Company News
Excellence in Giving Joins OneAscent
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Mar. 1, 2025 – OneAscent is excited to announce its acquisition of Excellence in Giving, the leading faith-based philanthropic firm in the U.S., headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Excellence in Giving serves high-capacity families across the country. Since its founding in 2002 by CEO Al Mueller, Excellence in Giving has assisted clients with more than $850 million in domestic and international charitable gifts.
“Excellence in Giving has been the gold standard in faith-based philanthropy, and Al Mueller and his team have been trailblazers in helping families experience the joy of generosity while creating lasting impact,” said Harry Pearson, CEO of OneAscent. “This partnership reflects our shared commitment to empower stewards to live aligned with their values and advance the Kingdom. We are thrilled to welcome Al and the Excellence in Giving team to the OneAscent family as we work together to expand their extraordinary legacy.”
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, OneAscent is a family of Kingdom-minded companies committed to delivering values-based solutions to advisors and investors. OneAscent’s mission is to empower advisors, investors and stewards to align their financial decisions with what they value most through a comprehensive suite of faith-driven solutions.
“OneAscent has an impressive team that delivers outstanding service to its clients, said Mueller. “We are excited to join forces with a team that shares our dedication to excellence and values-based service.”
Excellence in Giving will continue to operate in Colorado Springs under its current brand as a subsidiary of OneAscent and Mueller will continue to lead Excellence in Giving as CEO and will also be Chief Philanthropy Officer at OneAscent.
OneAscent is a family of Kingdom-minded companies committed to delivering values-based financial solutions to advisors and investors. OneAscent Wealth, OneAscent Financial, OneAscent Investments, OneAscent Capital and OneAscent Family Offices each offer a comprehensive suite of faith-driven strategies and solutions designed to help advisors, investors and stewards live aligned with what they value most. OneAscent’s business model reflects our belief that financial planning and wealth management are engaged partnerships between clients, financial advisors and investment resources. In these areas, we strive for clarity, communication and unity. OneAscent is headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., and serves clients through office locations across the United States.
Excellence in Giving Expands EIG Insights with Acquisition of Edessa Research
July 23, 2024 –- Excellence in Giving’s research division, EIG Insights, has expanded its team and services after a year of exciting, high value projects. Excellence in Giving has acquired Edessa Research, a firm specializing in monitoring & evaluation consulting for international development non-profit organizations to create additional capacity for EIG Insights
EIG Insights, co-founded by Al Mueller and Kate Williams-Whitley, has been providing evaluation and program services to over a dozen organizations in the Christian Relief, Development, and Nonprofit spaces since February 2023. Since Al Mueller founded Excellence in Giving in 2002, Al Mueller has witnessed an ever-increasing need for organizations to provide more, and higher quality, evidence of impact to their donor base. The mutual recognition of this need is what brought Al Mueller and Kate Williams-Whitley together in February 2023. As a leader in driving the Christian nonprofit sector towards stronger evidence-based programs and impact evaluations, most recently at Compassion International, Kate Williams-Whitley joined Excellence in Giving to launch EIG Insights.
Over the past year and a half, Kate Williams-Whitley has led a team of researchers to address complex program and evaluation needs at organizations such as: Mentoring Alliance, AWANA, World Relief, Tyndale Foundation, Biblica, Herzog Foundation, Langham Partnership, Zoe Empowers, Elevate USA, Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, and many others.
For two decades I have watched organizations desire to achieve their missions but be unable to demonstrate their impact. The work that we get to do at EIG Insights, with the team led by the talented Kate Williams-Whitley, is helping organizations improve programs and communicate more strongly with their donors. I am thrilled to see our team expanding to reach more organizations.
[Al Mueller, Founder and CEO of Excellence in Giving, Co-Founder of EIG Insights]
Since 2018, Edessa Research has specialized in serving the international development and humanitarian sector by helping clients to better understand how their programs and products bring about change through providing evidence of program effectiveness for management and learning. To date, Edessa has worked with organizations combatting human trafficking in India, training pastors in South Sudan, delivering safe water in Malawi, and providing sanitation services in Honduras, among other projects.
Founded by Kristen Check, Edessa was created to fill a niche in equipping Christian non-profit organizations to effectively monitor & evaluate their programs.
“After working for 10 years in the non-profit sector and being highly engaged in the Christian international development community, I realized there was a need for skilled monitoring & evaluation (M&E) professionals who also understood the importance of spirituality and faith in poverty alleviation. It was then that I founded Edessa Research. I believed that with a group of Christian M& E experts, we could make a big difference for organizations who needed to begin measuring, improve their measurement, or show the impact of their programs to their donors and partners. I have great respect for Kate Williams- Whitley and feel incredibly blessed to be able to continue this work and Edessa’s mission as part of EIG Insights.”
[Kristen Check, VP, EIG Insights, & Founder/Lead Consultant, Edessa Research]
Edessa brings to EIG Insights a team of consultants with over 15 years of experience working with Christian non-profit organizations across 12 sectors and 30 countries, along with a passion for helping clients “measure what matters”. Edessa will become part of the EIG Insights team and will continue to offer clients the same excellent client experience, services, and expertise they have come to know from Edessa. Kristen Check will now serve as VP of EIG Insights.
With the acquisition of Edessa Research, EIG Insights will enhance its current offerings of providing monitoring & evaluation services such as: theory of change and measurement framework development, program evaluations, causation-based impact evaluations, and market research. Our offerings also include in-house M&E services (annual program outcome monitoring, reporting, etc.) to organizations who prefer to outsource their needs to a team of professionals.
If you are looking to review or enhance your current M&E systems or measure impact, contact: Kate Williams-Whitley at KWilliams@excellenceingiving.com, Al Mueller at AMueller@excellenceingiving.com, or Kristen Check at KCheck@excellenceingiving.com.