Why Religious Organizations Should Put Faith in Their Printers

Regardless of your denomination, having cost-effective printers and copiers at your church, temple or mosque will keep your volunteers, congregation and budget happy. Currently serving over 400 faith-based organizations, we’ve seen (and solved) the biggest issues that can plague the administrative side of any religious organization. From budgets, to buy-in from the board, to figuring out the most effective device for your volunteers or employees, here’s what we’ve learned.

Minimize Work, Maximize Volunteer Productivity

For most faith-based organizations, the administrative side is primarily volunteer-driven. As a result, keeping them productive and minimizing labor are often the main objectives. There's a staggering number of manual processes occurring in churches that can be automated - double-sided printing for bulletins, proper folding of newsletters, scanning of vital membership documents to specific folders - that can reduce that crucial volunteer time and allow them to focus more on your mission. 

Regardless of your experience with printers or hardware in general, there's a learning curve associated with any new piece of equipment. One the surface, "grab and go" desktop printers, like those you can buy cheap and off the shelf at your local office supplies store, are the obvious choice in ease of use and cost. But, those come at a cost and are never professionally set-up specifically to your needs.

The Board, The Budget & The Almighty Dilemma

Religious organizations are, more than any other organization, faced with an absolute need to adhere to a budget. Relying on donation, charity events, day care and/or parochial school services, and tithes means that you need to be lean and mean in operations. As a result, technology falls to the wayside, becoming the least prioritized area for the organization. For many churches, temples and mosques, this is in reality putting more strain on your budget.

The aforementioned "grab and go" printers, while cheap and easy to use, are only cost-effective if you're printing less than 400 pages a month. Many of our current clients also figured they were staying within 400 pages a month, but when you really start adding up everything, for example:

• Marriage registration documents
• Sermons
• Congregation handouts
• Bulletins
• Newsletters
• Lead sheets for the music team
• Pamphlets
• Children worksheets
• Donation cards

You may realize you're well within the realm of 500-1000 pages a month. If that's the case, we can pretty much guarantee you that your organization is actually losing money due to ink costs. Seriously, if you want to know how crazy we are about saving our clients money, we've actually worked these cost comparisons down to thousandths of a cent for some religious organizations.

BETTER BULLETINs, HAPPIER CONGREGATION

At the core of any faith-based organizations, aside from achieving your mission and serving your community, is the need to maintain and increase membership. By limiting your technology budget-wise, you're denying yourself the ability to engage your current congregation and prospective members with quality materials.

Depending on the size of your membership, outsourcing the printing for your newsletters and other documents can be a bigger drain on the budget than actually pulling it in-house. Once in-house you'll have ultimate control over your design and deadlines, and you can print as you go rather than throw a chunk of your budget towards a few boxes of unused materials that sit in the corner collecting dust every week.

Engaging your membership means staying top-of-mind with your communications. Keep faith - not headaches - at the forefront with your volunteers, congregation and pastors. 

If you're interested in learning more, check out our Faith-Based Support & Case Study, an examination of our partnership with St. Giles Presbyterian Church, located in Richmond, Virginia, and how we were able to help them engage members and become more budget friendly.