Church Software & Private Equity:
Who Really Controls Your Platform
Five investment firms and two publicly traded companies now sit atop the software, giving platforms, and data infrastructure behind hundreds of thousands of reported church customer relationships. This is what that means for your ministry.
Ownership & Investment Map
Five investment firms — Reverence Capital, BGH Capital, Sixth Street, Accel-KKR, and Great Hill Partners — back four of the platform groups below; the fifth is owned by S&P 500 public company Roper Technologies. Each group reports thousands of church and organization customers and, in most cases, handles hundreds of millions of dollars in church technology and giving data.
- Fellowship One — Major ChMS platform
- Shelby Systems — Since 1976
- ParishSOFT — 12,000+ Catholic parishes
- Protect My Ministry — 35,000+ ministries
- easyTithe & SimpleGive — Giving platforms
- Church Motion Graphics — Visual content
- + 25 more brands — 30+ brands, now largely consolidated under the “Amplify” platform brand
- Pushpay — Taken private May 2023, ~US$1.04B enterprise value (initial Oct 2022 offer ~$933M was revised upward)
- Church Community Builder — Major ChMS
- MyChurch App — Mobile platform
- Resi Media — Streaming services
- LEAD App — Leadership tools
- Nurture.io — Acquired April 2026 (pastoral care & engagement intelligence)
- Tithely — Rebranded from Tithe.ly, Aug 2025
- Tithely Church Management — Breeze ChMS absorbed
- Elvanto — Joined 2018
- Tithely Tap — NFC contactless giving kiosks
- TithelyAI — AI church data assistant (2025)
- Subsplash — Acquired from K1, July 2025
- The Church App — Mobile platform
- Pulpit AI — Acquired by Subsplash, Dec 2024
- Custom Church Apps — Acquired brands
- ACS Technologies — Acquired Dec 1, 2025 (est. 1978)
- Realm — Modern ChMS platform
- MinistryPlatform — Enterprise ChMS
- HeadMaster — Christian school mgmt
- Vanco Payments — Digital giving
- RevTrak & SmartCare — School/daycare payments
The Transformation: Before vs. After Private Equity
The patterns below reflect tendencies widely reported across private-equity software acquisitions. They are presented as analysis — not every platform exhibits every pattern.
Before Private Equity
- Ministry-focused development priorities
- Competitive pricing and transparency
- Responsive customer service
- Church-driven feature requests
- Independent decision making
- Long-term ministry partnerships
- Data privacy and security focus
- Innovation driven by user needs
After Private Equity Takeover
- 20–30% annual return pressure
- Price increases and forced bundling
- Reduced support quality and responsiveness
- Profit-driven development priorities
- Wall Street oversight and control
- Preparation for eventual resale
- Data monetization opportunities
- Innovation focused on revenue extraction
Risks for Churches and Ministries to Evaluate
These are risks to evaluate, not findings about any specific vendor. Ownership alone does not establish that a provider sells member data or delivers worse service — examine your provider’s contract, privacy terms, export options, and documented product changes.
Financial Pressure
Private equity firms typically target 20–30% annual returns; common levers in software portfolios include price increases, platform consolidation, and reduced competition.
Vendor Lock-In
Consolidated platforms reduce integration options and make data migration expensive, trapping churches in increasingly costly ecosystems.
Data Monetization
Sensitive member, financial, and ministry data can become a profit center for owners whose obligation runs to investors — check your provider’s privacy terms and data-sharing policies.
Innovation Decline
Reduced competition leads to slower development cycles and features designed to maximize recurring revenue rather than serve ministry effectiveness.
Corporate Culture Shift
Ministry-focused teams are replaced with profit-focused management, changing the fundamental relationship between software providers and the churches they serve.
Market Manipulation
Owning multiple competing brands gives a single owner the structural ability to align pricing across a segment — a risk inherent to common ownership, not a documented practice of any firm named here.
Ministry Brands: The Mega-Consolidator
Since 2012, Ministry Brands has executed one of the most aggressive acquisition strategies in church technology, growing from 3 companies to 30+ brands serving 90,000+ organizations.
Ownership Timeline
Ministry Brands has changed hands three times in 13 years, each transition bringing new financial expectations and profit targets.
- 2012: Founded by entrepreneurs; initial brands included easyTithe, SimpleGive, SiteOrganic
- 2015–2016: Genstar Capital led a buyout with Providence Equity Partners as a minority investor; Providence exited in 2016
- 2016–2021: Insight Venture Partners made significant investment; Genstar retained minority position
- 2021–Present: Reverence Capital Partners holds majority stake (deal closed Dec 30, 2021); Greater Sum Ventures and Community Brands (an Insight Partners portfolio company) rolled over minority stakes. No ownership change as of September 2026.
Acquisitions by Category
| Category | Brands & Notes |
|---|---|
| Church Management (5 brands) | Fellowship One, Shelby Systems, ParishSOFT, and others controlling core church operations |
| Online Giving (9 brands) | easyTithe, SimpleGive, WeShare — one of the largest concentrations of church giving brands under a single owner |
| Church Websites (7 brands) | Multiple competing website platforms now under single ownership, eliminating real competition |
| Background Screening | Protect My Ministry serving 35,000+ ministries with child safety screening services |
| Visual Content | Church Motion Graphics providing worship media resources to thousands of congregations |
| Event Management | WeShare & WeGather platforms for parish and nonprofit event management |
Gloo: The Data Empire (NASDAQ: GLOO)
Gloo is not private equity — it is something distinct: a publicly traded data and platform company that has become the commercial infrastructure layer underneath much of American evangelical Christianity. Understanding Gloo is essential to the full picture of who controls church technology.
What Gloo Actually Does
Gloo's mission language is "connecting the faith ecosystem" and "human flourishing." Their core product has been behavioral data targeting — Wall Street Journal reporting in December 2021 found Gloo maintained profiles on approximately 245 million Americans and sold churches the ability to run targeted digital ad campaigns at people showing behavioral signals of life crises: divorce, addiction, grief, depression, and financial stress. Following that reporting, Gloo said it stopped using mental-health data and revamped its practices, and a major data provider cut ties; the company disputes the characterization. No current source confirms the profile count today.
Documented example (Wall Street Journal, Dec 2021): Gloo acquired a list of 30,000 divorced couples, identified their behavioral patterns, then extrapolated a targeting list of 33 million married Americans showing similar signals — which churches could buy ads against. Metro Voice News explicitly characterized Gloo as a "data mining company" when reporting on its acquisitions.
Selected Acquisitions & Investments
Gloo’s SEC filings disclose 15+ acquired or consolidated interests through 2025; the most significant are listed here with filing-verified dates where available.
Announced Aug 2023
Colorado Springs-based company serving 200,000+ churches and ministries annually with physical and digital products, church marketing resources, and engagement tools. This is one of Gloo's largest acquisitions by revenue impact — Outreach represented roughly one-third of Gloo's total revenue through mid-2025 (approximately $10M). The scale of Outreach's reach actually exceeds Gloo's own stated network of 140,000+ faith and nonprofit leaders.
Deal Failed
Gloo signed an Asset Purchase Agreement on September 29, 2023 and announced the deal publicly on October 4, 2023, with a scheduled closing of November 1, 2023. Gloo could not secure the required acquisition financing and the transaction fell through. Salem Media Group retained ownership. Confirmed in Salem's 2023 Annual Report.
Legal compliance and compensation benchmarking tools used by thousands of church administrators nationwide. Effective May 1, 2024; SEC filings disclose $5.5M contractual consideration ($6.2M acquisition-date fair value).
Announced Mar 2025
One of the most widely cited church research firms in America. The March 2025 announcement described a “strategic investment,” but Gloo’s SEC filings disclose that on February 18, 2025 it acquired 49% of Barna’s equity together with a majority voting interest — a controlling financial interest, with Barna consolidated into Gloo’s financial statements. Barna’s day-to-day operations continue under its existing team. Together they launched the "State of the Church 2025" monthly research initiative.
Announced Mar 6, 2025
Carey Nieuwhof is one of the most-listened-to voices in church leadership media — not congregations, but the pastors, executive pastors, and church administrators who make purchasing decisions. His portfolio includes the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast (top 0.1% of all podcasts globally), a weekly newsletter reaching 100,000+ church leaders, the Art of Leadership Academy (online courses on preaching, pastoral succession, and productivity), and a private community of 1,700+ pastors (figures per the March 2025 announcement).
The announcement called this a “strategic investment,” and Nieuwhof stayed on as CEO. Gloo’s SEC filings tell the fuller story: on February 18, 2025, Gloo acquired 100% of CNCL’s equity at a contractual price of $7.1 million ($5.8M acquisition-date fair value). Continuing management is not the same as independent ownership. The integration is the leverage: his courses distributed through Gloo Workspace, his audience as advertising inventory on the Gloo Media Network, and Gloo's AI applied to distribute his content more widely. Nieuwhof's newsletter and podcast audience — the exact decision-makers who choose church software — are now part of a wholly Gloo-owned outlet. Nieuwhof's own quote: "There is a very short list of organizations with whom I would want to work at this level."
One of the largest faith-based direct response fundraising and marketing agencies, managing hundreds of millions in donor campaigns for nonprofits and ministries.
Creative media company founded 2003. Includes Igniter Media and Lightstock brands (sermon videos, church graphics, stock media marketplace).
Gloo acquired Faith Assistant, an AI chatbot platform previously known as Bible Chat. It creates custom AI chatbots trained on a church's own content — sermons, resources, FAQs — The announced free tier was slated to run on Gloo's Kingdom-Aligned Large Language Model (KALLM). Co-founders Chase Cappo and Andrew Rogers were retained; Cappo became Director of Gloo's AI Enterprise Division. A free tier was announced for churches with paid options through Gloo+ membership. Part of Gloo's broader strategy to embed AI infrastructure directly inside church operations.
AI company building custom multilingual AI for faith, health, and humanitarian organizations. Purchase agreement August 30, 2025; Gloo obtained control November 19, 2025, per SEC filings.
Major-donor engagement platform for faith and mission-driven nonprofits. Strengthens Gloo's foothold in high-net-worth donor management.
Workday services partner bringing enterprise HR/finance software expertise to the Gloo platform. Announced April 14, 2026; closed May 4, 2026.
Gloo acquired the remaining 20% stake in software development firm Midwestern Interactive, bringing its ownership to 100%. Completed August 11, 2026.
Financial and business outsourcing firm serving faith-based and nonprofit organizations. Definitive agreement announced August 5, 2026; closed in August 2026 per Gloo’s Q2 FY2026 results, and included in FY2026 revenue guidance.
"He Gets Us" — Data Behind the Ads
Gloo provided the digital infrastructure behind the multi-hundred-million-dollar "He Gets Us" Jesus advertising campaign (per Gloo's own SEC filings, the campaign drove the majority of its FY2023 revenue). The Roys Report raised questions about whether respondents' contact information flowed into Gloo's data platform and on to subscribing churches; a campaign spokeswoman said information is received and shared with permission. The reporting documents the questions raised — it does not establish nonconsensual processing.
Metro Voice News explicitly characterized Gloo as a "data mining company" when reporting on its acquisitions. The Roys Report's investigation examined how respondent data moves through the Gloo platform ecosystem.
Post-IPO Financial Reality (as of September 10, 2026)
Gloo's stock trades roughly 62% below its $8 IPO price at ~$3.01 (market cap ~$268M), touching a new all-time low of $2.90 on September 10, 2026 — the day after Q2 FY2026 results beat expectations. Revenue is growing fast: Q1 FY2026 was $41.5M (up 238% YoY) and Q2 hit $46.6 million (up 188% YoY), with FY2026 guidance raised three times, from $185M to $200 million. But the company is still not profitable: Q2's net loss was $21.2M, its FY2025 annual report (10-K) includes "going concern" language disclosing substantial doubt about its ability to continue operating, cumulative losses since 2013 totaled roughly $438 million as of mid-2026 reporting, and in July 2026 Gloo raised $22.75M gross in a dilutive stock offering (7 million shares at $3.25).
CEO Scott Beck and Executive Chair Pat Gelsinger (former Intel and VMware CEO, appointed March 2025) cut their salaries to $1/year effective February 2026. The adjusted-EBITDA loss narrowed to $8.3M in Q2; Q3 is guided to ~$55M revenue with a $3.5M adjusted-EBITDA loss, and adjusted-EBITDA profitability is targeted for Q4 FY2026.
Concerns for Christian Organizations
BGH Capital & Sixth Street Partners (Controls Pushpay / CCB)
Associations worth knowing: BGH has investments in Navitas, an education company criticized for its treatment of international students. Sixth Street paid ~€527.5M in 2022 for a 25% share of FC Barcelona’s LaLiga broadcasting rights; FC Barcelona counts gambling operator 1xBet as an Official Betting Partner (renewed through 2029). This is an indirect commercial association with the gambling industry, not a direct investment in it.
Ministry Brands’ Unprecedented Scale
Market domination: Serves 90,000+ organizations and processes $6.5B in annual charitable giving — among the largest concentrations of church financial data under a single investment-backed owner.
Community Resistance
Industry commentary: Writing on Ministry Brands’ consolidation, industry analyst Justin Crowe observed that “big companies with lots of power and intent to sell make everyone nervous” and that the company’s financially focused goal is “not taken lightly by the church community.” These are the author’s characterizations of community sentiment, not direct member quotes.
Competing Brand Ownership
Market manipulation: Ministry Brands owns multiple directly competing brands in the same product categories simultaneously, which can reduce independence between those brands and weaken competitive pressure among them. Common ownership creates this structural risk; it does not by itself document actual price coordination.
Independent Alternatives Still Exist
While private equity controls most of the market, several mission-focused alternatives remain independent. These organizations are not owned by investment firms, and none has announced a sale or outside investment.
Planning Center
Founded 2006. 78,000 active churches (90,000+ total per Planning Center). Jeff Berg has legally established the Ministry Centered Foundation (501c3, EIN: 92-1945455) and publicly committed to transferring Planning Center to it when he steps away — its most recent filing (FY2024, filed May 2025) reported no assets, so this is a documented commitment rather than a completed transfer. Bootstrapped: no investors, no debt, no sales team.
Visit Planning Center →ChurchApps
Category: Full suite. A family of free apps from a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN: 45-5349618): B1 Church — church management with members, giving, attendance, groups, website builder, and mobile app; FreeShow — worship presentation for lyrics, scripture, and media; Lessons.church — free curriculum library for all ages; and FreePlay — plays lessons and videos on classroom TVs. All apps are available at churchapps.org, with source code public on GitHub under open-source licenses (MIT, GPL). Donor-funded; no subscriptions, no investors.
Visit ChurchApps →Rock RMS
Spark Development Network (nonprofit). Source-available: the code is public, but the license restricts use to faith-based organizations, so it is not OSI open source. Recommended donation: $4.45 per weekend attendee per year. Community-driven development.
Visit Rock RMS →ChurchCRM
Volunteer-developed and completely free (MIT license). Self-hosted, so your data stays on your own server.
Visit ChurchCRM →Life.Church Open
Life.Church's free resource platform: over 1 million pastors, church planters, and leaders served worldwide since 2006. Free resources and training (not a full ChMS); no fees, no PE backing.
Visit Life.Church Open →OpenLP
Open-source worship presentation software (GPL-3.0, code public on GitLab) with a voluntary donation model and fully transparent community development.
Visit OpenLP →ProPresenter
Category: Church Presentation Software. Built by Renewed Vision (founded 2000, Alpharetta, GA), ProPresenter is one of the most widely used tools for displaying worship lyrics, scripture, and media during services. As of September 2026, Renewed Vision remains privately held — Brad Weston, Matthew Broms, Greg Dolezal, and Rich Salvatierra were named as its four partners in a 2022 company announcement — and no private equity investment or acquisition has been announced. 150,000+ weekly sessions and 700 million+ slides triggered monthly, per Renewed Vision. Used by Bethel Church, Elevation Church, Lakewood Church, and Passion City Church. Commercial product — ProPresenter moved to subscription-only pricing for new customers in July 2024, a business-model change with no ownership change disclosed; the company has not sold out to financial investors.
Visit ProPresenter →Complete Source List & Verification
This report reviews publicly available ownership announcements, SEC filings, company disclosures, and journalism. Company-reported statistics are identified as such; forecasts, allegations, and editorial analysis are distinguished from verified transaction facts. Sources last reviewed September 10, 2026 (first published March 25, 2026). All sources open in a new tab.
Market Data
- Ministry Brands 2025 State of Church Giving Report (Business Wire, March 12, 2025) — source for $6.5B charitable giving figure
- Church Management Software Market to Hit $31.17 Billion by 2034 (EIN Presswire) — source for $31B market projection
Ministry Brands
Pushpay — BGH Capital & Sixth Street
- Willkie Farr: BGH & Sixth Street Acquire Pushpay (Nov 2022)
- Globe Newswire: Kenny Wyatt Appointed CEO (March 19, 2025)
- Globe Newswire: Pushpay Acquires Nurture.io (April 22, 2026)
- Navitas Limited — Wikipedia (BGH investment background)
- Sixth Street: FC Barcelona Deal Press Release (gambling sponsor tie)
Subsplash — K1 / Roper Technologies
ACS Technologies — Vanco / Great Hill Partners
Gloo — Data Practices & "He Gets Us"
Gloo — Acquisitions & Investments
- Gloo 10-K Business Combinations Note (SEC) — CNCL 100% (Feb 18, 2025, $7.1M); Barna 49% + majority voting control; Outreach acquired Jan 2, 2024; Church Law & Tax $5.5M; XRI Global (control Nov 19, 2025)
- PR Newswire: Gloo Completes Acquisition of Outreach, Inc. (July 8, 2024) — 200,000+ churches, ~1/3 of Gloo revenue
- PR Newswire: Salem Church Products Announced (Oct 4, 2023 — deal later fell through) · MinistryWatch: Deal Confirmation Failure · InsideRadio: Salem Retained Ownership
- MinistryWatch: Gloo Acquires ChurchSalary & Church Law & Tax ($5.5M, 2024)
- Religion News Service: Gloo Invests in Barna Group (March 19, 2025)
- PR Newswire: Gloo Investment in Carey Nieuwhof Communications (March 6, 2025)
- Religion News Service: Gloo Invests in Carey Nieuwhof (March 6, 2025)
- Church Tech News: Gloo Invests in Carey Nieuwhof Communications
- PR Newswire: Gloo Acquires Faith Assistant / Bible Chat (January 15, 2025) · Christian Post
- PR Newswire: Gloo Acquires Masterworks (July 2025)
- PR Newswire: Gloo Acquires Igniter Creative Media (September 2025)
- PR Newswire: Gloo Acquires Westfall Group (January 8, 2026)
- Business Wire: Gloo Completes Acquisition of EMD (May 4, 2026)
- Yahoo Finance: Gloo Completes Acquisition of Midwestern Interactive (August 11, 2026)
- Gloo: Definitive Agreement to Acquire Cedarstone (August 5, 2026)
Gloo — Leadership & Financials
- PR Newswire: Pat Gelsinger Appointed Executive Chair (March 2025)
- Gloo Holdings: Q3 FY2025 Financial Results ($32.6M revenue, 432% YoY)
- Gloo Holdings: Q1 FY2026 Financial Results ($41.5M revenue, +238% YoY; guidance raised to $195M)
- Gloo Holdings: Q2 FY2026 Financial Results (SEC) — $46.6M revenue, +188% YoY; guidance raised to $200M; Cedarstone closed Aug 2026
- Gloo FY2025 Form 10-K (SEC) — going-concern disclosure
- Religion News Service: Gloo Faces "Moment of Truth" After $438M in Losses (July 9, 2026)
- Gloo: $22.75M Public Offering Closed (July 2026)
- Investing.com: Gloo Executives Reduce Salaries to $1 for FY2026
Independent Alternatives
- Planning Center Official Website
- Jeff Berg: "A Commitment to Our Customers: Never Being Acquired" (June 2024)
- Ministry Centered Foundation — ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (EIN: 92-1945455)
- ChurchApps Official Website · ChurchApps GitHub Organization
- Rock RMS Official Website · Rock RMS Donate / Funding Model
- ChurchCRM Official Website · ChurchCRM GitHub Repository
- Life.Church Open · Life.Church Open About Page
- OpenLP Official Website · OpenLP Donate Page
- ProPresenter by Renewed Vision · Renewed Vision About Page · COO Announcement confirming four-partner private ownership structure (June 2022)