Solutions · Salesforce Experience Cloud
Experience Cloud for Nonprofits, Where Your Mission Meets the People You Serve
Give donors, volunteers, grantees, and the people you serve a secure place to log in, self-serve, and stay connected, built on Salesforce Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) and wired straight into your CRM. Designed by a certified veteran-owned partner who builds the hard parts other firms skip.
Not sure it's the right time to move? Read on →
Salesforce Consulting Partner
4.88 Star AppExchange Rating
Omnistudio Specialists
in brief
At BrightHelm Partners, we build Salesforce Experience Cloud portals for Nonprofits, Higher Education, and Public Sector Teams. Experience Cloud, formerly called Community Cloud, is the part of Salesforce that lets people outside your staff donors, volunteers, grantees, members, and constituents log into a secure website connected to your CRM, where they can see their own information and do things themselves instead of emailing or calling your team. We design and build these portals wired directly into your Salesforce data, so what someone sees is always current and personal to them.
As a certified veteran-owned Salesforce Consulting Partner, we handle the technically demanding parts, including the Omnistudio-powered forms and flows that many firms avoid.
What Is a Portal, Really?
Plain English
A portal is just a private, branded website where the people you work with log in to see their information, take action, and avoid going through your staff.
You already use portals every day. When you log into your bank and see your own balance, that's a portal. When you check a package's status without calling the shipper, that's a portal. The magic isn't the login; it's that the page shows you your real, current information, pulled live from the organization's system.
For a nonprofit, that means a donor can log in and see their own giving history and download their own tax receipt. A volunteer can sign up for their own shifts and log their own hours. A grantee can submit a report and check where their application stands. None of it requires a staff member to pull a record, answer an email, or re-key anything.
On Salesforce, portals are built with Experience Cloud, and because Experience Cloud sits right on top of your CRM, every portal shows each person their own live data no separate system to keep in sync, no exports, no stale copies.
A Plain English Translation
"Experience Cloud" is simply the Salesforce tool for building these login websites. You may also see it referred to as "Community Cloud" (its old name) or "Salesforce Communities." Same thing. And "CRM" is just the central system where all your donor, volunteer, and program information already lives.
Experience Cloud, Community Cloud, Salesforce Communities. It’s The Same Thing
The Name Change
It’s the same product, just a new name.
Salesforce renamed Community Cloud to Experience Cloud a few years ago (you'll also see the older term "Salesforce Communities"). If you've been told your organization needs "Communities" or a "community portal," that's Experience Cloud today. Nothing to untangle — whichever name you arrived with, it's the same platform, and it's what this page is about.
What We Can Build You With Experience Cloud
The Possibilities
Most nonprofits start with one portal that solves a specific headache, then grow from there. Here are the ones we build most often; each one takes work off your staff's plate and gives your people a better experience:
A Donor Portal
Supporters log in to manage their own giving: see their history, update a recurring gift, change payment details, and download tax receipts themselves. Fewer "can you resend my receipt?" emails, more time for your team.
A Grantee/Applicant Portal
Applicants submit proposals, upload documents, check their status, and file post-award reports in one place. Your program staff stop chasing paperwork and start seeing everything in one view.
A Volunteer Portal
Volunteers browse and sign up for their own shifts, log their own hours, and track their contribution instead of your coordinator managing it all by hand in spreadsheets and email.
A Member Or Community Portal
Members access resources, renew, register for events, and connect at a home base that deepens engagement without adding staff work.
A Constituent/Client Portal
For organizations delivering services or benefits, a secure place for the people you serve to apply, check status, and find answers. For government-facing versions, see our Public Sector Solutions work.
A portal is rarely a one-and-done build. After it launches, it'll continue to grow with your organization. Most clients start with Discovery, move into a Project to build and launch, then keep improving it through Expert on Demand.
How Our Experience Cloud Engagements Work
The Structure
01. Discovery
We map who'll use the portal, what they need to do, and how it connects to your data, producing a clear plan and budget before the build.
02. Projects & Implementations
We design, build, and launch your Experience Cloud portal, scoped against results you can measure.
03. Expert On Demand
Portals evolve. Ongoing certified support to add features, adjust, and improve after launch without re-scoping each time.
Why BrightHelm for Experience Cloud
The Platform
Public Sector Solutions isn't one tool; it's a set of capabilities you turn on as you need them.
(If your Salesforce rep called it Agentforce Public Sector, that's the same platform.)
Most agencies start with one or two and grow from there.
Here's what each one solves, in plain terms:
We Know How To Build The Hard Parts Others Skip
We build Omnistudio forms and flows, under real security models, with performance that holds up. It’s the difference between a portal that demos well and one that works on day one.
We Use The Portals Ourselves
Our clients log into an Experience Cloud portal(s) we built and run every day. We know what works best because we use them ourselves.
Results: Defined Deliverables
Your portal is scoped against outcomes you can measure; no open-ended billable hours. This way, you know what you’re getting and the costs before we even start.
We’re Nonprofit Specialists
We understand donors, volunteers, grantees, and constituents, so the portals we deliver fit how your people actually behave.
We Make You Self-Sufficient
We prepare you and your team with full documentation and training, so your team can manage and grow the portal, so you’re not dependent on us.
Our Clear AI Policy
We’ve developed a clear AI policy that reflects our promise to protect you. No PPI and opt out at any time.
Read our full AI Policy here.
Our Promise: Trust & Security
Built Securely, Without The Friction
Security matters most exactly where outside people log in. We build portals with proper sharing and access controls from the start, so each person reaches only their own information. And a practical note from the 2026 Salesforce security changes: Experience Cloud portals were exempted from the new multi-factor step-up enforcement, meaning your donors and volunteers get a secure experience without the extra login friction that hit other parts of Salesforce.
Read our breakdown of the 2026 security changes →
PROOF OF EXPERTISE
We Track This Platform, So You Don’t Have To
Salesforce updates its platform three times a year, and public sector features move fast. We publish a plain-English breakdown of what each release actually means for agencies, including what shipped for Public Sector Services in Summer '26.
It's a small thing, but it's the difference between a partner who learns your platform on your budget and one who already knows it.
Experience Cloud For Nonprofits: Frequently Asked Questions
Common Questions
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Experience Cloud is the part of Salesforce for building external-facing websites and portals that are secure, branded places where people outside your staff (donors, volunteers, grantees, members, constituents) log in and interact with information that’s theirs. Because it’s built on top of your Salesforce CRM, each person sees their own live data. It was previously called Community Cloud.
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Yes. Salesforce renamed Community Cloud (also called Salesforce Communities) to Experience Cloud. It’s the same product line. If someone tells you your organization needs “Communities” or a “community portal,” they’re describing what’s now called Experience Cloud.
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Experience Cloud portal access is generally licensed separately and the right setup depends on how many external users you expect and what they’ll do. Don’t worry though, we’ll help you figure out the most cost-effective licensing during Discovery, so you’re not paying for more than you need.
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The most common ones for nonprofits include donor portals (manage giving, download receipts), volunteer portals (sign up for shifts, log hours), grantee portals (submit applications and reports), and member or constituent portals. Most organizations start with one that solves a specific pain point and expand from there.
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It all depends on what the portal needs to do. A straightforward donor portal is a smaller build than a multi-step grantee application system. We scope every project against specific deliverables, so you see a clear budget before committing. A Discovery engagement, which produces that plan, starts at $15K. There are also Salesforce licensing costs for portal users, which we help you size during Discovery.
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A focused single-purpose portal can take a few weeks to a couple of months. A complex portal with guided applications, multiple user types, and deep integrations takes longer. We give you a specific timeline in Discovery, before you commit to the build.
Ready to Modernize How You Serve?
A thirty-minute scoping conversation costs nothing. Just tell us who you'd want to give a portal to donors, volunteers, grantees, the people you serve and what you'd want them to be able to do.
We'll give you a straight read on what it would take to build it right.
A Salesforce Partner
Built for Experience Cloud
The Differentiator
BrightHelm Partners is a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB), and Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) through the U.S. Small Business Administration, and we're registered on SAM.gov. For agencies with set-aside goals or procurement preferences, those certifications can be the difference between a partner you can easily work with and one you can't.
✓ SDVOSB · VOSB · WOSB through the SBA
✓ Registered on SAM.gov
✓ 4.88 ★ AppExchange Rating
