The NetRaising Experience

John Svicarovich

What’s your NetRaising experience?

I was looking for a really excellent, dependable web design service that we’d be with for the long haul. I don’t recall who recommended NetRaising to me, but somebody said there’s a web developer that works mostly with nonprofits and might be a good fit. And I instantly just… It was like I struck gold because the revenue model was something I really liked. ‘Cause most web developers will do a site for you. They’ll say, “Yeah, we’ll do that: $15,000, $20,000 dollars.” And they do a site, and then they kind of disappear or they have an expensive service contract.

I love the revenue model at NetRaising where you pay a portion of the costs in front for the design work, and then you pay a monthly piece [for] the web development work. And with that, you get problem-solving and maintenance and hosting. So it was… That was a great model. I liked the professionalism. It was a no-brainer to start a relationship.

And that’s the other thing about it, it’s really a relationship. Once you start working with NetRaising, you’ve got a relationship with your web developer. You don’t get somebody who did a one-off for you and then moves on. I really like that.

I felt comfortable right away. Kurt’s crystal clear about how they work, how NetRaising works and what they do, and then what your role is. And it was just… It was really exciting actually. I really enjoyed the process and I’ve enjoyed it ever since.

He thinks about things that we don’t know enough to think about ourselves. Security, changes in technology, changes in web protocols, he stays current on and he makes sure we’re part of that. So he’s looking out for us all the time.

It’s as professional an organization as you could ever ask for.

John Svicarovich
Communications Director
Oregon Business Council

Laura Daily

What’s your NetRaising experience?

I was very excited to learn a new skill. It was also very scary with the audience we have viewing our website to be in charge of something that I’ve never been in charge of before. So all those emotions in there… [and] ..Kurt made that a lot easier, he made that quite a bit less stressful than it could have been. It was so easy to work with him, from the very beginning he was very friendly, he was very helpful in explaining everything, and if I had any problems it was just really easy to get a hold of him and be able to get the support that I needed.

He helped us do some SEO so that we were able to be found by more folks. And actually, with our old website when you Googled Oregon Local Public Health, we didn’t even show up on the first page of Google results. Now when you Google it we’re like the second hit. So that was a good thing for us for just getting out there and having a wider reach. This was something that Kurt brought to us, that was not on my radar and I don’t know if it was on the radar of the other folks at the organization at that time.

I appreciate the flexibility of working with NetRaising. There was a portion of the website that we got rid of at one point, it was a calendar that I have since brought back, and throughout all of that Kurt has gone on that ride with us and was very happy to get rid of it when it wasn’t serving us and was very happy and easy to work with when we wanted to bring it back.

If we didn’t have the ability to have a solid website where we can actually update everything that we need to have access to our support folks, then I don’t know that it would be worth our time. So I think the fact of they’re dedicated to working with small organizations like us is very helpful and makes it possible for us to do this.

I feel like with NetRaising from the very beginning we have known that they are… They’re there for their folks, they’re there to support them and they’re there for the social good as well because I know they’re a certified B Corporation, and I just really appreciate just that transparency that they have and accessibility.

Laura Daily
Program Manager
Oregon Coalition of Local Health Officials

Noreen Murdock

What’s your NetRaising experience?

NetRaising always responds really timely, they’re always like super happy to help, really positive about finding solutions for things and, yeah, we can figure this out and work through stuff together to make it work. There’s always this very kind of positive outlook. They’re responsive right away and they’re optimistic that they can figure something out. And I do appreciate that general energy and attitude.

With the platform that NetRaising uses, it’s very hands-on, and we can do a lot of updating of content ourselves, then for any structural things that we do need their help for, they seem super responsive and very positive about… Positive in their responses.

Since they work with nonprofits, they have an innate understanding of what nonprofits need. And I know they’ve worked with several music organizations in particular. It just seems that is helpful in their understanding of what it is that we need from the website and how they can address those needs through the tools that they have.

Noreen Murdock
Executive Director
Portland Youth Philharmonic