NetCommunity is a nice product, but Online Express works better for our organization.
December 16, 2014

NetCommunity is a nice product, but Online Express works better for our organization.

Karen Stuhlfeier, bCRE Associate | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Grow

Overall Satisfaction with Blackbaud NetCommunity

Our school used NetCommunity for our Advancement and Alumni pages for about 4 years. We have recently switched to using Blackbaud's Online Express because it is really all we need and it is much more cost efficient for our organization. I also used NetCommunity at the previous school I worked at. I found that as long as someone was willing to put in the time to learn how the product worked it worked great The problems came from users who didn't bother to go through the training and then didn't find it to be "intuitive".

NetCommunity works great for online giving and event registrations. The transactions for both are easily integrated into batches in Rasier's Edge. The registration form is a little cumbersome if there is more than one registration unit involved with the event. Donors thought that the form was too lengthy to fill out. The alumni directory was hard for people to understand and really was more trouble than it was worth. We had to give that piece up when we went to Online Express. Sending emails from NetCommunity works well, although our organization has found that we like Online Express much better for this.There is more flexibility with the design of the email and with Online Express you manage the entire process from Raiser's Edge.

NetCommunity is a good product if need a more total website solution. If your organization just needs to be able to manage emails,online donations and event registrations go with Online Express.
  • Online donations are easily handled in NetCommunity
  • Event registrations work well easily to pull into a batch in Rasier's Edge
  • The basic templates can't be changed and you need to pay Blackbaud to redesign them.
  • The Alumni Directory isn't very useful.
  • The event registration form is cumbersome for donors to use.
  • IT was negative when parts of it were frustrating for both the users and our donors.
We did not renew our NetCommunity contract and currently use Online Express.
It's less appropriate if you only need it for online donations, event registrations and emails. Consider Online Express for this which is much more cost effective. During the selection process think about what you really need it for. Also think about the people who will be using it. If you don't want to invest in the training dollars and the users don't want to take the time to take the training you might be frustrated.