Replacing an LMS That Fought Them: Outright Vermont's Switch
The Backstory
Outright Vermont works toward a Vermont where all LGBTQ+ youth have hope, equity, and power. Alongside its direct youth programs, it trains the adults around those young people. Its online courses, in the organization's own words, are designed as a resource for school staff and other youth-serving professionals — individual educators, school building teams, district teams, state agencies. That training was running on an existing learning management system called CoreAchieve, and by December 2023 the education manager was shopping. Not because the content was wrong. Because the tool was in the way. Her first email to us named it in one line: she was looking at Ruzuku because it seemed like a much more user-friendly learning management system than the one she had.
What Was Getting in the Way
- The existing LMS made routine work hard enough that building and running a course ate time meant for the training itself
- Different learner groups needed different access windows — one cohort joining in September with two courses until December, another joining in October with one course for a month
- The team wanted to compare learners' private responses side by side to see which concepts people struggle with, and needed that data out of the platform
- Training goes to staff at partner organizations and state agencies, so enrollment runs on invitations to people the organization doesn't employ
- One staff member had built everything, and colleagues needed to edit courses, not just manage who could see them
What They Were Hoping For
- Move to a platform the education team could actually operate without fighting it
- Launch a public-facing professional training offer under Outright Vermont's own brand
- Run invited cohorts alongside self-serve enrollment from a sales page
- Keep courses free or near-free so cost never decides who gets trained
- Give colleagues real collaboration access on course content
How Ruzuku Fit In
What Clicked
Outright Vermont took fifteen months between first contact and launch, and the reason is instructive. In September 2024 the education manager wrote back to ask whether the response-comparison feature she needed had shipped yet. It hadn't. She moved anyway, and told us why in the months that followed: support that answered clearly and quickly, and a platform she didn't have to become an expert in first. The organization runs on Pro, which pays for multiple admin accounts and a custom domain. Her early questions were the right ones — did she have to set up a custom domain just to create additional administrators, and could a sales page be kept semi-private so a course could be advertised while enrollment stayed vetted.
What They Built
Three courses are live and public today: Building Solidarity with LGBTQ+ Youth, Queer Affirming Medical Homes, and Teaching Inclusive Sex Education. They're self-paced, run one to two hours, and cost either nothing or ten dollars — Outright Vermont's stated reason being that anyone should be able to access the tools and education to support youth. Enrollment runs two ways at once. Cohorts of staff at partner organizations and state agencies get bulk email invitations; the education manager or a colleague pastes in a list and sends. Individuals enroll themselves from the sales page, where access runs for a published 30-day window that the team extends by hand for anyone who needs longer. The public launch happened in March 2025, on Outright Vermont's own domain — changed once after launch, because the communications department judged the first custom domain too long. That detail is worth mentioning only because people assume a live custom domain can't be swapped. Along the way the team hit the permission wall that catches a lot of organizations: making a colleague an administrator let her manage who had access, but not edit the course content. Getting the roles right took a support thread.
The Tools That Helped Most
What Changed
Outright Vermont launched publicly in March 2025 and now runs three courses on its own domain, reaching school staff, medical practices, and health educators across the state, with invited cohorts and self-serve enrollment side by side. Their own public page describes the result: courses that are now more accessible and user friendly, self-paced, and completable from anywhere. What they told us privately was blunter — working with Ruzuku is such a breeze compared with what came before. Now the other half. The feature that started this conversation in December 2023 — comparing learner responses side by side and exporting them to a spreadsheet, so the team can see which concepts people struggle with — still isn't there. They asked in 2023, asked again in September 2024, switched anyway, and are still doing that analysis by hand. We don't get to count that as a win. If response-level analysis across a cohort is central to how you teach, weigh it before you move, and hear it from us rather than discovering it in month three.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | CoreAchieve | Ruzuku Pro, run by the education team |
| Enrollment Model | Managed learner groups only | Invited cohorts plus self-serve sales pages |
| Public Catalog | Vendor-hosted learning portal | 3 courses on Outright Vermont's own domain |
| Response Analysis | Side-by-side comparison in the old LMS | Still done by hand — the gap that didn't close |
Timeline: First inquiry December 2023, while still on CoreAchieve. Second inquiry September 2024, checking on a feature. Courses built through winter, public launch March 2025, catalog still live and promoted in 2026.
"I really appreciate how quick, clear, and helpful Ruzuku support staff have been. We have worked with previous online learning management platforms with very challenging experiences, and working with Ruzuku is such a breeze."
Lessons Worth Sharing
The reason organizations leave a learning platform is rarely a missing feature. It's the accumulated friction of routine work — which a free trial will show you and a feature comparison won't
Ask your unanswered question twice, a year apart, before you switch. Outright Vermont did, got the same answer, and moved with clear eyes. That's a better decision than trusting a roadmap
Be precise about credentials. Outright Vermont tells learners plainly that it isn't licensed to offer continuing education credits and that they'll receive a certificate of completion. That's exactly what a course platform can back up
Administrator does not mean editor. Check what each role can actually do with course content before you promise a colleague access
A custom domain can be changed after launch. Pick one your communications team will live with, but don't let the decision hold up a launch
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