If you give digitally to your church, your favorite charity or nonprofit organization, then you know Wale Mafolasire. Maybe not by name, but his most favorite invention is something you can use on a regular basis: Givelify.

Imagine that such an intricate digital application came out of his desire to give and not always having the ready cash or check to make it happen. He tells Word In Black he’d always promise himself to make good on it as soon as he got home. But many times, he just didn’t make it.

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“And I had to deal with the guilt and the shame of not having fulfilled my promise. I felt like the pastor was looking at me, and everyone knew I was shirking my responsibilities,” he says.

After all, his mother taught them to be cheerful in their giving, and to always have a real bible when they went to church.

Givelify. His idea. Out of his need. And now you know the rest of the story. But not really.

It was a long trek from idea to realization, and his idea didn’t garner support for him from the start.

Friends and Family Stepped In

Mafolasire kept tweaking the idea, but needed help from some trusted friends with the coding and other digital tasks to make Givelify happen. He says this is one of the most important lessons he learned and wants others to learn.

His friends, family, and close associates had enough faith in his character and ability to know he’d put everything he had into putting feet to his faith.

“I always encourage people to trust their friends and family members and be willing to help in whatever ways they can when they know the person is trustworthy,” Mafolasire says.

“If you know they’re good people trying to just do even more good, then offer support. You can’t imagine what can actually come of their endeavor.”

Black entrepreneurs face many challenges in securing funding for their businesses. Often, those necessary investments have to flow out of well-nurtured personal and business relationships.

This wisdom came from Mafolasire’s journey. He counts more than 300 rejections before he found the support he needed. 

It was when Mafolasire gave up on his own attempts to find financing and support and decided he’d push ahead and find a way, that God made the way.

It was Black clergymen who were willing to invest their time and energy, “without asking for a return, that got me on the road to actualization.” He credits Bishop Walter Scott Thomas, presiding prelate of Kingdom Association of Covenant Pastors, and Dr. Jerry Young, president of the National Baptist Convention.

While it may have been looked at with suspicion in its early days, digital giving, now at 88%, currently exceeds all other ways of giving, according to Givelify’s 2024 “Giving in Faith” report.

Across the generations, givers chose to help people in need as their greatest motivation for giving and addressing social justice as the least motivating reason. Baby Boomers agreed that giving is a core tenet of their faith, while Gen Zers were less agreeable. Faith-based organizations being best at making a difference weighed in lightly across the board. 65% of Baby Boomers and 43% of Gen Zers say they don’t believe faith-based organizations are best at making a difference.

Good news for Givelify recipients: 64% of those queried expressed a desire to give more in the coming years.

Customer Satisfaction

As for the company, it’s not just what they do, but how they do it according to satisfied customers. Rev. Lincoln A. Graham Jr., senior pastor of Oneness Pentecostal Tabernacle in St. Albans, New York, has been a partner for eight years and has great respect for them. For him, it’s the human quotient.

“I value companies like Givelify that don’t cut corners on old-fashioned service,” he says. “I’m impressed with their willingness to listen to the needs of their customers when it comes to implementing new services.”

Graham says while Givelify could have given him “corporate speak gobbledy gook and said no, instead they engaged with us, made reasoned decisions and gave reasonable explanations for those decisions.”

The bottom line is that people are giving more online than when they gave by cash or check, and “our cash flow patterns are more predictable for what we need to do in ministry,” Graham says.

According to Deacon James Daniels of Greater Mount Sinai COGIC in Milwaukee, one should not overlook the general effectiveness of this kind of giving.

“It allows funds to be credited the next day, and it’s easy and convenient,” he says. “This is an indirect saving to church financial staff in processing weekly contributions. It saves time and money.”