Accelerators

Higher Education Online Giving & Commerce Accelerator

Implement Salesforce for the full student and alumni lifecycle, branded to your institution.

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From kickoff to go-live in 3 Weeks

Week 1-2

Solution Rollout

Deployment of Forte Accelerator with applied changes to branding to match the institutional brand and style guide.

Configuration of endpoints, catalog load, and tuning of catalog and pricing for the frontend presentation.

Week 3 onwards

Onboarding & Go-Live‍

Staged launch, solution demonstration, team training, documentation.

Post-Deployment Support

The managed services team will support the deployment of additional features and functionality, as well as ongoing maintenance.

The problem we solve

Every year, universities leave donations on the table; not because donors won't give, but because fragmented portals, legacy platforms, and disconnected commerce experiences make it too hard.

The Higher Education Online Giving & Commerce Accelerator is a Salesforce-powered storefront - branded to your institution, compliant from day one, and live in three weeks.

What's included

Alumni Giving & Donor Management

One-time & recurring donations, fund selection, gift management & donation receipts, class gift & Alumni Association giving at checkout

Commerce Storefront

Branded product catalog, cart & checkout with single-page checkout, tax & shipping calculation, regalia, merchandise & promo code support, guest & authenticated checkout

Self-Service Account Hub

Profile, address & digital wallet management, donation & order history; subscription management, digital certificate management

Order & Operations Management

In-store pickup order management, post-purchase servicing (cancellations, returns & refunds), partner portal with role-based reporting, automated transactional emails

Platform, Compliance & Integrations

Payment gateway with credit card tokenization, Avalara tax, Google Places address validation, UPS/FedEx shipping rates

Why ForteNext?

Salesforce implementations

long-term B2B partnerships

Salesforce implementation partner for complex B2B industries

“For the first time, our giving and merchandise experience feels like it belongs to the same institution. Donors notice, and so does our fundraising data.”

Alumni Foundation

Delta State University

Live in weeks, not months
‍PSkip the 6-12 month custom build. The accelerator is production-ready out of the box, designed from the ground up for the governance, compliance, and branding demands of higher education.
Looks like you, not a template Your colors, fonts, and identity; not a generic SaaS skin. Donors and alumni land on an experience that feels like a natural extension of your institution, not a third-party tool.

Compliance that won't slow you down
PCI, GDPR, and CCPA requirements are built into the platform from day one, not bolted on after launch. Your IT and legal teams will thank you.
Start simple, grow without limits
Launch with giving and commerce on day one, then expand on your timeline; AI-powered use cases, event ticketing, and more. No re-platforming required.

Features and Functionality

Accelerate digital engagement, fundraising, and commerce with a modern online giving and commerce storefront portal designed specifically for institutions with complex governance, security, and compliance requirements.

Built on a scalable enterprise platform, the solution delivers a unified experience for donations, recurring giving, merchandise sales, self-service account management, and order processing through a fully branded digital storefront.

Landing Page

- Portal landing page with marketing content.
- Promotional hero image carousel.
- Featured categories, products and donations options carousel.

Site Navigation

- Header navigation, menu with catalog hierarchy categorization display.
- Keyword search with typeahead suggestion functionality.
- My account navigation menu to access self-service functionality for authenticated users.
- Access to additional content landing pages and articles.
- Footer navigation to CMS pages.
- Cookie management with support GDPR and CCPA laws and policies.
- Breadcrumb navigation path.

Donor Experience

- Funds Listing page template (display all available funds options ) based on elected category, marketing and promotional content display, media display, view more, filters, refinements and sorting options.
- Fund details page templates, description, media display, donation amount selection or entry, donation subscription and frequency options.
- Related funds options display.
- Add to cart for donation.
- Product listing page templates, product information and media display, sorting options.
- Product details page templates, product description, documentation, resources, and media display.
- Product recommendations by Einstein and related products display.
- Add to cart, and add to wishlist.

- Keyword search with typeahead flyout menu, search suggestions
- Search results page template, funds and products information, media display, view more option
- Filters, refinements and sorting options.
- Product search configuration with Einstein search recommendations.
- No results template with alternative suggestions display

Content Pages / Forms

- Contact Us form with case creation flow.
- Maintenance and 404 templates.
- CMS templates for content pages and knowledge base articles.

Shopping Cart

- Mini-cart with number of items display, flyout menu, cart summary and product information display with cart navigation to checkout and continue shopping options.
- Guest user shopping cart.
- Persistent shopping cart.
Promo code/Promotions and discount options.
- Inventory validation, proceed to checkout.
- Cart management with ability to add donations for multiple funds.

How much does a Salesforce implementation cost on average?

- Single page checkout with order/gift summary.
- Address management with existing address selection,, add new or edit existing address.
- Tax calculation
- Shipping calculation and shipping options display.
- Billing address and payment management/payment options supported by 3rd party payment gateway.
- Save credit card option.
- Order review with option to edit provide information.
- Marketing opt-ins
- Order/donation confirmation page.