Shaping Technology as a Force for Good

The Champions

My wife Theresa and I have been married for 40 years. We’ve been on a great journey, filled with experiences and opportunities that only God could orchestrate—and our work today at Gloo is no exception. Very early in our marriage, about two weeks after we were married, we found ourselves in a Dallas hotel convention room with 1,300 other couples at a FamilyLife Weekend to Remember.

Two things became distinctly clear that weekend. The first was that God has a plan for marriage and family. The second was that we were surrounded by people wholeheartedly committed to helping us flourish in our relationship — people who had no obvious reason to care about us as newlyweds, but who cared anyway. We called them champions. 

That weekend changed the trajectory of our lives. We jumped in, eager to find ways to support the people who so freely poured into us. We started giving, volunteering and showing up to support Dennis and Barbara Rainey in their leadership of FamilyLife. Eventually I became chairman of the board. 

Our heart for serving champions grew—we saw that there were ministries, mental health, recovery, rescue missions, universities and so many other organizations where champions did their work: waking up every day dedicated to helping someone else flourish. Theresa and I committed to supporting them in whatever ways we could. At the same time, we were building and scaling businesses like Blockbuster, Boston Chicken, Waldos, and Angie's, and we helped champions and their organizations learn from our experience. 

But the world was changing rapidly, technology was leaving champions behind, and they were struggling to reach their fullest impact. We knew that if the big C Church was going to get the collective benefit of the next technology boom, it needed to be connected. We knew that one of the best ways we could serve was to build a platform to connect and serve them.

What 600 Conversations Told Us

So before we built anything, we went on a listening tour. We interviewed more than 600 leaders and organizations — pastors, city ministries, marriage ministries, rescue missions, people running drug and alcohol recovery centers, and family counselors. We thanked them, we listened, and we prayed with them.

Three things came into focus:

• They were disconnected. Thousands of organizations, each solving the same problems alone, were operating and building solutions in silos.

• They were digitally underserved. They didn't have access, resourcing, or expertise in the technology that would help with their missions. 

• They were growth constrained. They weren’t effectively reaching new audiences and growing engagement with their existing audiences.  

The problems they were facing were clear. The question was, who was going to help them? Theresa and I paused to take stock. We asked ourselves, “What are we going to do with the next 30 years of our lives?”

A Vast Ecosystem

We knew that someone had to help the millions of men and women who wake up every day focused on helping others flourish.  They were making an impact in the world.

Restoring marriages.

Sharing the gospel.

Freeing people from the chains of poverty and addiction. 

Educating and empowering people so they can live a better life.

We called it the Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem, and it includes roughly 350,000 churches and frontline organizations like congregations, addiction recovery centers, rescue missions, anti-trafficking organizations (2020 U.S. Religion Census), and more than 100,000 ministries, universities, and mission-driven nonprofits (Cause IQ, 2025).

They were all out there, called to do good in the world. We knew what we were called to do: build and shape technology to serve them. 

So we started Gloo with a clear purpose: To shape technology as a force for good, so that people can flourish and communities can thrive.

Today we serve them in two primary ways. 

Power their tech. We modernize their systems, data, and workflows, often by taking the work over entirely rather than handing an already-stretched team another tool to administer. 

Power their reach. We help organizations grow their audiences by expanding awareness, deepening engagement, and growing fundraising support. 

Underneath all of that sits a critical layer: applied AI. 

The AI Era

AI is the most consequential technology in human history. It is impacting everything we do. The question is: will we sit this out, or will we shape it for good? 

Practically, that means helping organizations apply AI in a way that’s designed to be safe, accurate, and governed for their specific context, helping them accelerate both mission and margin.

We are leading applied AI for the ecosystem in three layers:

1. AI capabilities — proprietary Gloo AI-powered capabilities built specifically for missional contexts.

2. AI solutions — Bespoke solutions that harness best-in-class AI to deliver work and outcomes our customers need. 

3. AI organizational transformation — helping teams operate in new, more effective and efficient ways on a day-to-day basis.

Shaping AI for good is a holistic approach and long-term commitment. For the ecosystem, we want to protect theological integrity, strengthen relational ministry and advance human flourishing. That means we measure scriptural quotation accuracy rather than assuming it. It means we help missional organizations leverage the best of more than 80 large language models. It also means we evaluate how well leading models support human flourishing.

Seeing the Impact

A denomination serving roughly 13,000 churches couldn't keep pace with technology across its network. Our embedded Gloo engineers integrated AI-powered data visibility across the network, delivered enterprise-grade security and compliance, and automated previously manual workflows.

A global aid organization was running generic fundraising campaigns with no reliable read on what worked. By rebuilding the motion around data, we improved donor response and retention in key communities and turned what worked into replicable playbooks the organization could run itself.

A Bible platform needed accuracy and safety guarantees at scale, so we integrated our values harness, introduced adversarial agent testing, and deployed Gloo engineering to build alongside them.

This is what it looks like to shape technology for good. We empower organizations with capabilities and solutions, so their people can do more of what they are called to do.

A Moral Imperative

Ultimately, technology is a neutral tool. As stewards, we have a moral imperative to shape and use it for good.

People were not born to be in poverty, to be addicted, to be homeless, to be without medical or psychological care, to be spiritually bankrupt. People were meant to flourish. 

At Gloo, we are clear about what we’re here to do. We can shape technology as a force for good. We can connect the ecosystem, enable them to serve each other, and release their collective strength. And we can wake up every day, committed to serving those who serve…

…so that people can be all that they were born to be.