Jesus told his followers to share his teaching and make disciples. A Colorado Springs-based for-profit company helps them do it.

There are more than 300,000 evangelical churches in the country, and Outreach Inc. says it works with nearly one fifth of them every year.

“We are a church media and marketing company that helps churches connect to their communities and helps communities connect to the church,” said COO Steve Foster.

The company’s vision is “to reach every person in America with a personal invitation to a Bible-believing church.”

Last year, Outreach helped churches reach their communities through nearly 16 million postcards that Outreach designed and printed. And its “new mover” program provides churches with postcards and addresses to reach out to people who have recently moved to their areas.

Helping churches of all sizes

Foster says 90% of churches in America attract fewer than 250 people a week, and many churches have only a few employees.

“Our teaching materials and tools, sermons and sermon preparation and research, and media and graphics enable pastors and church leaders across America and the world do their job more efficiently and to look a little bit sharper,” Foster said.

Outreach also works with big churches, including local congregation Rocky Mountain Calvary Church, megachurches including New Life Church, and has helped parachurch ministries such as Compassion International with advertising & marketing campaigns.

The company’s many divisions and brands offer a range of products and services, including:

• Outreach magazine, a bimonthly magazine that reaches nearly 80,000 readers and publishes an annual fall issue listing the country’s biggest and fastest growing churches.

• Posters and banners churches can use to attract visitors and guide members to events.

• Web and software services that help churches offer professional websites.

The company also works with film companies and offers a streaming service that enables churches to view faith-based movies with accompanying teaching material.

Foster says he’s excited about a new offering releasing this month. Churches can use Outreach’s streaming service to view episodes from the fourth season of the wildly popular New Testament drama “The Chosen.” Pastors can also use a sermon series kit that highlights the films’ key themes.

Move to Springs, sale to Gloo

Outreach was founded in 1996 in California by Scott Evans, who after earning a graphic arts degree from Colorado State University in Fort Collins moved farther west to help start a new church with the help of direct mail.

Outreach moved to the Springs in the summer of 2012 to improve its costs of doing business and to form better partnerships and relationships with the city’s many national and international evangelical ministries.

The timing of the move couldn’t have been worse. The Waldo Canyon fire kept about 45 families from moving into their homes and prevented its new offices on Tech Center Drive from opening.

The company now employs more than 100 people, 60% of them in the Springs, and is regularly certified by The Gazette as a Best Workplace and by another group as a Best Christian Workplace.

Outreach also gives back to the Springs. The company is dedicated to “tithing” from its profits, and every year employees vote for to determine which local ministries will be supported. In 2023, it supported Care and Share Foodbank, CASA, COS I Love You, Dream Centers, Life Network, Marian House, Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity, Springs Rescue Mission and Tessa.

The privately held company doesn’t reveal its revenue, but it said earnings have been challenged by a decline in U.S. church attendance and the COVID pandemic.

“The pandemic made 2020 one of our hardest years,” said Foster, “but we are scrappy and rebounded a good chunk of that. 2024 looks to be one of our better years.”

In January, Outreach completed its sale to Gloo, a Boulder-based company that provides services to churches. Gloo worked with the nonprofit behind the “He Gets Us” TV ads that have run on the Super Bowl and elsewhere.

Foster said Outreach and Gloo share “a lot of overlapping interests.”