Toshiba’s Low Total Cost Of Ownership Enables Church To Take Control Of In-House Printing Production

For Bethany Wesleyan Church communication is paramount. With nearly 1,200 parishioners attending services each week, as well as flourishing mission groups, youth groups and community events across their three locations, this Eastern Pennsylvania organization prints more than 50,000 copies each month. Everything is printed from their Toshiba e-STUDIO MFPs.

Best in class solutions for a growing congregation

Peggy Ziegenfuss, administrative assistant at Bethany Wesleyan Church, has worked there for more than 25 years and can remember when the partnership with Toshiba began.

“At that time we only had one copier, but it met the needs of where we were and where we were going,” she said. “We’re constantly growing and we needed something to grow with us.”

The church certainly has grown, with nearly 1,000 more weekly congregants, two new locations and a daycare center across a 13-mile radius. This growth has required a printer fleet expansion of four 75 ppm Toshiba e-STUDIO™ color MFPs – one for each location, including the daycare.

As with many religious organizations, the administration team here doubles as the in-house marketing department. Various church activities keep them busy designing and printing countless bulletins, newsletters, posters, event tickets, postcards and more. Using a secure shared drive, promotional materials can be accessed at each campus for local printing on a Toshiba MFP.

Each e-STUDIO is equipped to print high-quality collateral in rich, vibrant colors on paper of various size and thickness, including Toshiba’s AquaAce laminated paper. This specialty paper is weatherproof and allows organizations to print on sizes up to 12”x 48”, creating a professional and durable sign that can be produced instantaneously.

The church uses these materials to encourage attendance, direct people to church donation sites, and to announce opportunities to volunteer at upcoming events. Connect cards are inserted into every bulletin, allowing attendees to record their contact information. This simple step saves the administration team valuable time.

“You don’t have to make 50, 60, 70 calls trying to find people,” said Ziegenfuss. “I like it because there are so many people in the congregation that we don’t necessarily know, and when they sign up you get to connect with them.”

The team credits the powerful impact of their printed communications to the sharp prints the Toshiba MFPs produce. More than 95% of the materials printed for the church are in color.

“Once you’ve seen the impact of printing in color, it’s really hard to imagine going back to just black and white,” said Ziegenfuss.

Lower cost and faster print turnaround

When you look at the sheer print volume, outsourced color printing could mean spending tens of thousands of dollars more each year. By producing materials in-house, organizations not only have control of costs, especially with Toshiba’s low total cost of ownership, but can also control the volume produced and printing schedule. Third-party print shops often have minimum print requirements and undesirable turnaround times.

Several other Toshiba MFP features have enabled the church staff to streamline workflow for improved efficiency when distributing materials and help keep administration operations running smoothly.

• Easily print out crisp address labels
• Print directly on an envelope
• Scan-to-email that allows documents to be emailed right from the device
• Toshiba’s automatic toner replacement program, which detects when toner is running low and automatically sends a new cartridge for replacement

These features have saved the church significant time and money.

“In terms of the quality of the equipment, we don’t have to have an over-abundance of service calls for as much as we use it. We easily reached one million copies just on one copier,” said

Ziegenfuss. “We go above and beyond what the copier was originally designed to produce, and continue to be impressed at the quality of Toshiba’s copiers.”

Beyond Toshiba equipment, the church staff has praised the Toshiba’s service and support, highlighting the close relationship they have developed with their account executive.

“Other companies call us to switch products. We have no desire,” Ziegenfuss explained. “I always tell them we have no reason to switch because we’re so satisfied with Toshiba. It’s a waste of our time to look at something else.”