Research firm and technology platform partner to serve ministry and faith leaders in expanded ways
BOULDER, Colo., March 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Gloo, a technology platform for the faith ecosystem, announced a strategic investment in Barna Group, a Texas-based research firm focused on how spiritual and cultural trends affect Christian leaders and Christian organizations.
Gloo Invests in Barna Group
Since 1984, Barna Group has conducted an expansive number of interviews over its 40-year history with topics ranging across faith and culture, leadership and vocation, and church trends. Often cited as the leading voice for research on faith and Christianity in the U.S. and increasingly on global faith trends, Barna maintains one of the most comprehensive databases of spiritual indicators.
“We first partnered with Barna on the State of the Church initiative back in 2020,” said Brad Hill, chief solutions officer at Gloo. “The culture of collaboration between our teams is outstanding, and we admire the care and professionalism the Barna team displays in everything they do. We see almost limitless potential to combine their world-class research and editorial and thought leadership with the platform capabilities and network from Gloo.”
Over the years, the two organizations have collaborated on several significant initiatives and projects. In 2020, the State of the Church initiative connected nearly 30,000 people with content, polls and free assessment tools that were critical during the COVID-19 pandemic. The joint initiative also produced the ChurchPulse Weekly podcast, as well as the book The State of Your Church: Measuring What Matters in Ministry.
Barna has been the primary research partner with Gloo on the Faith and AI research series and the “State of” Series in connection with many other partners. To enable leaders to more easily find and use the wealth of Barna research and resources, Gloo provided the underlying technology for Barna Access Plus, the complete library subscription site for Barna research, trends and insights for Christian leaders seeking to transform lives.
“For the past five years, Barna and Gloo have collaborated on initiatives to serve and support the Church,” said David Kinnaman, CEO of Barna Group. “There’s nothing quite as meaningful and fun as changing the world with people you like. The depth and range of our partnership have made both of our organizations better and, in turn, have helped us make a more meaningful impact for the leaders, churches and organizations we serve.”
In 2025, Barna will continue its focus on growth in digital products and services, including the development of dedicated resources for church leaders seeking to improve the health of their people and organizations. As a Gloo capital partner, Barna is expanding collaboration with other partners in the network, including Outreach, Carey Nieuwhof Communications, Midwestern Interactive and others.
Barna is also leveraging Gloo AI to provide new products and services, which will be announced later in 2025.
“We equip Christian leaders to understand the times and know what to do,” Kinnaman said on Barna Group’s vision for a renewed Church. “Now, more than ever, Christian leaders of all kinds need data and insights to lead well. Because of the Gloo platform capabilities, we’ve been able to share critical research for church and faith-based organizations more broadly than ever before.”
Barna Group and Gloo are currently collaborating on the State of the Church 2025 initiative designed to inform and equip ministry leaders. The initiative includes monthly research from Barna, paired with free church health dashboards and assessments so leaders can measure the flourishing of their people and the thriving of their church. More information is available at stateofthechurch.com.
Gloo is a technology platform connecting the faith ecosystem. Gloo connects ministry leaders to values-based AI, resources, insights and funding so their people and communities flourish and their organizations thrive. Gloo enables trusted exchange between organizations and people so they can collaborate with greater confidence. Gloo serves over 100,000 faith and ministry leaders. Gloo is based in Boulder, Colorado.
Barna Group is a leading research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture. Since 1984, Barna has conducted more than two million interviews over the course of thousands of studies and has become a go-to source for insights about religion, leadership, vocation and generations. Barna is an independent, privately-held, nonpartisan organization based in Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas.
SOURCE Gloo
