After The Church of Eleven22 launched in 2012, leadership quickly found out how challenging it could be to find a banking partner that understands the needs of religious institutions. True, its early requirements were fairly basic. But as its ambitions grew and the church began expanding in Northeast Florida and beyond, it became clear that the church needed a partner that was aligned with its increasingly strategic focus.

In 2012, Eleven22 started with a single campus in Jacksonville, Florida. Today, Eleven22 averages more than 21,000 in-person attendees per weekend across its eleven campuses and three prison campuses. While most of its campuses are located in or near the Jacksonville area, in 2021, the church opened a facility in Jesup, Georgia, about 100 miles north of Jacksonville. Eleven22 has also grown its global online footprint, with about 40,000 viewers of its services via live stream each weekend.

Eleven22’s chief financial officer, Paul Williams, said the church could never have imagined it would have grown this fast over the last 12 years. But Eleven22’s laser focus on Biblical scripture has resonated within the communities it serves. “We definitely had visions of being a multisite church, but we didn't know that we would grow this quickly,” he said. “We didn't set a strategic plan, per se, to have 100 campuses in X years. We just wanted to open up a campus when our buildings were full, and they became full faster than expected. Once we didn't have capacity to serve people, we would look for another campus.”

As Eleven22 expanded, so did its banking needs. In the early stages, Williams explained, the church took a purely tactical approach to its banking requirements. Along with a bank account and basic treasury management, it needed a loan from a local bank to help finance the conversion of a former Walmart to house its first campus.

As Eleven22’s expansion advanced at a faster-than-expected pace, Williams knew the church needed to evolve from a tactical to a more strategic approach to its banking relationship. Williams and his team first met with BMO’s Religious Institution Banking group in 2021 when the church was planning its St. Johns campus construction project. Eleven22’s incumbent bank expressed reservations about committing to a loan larger than any it had previously made.

“What we had found is that we had a series of one-off mortgages across our campus,” Williams said. “We now had a ministry that was going to be here for the long term. We needed an institution that could refinance all of our campuses into one loan and extend it out to 10 years, so that we had a longer maturity base for our business plan.”

Along with refinancing its debt, BMO provides Eleven22 with a full suite of treasury solutions and construction financing for its current expansion projects. The latter is especially important because, as Williams pointed out, finding a banking partner with the capital base, the expertise and the desire to serve religious institutions can be challenging.

“It’s very difficult for churches to get capital from regulated banks, particularly when you combine churches and real estate,” Williams said. “To most regulated banks, that's one of the least desirable industries to lend into. The previous banks that we worked with, after the first loan, it felt like it was going to be a little bit of a stretch for them to make the next loan. Where BMO stands out is the team embraced this as an opportunity. So, we get lower cost of capital from a very high-quality institution that has a lot of capital and understands us. We have more of a conversation about timing than we do about yes or no.”

That understanding comes from BMO Commercial Bank’s dedicated Religious Institution Banking group, which is staffed with bankers with deep experience in serving organizations like Eleven22’s.

"They don’t need to be educated in how the church works,” Williams said. “From the beginning, they understood exactly where we were and where we were headed. They were able to partner with us to get our term loan in place based on the facilities we had. And as we've been growing campus by campus, they've been able to help us structure our ownership so that they can finance it. Because BMO knows how we operate, they understand how we're being successful and can help us get the right capital for our growth plans.”

Williams explained that knowledge includes understanding a church’s unique operating metrics, which enabled BMO’s team to see the strength of Eleven22’s financial infrastructure. “They know how to look at per-donor giving, how to look at industry trends, because we have been outperforming average church metrics. They understand that we are a good risk profile for the bank to lend to because of how strong our operating statistics are.”

Having a bank that helps support a more strategic focus allows Eleven22 to consider options that otherwise would have been off the table. Before establishing a relationship with BMO, Eleven22 had either purchased or leased existing buildings that it renovated. Since switching to BMO, the church is now doing ground-up construction. “They’re much bigger, more substantial projects, and they're much more strategic,” Williams said.

One such project is a campus in Wildlight, a new master-planned community north of Jacksonville. Plans for the new 10.52-acre campus include a 40,000-square-foot sanctuary and worship center that can accommodate more than 1,000 people. The campus is expected to be completed in 2026. The church also plans to expand its Florida footprint with churches in Orlando and St. Augustine.

Williams also touts the breadth of expertise that BMO offers, and the fact that its teams work together to develop solutions tailored to the church’s needs. “BMO understands both real estate construction and the church industry,” Williams said. “It's that combination that makes them stand out as unique. We would not have been able to do these current expansion projects if we didn't have a banking partner that believed in us and understood how construction worked.”

Kristen Marello, Eleven22’s executive director of finance and risk management, highlights the attention and care that had been missing from the church’s previous banking relationship. BMO visits Eleven22 for quarterly check-ins, including viewing the progress of its construction projects.

“It's been an easy partnership,” Marello says. “As we're going through our different series of loans, whether it was the initial restructuring or a construction loan—and now we're about to embark on an equipment loan—the team has really been present to help us understand what's needed. We feel like a priority.”

From BMO’s breadth of services to its deep expertise in serving communities of faith, Williams believes Eleven22 has found a banking partner that’s committed to helping it achieve its long-term vision. "We've already established a meeting of the minds on what our strategy is,” Williams said. “What's beneficial to us is as we forecast out our growth plans, we can start making estimates of what the banking relationship could provide us with a degree of certainty so that we can finalize our strategic plans with an assumed level of financing.”