he just focuses on nonprofits.
Bethany Walmsley
Former Executive Director
Oregon Patient Safety Commission
+ Returning Veterans Project