Elevating the Church Loan Journey

Building a loan screener, tailored education tools, and data-driven CRM workflows for the Wesleyan Investment Foundation (WIF).

‍
The Challenge

Prospects applying before they were ready and no systematic way to nurture leads.

Assets for product roadmap, prioritized by impact

10,000+

Data Points to inform stronger customer journeys

20+

Actionable recommendations delivered across journey stage, product, and CRM

Context & Constraints

Most church leaders have limited financial training, unsure when to seek a building loan or what’s required. This meant applying before they were ready—leading to pauses, declines, or missed guidance.

The WIF team was eager to serve these people, and wanted a research-based process for educating applicants and improving their overall loan experience.

The Deliverable

Across two Innovation Sprints, we co-designed and tested WIF’s next generation of digital engagement tools.

Highlight

A Simple Persona System That Anchors Decisions — built on 10,000+ data points and ready for CRM tagging, nurture flows, and priority content creation

Detailed CRM Workflow Diagrams — 5 journey maps identifying key customer journey moments where educational resources will have the greatest impact

An Educational Content Experience for Less Experienced Borrowers — answering key questions and clarifying when to apply

Innovation Roadmap — a document with 20+ prioritized actions to reduce drop-off and speed up qualified applications

Mission-Driven Personas

30+

In-Depth Interviews

Research Method

Align on Learning Objectives‍

Defined goals around reducing premature applications, advancing a customer-centered CRM strategy, and creating stage-appropriate education pathways for churches who are considering a loan.

Prototyping & Research‍

Conducted 30+ in-depth interviews across church sizes and roles; tested prototypes; mapped key outcomes that mattered most to customers at each step of the journey.

Synthesis & Readout‍

Presented persona models, prototype revisions, a CRM framework with tags for the most significant affinity points that form meaningful groups of users and what they need.

Study Sampling

Across two Innovation Sprints, we interviewed 33 church leaders spanning diverses roles and church sizes

Interviewees also reflected a wide range of loan experience levels—from first-time borrowers to seasoned leaders overseeing multi-campus capital projects—with loan needs ranging from small renovation efforts to multi-million-dollar building expansions.

This ensured the research captured a broad spectrum of customer data, touching on how churches make decisions and which factors influence pre-mature loan applications, declines, and successful approvals.

Elevating the Church Loan Journey

Building a loan screener, tailored education tools, and data-driven CRM workflows for the Wesleyan Investment Foundation.

Client

WIF

Service

Innovation Sprint

Timeline

5-6 weeks

Method

Interviews

Participants

30+

Outputs

Slidedeck

work with us explore outcomes

This Might be relevant to you if...

Your Leads apply too early

customers need education before converting

sales/service teams are triaging the same questions repeatedly

your CRM isn't segmented by real customer needs

What Changed?

and how we measured it

improved qualification

+230^%

Increase in prospects reaching "ready-to-apply" stage

Less wasted effort

-64^%

reduction in staff time spent on unqualified applications

higher completion

+230^%

increase in completion of key readiness steps

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The funnel broke at the moment of application

high effort triage

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borrower uncertainty

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inconsistent nurturing

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drop-off / abandonement

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key insights

that informed the plan

INSIGHT #1

readiness confusion-not intent- was the biggest driver of premature applications

evidence