Search our sites

Search past winners/finalists


  • MESA logo

Pushpay - Sales Support Team of the Year

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2019, Click to Enter The 2020 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service

Company: Pushpay, Redmond, WA
Company Description: Pushpay provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app, to the faith sector, non-profit organisations and education providers in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Support Team of the Year - Technology Industries

Nomination Title: Pushpay - Sales in the age of digital transformation

Pushpay provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app, and a church management system (ChMS) to the faith sector, non-profit organisations and education providers located predominantly in the US and other jurisdictions.

Pushpay’s Sales Team (‘the Team’) started as a few ‘sales’ people with no training and support in Auckland, New Zealand, waking up at 2: 00 am every morning to call churches in the US. That group has grown to a team of 70 comprising SDRs, AEs, Sales Ops, Sales Engineers, Managers, Directors and Trainers. Driving annual revenue to US$98.4 million in five years earned Pushpay the opportunity to move beyond selling to the Innovators and Early Adopters, presenting new challenges and opportunities.

As our market has evolved our Team has grown and is selling successfully into an ever-challenging market. We continue to evaluate and adjust to better understand how to cast vision for our prospective customers and help them realize the value of Pushpay’s solutions.

With recent performance, over the six months ended 30 September 2020, Pushpay’s Total Revenue increased by 51% to US$86.6 million. Pushpay now serves 10,896 Customers, up by 38% over the prior comparable period.

Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2019 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

In December 2019, Pushpay completed the acquisition of Church Community Builder, and the Sales Team has subsequently integrated the new software platform and is successfully selling a new combination of existing products into the market, which is driving an increase in year-over-year sales. With the addition of a new platform to sell, the Team is successfully implementing a new strategy by selling a combination of three different complementary products to the market. The expansion of the product set has allowed the Team to increase sales even as prospective customers have had their operations significantly impacted by COVID-19.

In addition, the Team has recently implemented a new Strategic SDR role that targets our top 250 accounts in conjunction with an Account-Based Marketing process. This role has contributed 10% of Pushpay’s MRR over the last year. Additionally, a new pre-Sales Engineer role was implemented to better support the Team when selling the new combined platform. Due to the complexity of the new product offering, this role helps to support prospective customers’ change management processes.

Our Field Sales team made our largest sale in over two years to a large, strategic Customer. To do this, the Team collaborated with our Engineering team and secured commitments to build custom integrations to support the prospect’s unique use case. They also collaborated with our Finance team to justify some atypical internal investment. With cross-department collaboration, they were able to successfully bring internal stakeholders together to complete the sale and welcome a new strategic Customer to Pushpay.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Pushpay's 2021 Interim Report and 2020 Annual Report provides information about recent financial performance, business development and product developments.
The Case Studies are examples of Pushpay Customers and the impact that they see from our solutions as a result of partnering with our Company.

Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):

The acquisition of Church Community Builder was a significant strategic move for the business as we now deliver a best-in-class, fully integrated ChMS, custom community app and giving solution for customers in the US faith sector.

COVID-19 has presented a unique challenge for the Team. As churches closed in-person services and experienced reductions in giving, there was ongoing uncertainty around the future landscape. Despite this, the Team has been successful at demonstrating value and helping prospects understand the need to make investments in digital connection platforms as a means of sustaining and growing member involvement in the midst of COVID-19.

A Customer said, “With the onset of COVID-19, Pushpay’s sales representative met with our team and did an outstanding job of explaining the benefits for our church family and handling some very direct and pointed questions. When a question was asked he made sure he understood the issue and addressed it directly.”

Over the year the Team has focused on upskilling its members to be more effective at connecting our product solutions to our prospective customers' challenges. This has allowed the team to cast a clearer vision of the return on investment experienced by our Customers.

As the market evolves the Team continues to sell into an ever more challenging market. We adapt and evaluate the sales opportunities in order to better understand the needs of customers. Despite the impacts of COVID-19, the Team remains committed to serving our market and providing world-class sales support to bring to Customers.