A Letter from Our Founder

I started Heartwood in a panic.

I had just been let go from my job. I was the primary breadwinner for my little family, and I needed cash to keep things running. There was no grand vision. Just urgency. It wasn’t until months later that the name Heartwood landed, and I began to realize this wasn’t just a lifeboat. This was a mission.

But the mission didn’t arrive as a plan. It arrived as a person. My friend Tyler lost his job, and I didn’t have much work to share, but I pulled a seat up to the Heartwood table and invited him to contribute while he looked for something new. It felt tenuous, sharing the little I had. But after I made the choice, something shifted. It felt right. In a way I can’t fully take credit for. Tyler found another job quickly, but a seed was sown.

Soon, Brenden was sitting in my tiny rented office, telling me how he’d lost his job. I did the math in my head, and we figured out a way forward. I’ve repeated that same story now with two Camerons and Dennis. Each time, something carried me forward.

My hope is that they get dignity and stability, even if it’s for a short season. I do my best not to grasp too tightly to any of them, or any of this. Because God continues to remind me that he is the source of all goodness. As James writes, “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

Heartwood’s clients have come in much the same way as our team, not through my own hustle, but through doors that opened when I wasn’t the one knocking. I’ll be honest: not every client project would fall into the “for good” category. But as we’re growing, we’re becoming more able to say the right no’s so we can land the right yes’s.

When I think about what “for good” means, it falls into three categories. The first is what I’d call Eternal Good: faith tech, church tech, tools that serve the kingdom directly. That’s where Heartwood started, and it’s close to my heart. The second is Social Good: mission-driven organizations that are investing in making their communities better. They may not be faith-based, but the work is unmistakably good. The third is the one that surprises people: Human Good. These are organizations that might not call themselves mission-driven at all, but they create workplaces that are fair, generous, and equitable. Places where people are treated with dignity. That goodness doesn’t stay inside the office. It carries over into the lives, families, and communities of the people who work there. I’ve come to believe that might be the most quietly powerful category of all, because it’s the one that proves the renewal of all things isn’t limited to the places we’d expect to find it.

I still wake up some days filled with a scarcity mindset, even as AI eats larger and larger slices of the software pie.

More today than ever, our purpose feels missional. But I have never wanted to fleece the Church for money. Or nonprofits, for that matter. These organizations and their donors work diligently for every dollar, and I want to steward those resources well. The work is sacred. And so is the trust that funds it.

I believe that God is allowing me to play a small part in bringing heaven to earth. Paul writes that “we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). That’s not an excuse to be lazy or take my hands off the throttle. But it is a reminder that I’m a servant, not the author, serving God’s cosmic mission of restoration. A task that has already begun in this age, but will only be fully complete in the age to come.

I am deeply inspired by the Bible, especially the writings of Paul. And much of my language around doing good work has been shaped by the theological work of N.T. Wright, particularly Surprised by Hope. Wright helped me see that the work we do now isn’t just killing time until Jesus returns. It genuinely matters. Every act of care, every honest line of code, every team member given dignity in their work participates in the renewal of all things. Not because we’re building the kingdom ourselves, but because the kingdom is breaking in, and we get to build alongside it.

Thank you for visiting, and for reading. I am honored to play the role I’m playing. And if software can help, I would be honored to help you set your little corner of the world right.