Online Express?

NetCommunity and Online Express might seem like similar products, but they are in fact different in many ways for some important reasons.



One size fits all usually doesn't work. That's true in cars, clothing, shoes, and yes, even technology.



NetCommunity was developed to be an advanced online tool that allowed nonprofits a lot of flexibility and customization options. With BBNC you can build an entire website or lots of them. BBNC also has user self-service tools like login, directory, giving history, profile updates, and more than can help build a community of your constituents. There's a wider set of capabilities for customers that have more mature online fundraising and communication programs. BBNC also assumes admin users have more technical and web skills like knowledge of HTML, CSS, and more.



Online Express in contrast is all about simple. It's simple to setup and start using, with most customers live in a few minutes. It's a simple set of core functionality that help nonprofits just starting to build their online fundraising programs or taking the next step. It's smart enough to allow flexibility with clicks, not code. In fact, Online Express never allows users to touch the underlying HTML or CSS. Also, with Online Express there are no website building tools. The forms you created go on your existing website.



Over the past few years, we have dramatically improved the customer satisfaction of BBNC. But despite a lot of hard work and investment, we found that some customers started to hit a wall. Blackbaud's challenge was that some customers who purchased BBNC Spark in the past really needed simpler solutions. And it's nearly impossible to take something designed for advanced users to be made simple. There is only so much you can do. At the same time, advanced users want more flexibility --- which inherently introduces more complexity. You’ve seen us add that to BBNC in the last year as we advanced our online event solution and solved more advanced email challenges like subscription management. We also released a new framework for creating extendable parts in the BBNC CMS. We’ve been targeting those advanced needs that many BBNC customers needed to solve sophisticated problems.



Our approach was to start from scratch and design everything about Online Express to be simple, smart, and savvy from the beginning. Customers have a core set of functionality that's simple to use, has smarts built in, and it addresses the unique needs of nonprofit organizations. Keeping it simple also meant saying "no" to certain things: No logins or profiles. No blogs or message boards or directories. No website building tools. And if you really believe you need to touch the code, then this isn't the solution for you.



This approach explains why BBNC Pro and BBNC Grow customers are much happier than they were a few years ago, and also why several BBNC Spark customers have moved to Online Express. Not a one size fits all approach, but instead the right solution for the right customer problems.



Cheers,



Steve MacLaughlin & Justin Morrow



Blackbaud Internet Solutions Product Management team