How a Family-Owned Company Dedicated Itself to Do What They Could to Relieve Church Budgets
How a Family-Owned Company Dedicated Itself to Do What They Could to Relieve Church Budgets | by CGM Staff Writer
Large cities are known for providing more opportunities than small towns. And yet, it doesn’t always work that way. Today, opportunities for churches nationwide are coming out of a small community of just 12,000 residents.
Years ago, Salem, Ohio was “on the map.” Its residents were enflamed with abolitionist fervor and made their town a hub for the Underground Railroad. Later, both men and women supported one of the first women’s rights conventions. And still later, one of their favorite sons coined the term “rock and roll.” But when interstate freeways cut through the state, Salem was not on the grid. Left on a small state highway, Salem now serves as a pristine example of “Small Town USA.” In Salem, businesses, houses and farms still pass from parent to child and a sleepy main street is still the place to gather with friends for a cup of coffee.
But there’s more to Salem than meets the eye. More than 100 years ago on Sugar Tree Lane, a businessman started a little printing company. Today, under the leadership of the fourth generation, Mr. Brooke Pidgeon, Church Budget employs 100 people and conducts a thriving nationwide business providing printing for churches. Brooke has been able to keep the company focused on a deep-rooted and long-held family belief in God’s “blessings.” For generations, Church Budget has dedicated itself to blessing churches. And, even while clinging to its Christian roots for over a century, the company has been willing to change as printing changed. The firm even innovated, which led to even greater “blessings.”
Over a decade ago, a member of the Church Budget IT team created an innovative and revolutionary technology that allowed for full color printing at a rate of more than 800 feet per minute. As a result, the company caught the eye of larger firms that needed such services. By working out an exchange of their time and talent, Church Budget was able to form an alliance with a large, multinational firm that agreed to provide them with ink at a rate far below market wholesale costs.
Making a deal to get top quality materials at a rate lower than your competition sounds like a businessman’s dream. The Pidgeon family could have grown rich on the legacy left to them and the windfall profits the deal provided, but they had another idea. The family chose to take the blessing of a great increase in profits and instead of taking that for themselves, passing the blessing along to churches. Brooke and his family are convinced that by helping churches free up some of their budgets through deeply discounted printing, the churches will be more effective in reaching out to their communities and growing their congregations.
Today, the Church Budget team enjoys healthy relationships with hundreds of churches nationwide. They regard those relationships as the most important asset their company has. As a family-owned company, customers seem more like extensions of the family. Brooke and his team work to grow that family every day by respecting the traditions of the past, embracing the innovations for the future, and passing blessings along whenever they can. CGM
Learn More at ChurchBudget.com
