How It Started
John Pitzaferro got his start in the financial industry by founding TransNational Payments, a payment processing company. By learning the ins and outs of the business, John discovered that churches are taken advantage of by many processing companies. They are charged very high rates that no secular company would accept. Most churches agree to the unfair rates because either they don't realize what is happening or at the time didn't have any other options or choices.
What’s In A Name
The name My Well comes from the true story of Dick and Terri Greenly, the founders of Water4. The Greenlys made their money from digging wells and would then use the money made from their secular business to dig wells for those in need. You can watch their story here. After hearing this testimony, John began to wonder what “his well” could be. The answer of course was payment processing.
The First One
After this revelation, John approached his church’s leadership team with a deal to waive processing fees by only charging them what it cost to process the gifts. They agreed, which enabled Willow Creek to save hundreds of thousands in processing costs. In order to reach more churches, My Well was then created as a charitable department of TransNational.
Becoming the Backend
My Well began offering the same deal to other churches around the nation to process the donations while allowing churches to keep their current Donation Management Service. With more and more churches signing up for My Well, the services began to miss their cut of the profits. This caused many sites to start blocking My Well from their list of approved processors.
Starting the Software
The team at My Well knew the only way forward was to create their own donation management software so any church could get the processing fees for “at cost” regardless of their management service. John had to shift his focus from payment processing to software creation and was able to build an excellent team that could build out his vision. At the start of 2020, the My Well software platform was made public.
Making It A Ministry
With the software growing, My Well began serving more and more churches and soon expanded beyond being a department of TransNational. Although they work closely with TransNational still, My Well became a 501c3 ministry, just like the organizations they serve. This sets them apart as the only donation management service that is also a ministry.
Looking Ahead
My Well has no plans to slow down. The ultimate goal is to build a one stop shop for donations where My Well extends the gift of backend processing, while also focusing on helping churches keep more money in ministry. As more and more integrations are being built, My Well can offer that same gift to organizations of any size.
