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When Dotty Gehres retired from her job as vice president of a hospital to become the first facilities manager for Calvary Church in Souderton, Pennsylvania, her first task was to furnish a brand-new building. It proved to be a major challenge. "I didn't know where to look to buy furniture," says Gehres, adding that there was no one to advise her. That's when she discovered distributors.

Woodie Webb, church administrator at Cathedral Christian Center in Glendale, Arizona, knew about distributors but was reluctant to try one. When faced with a major purchase, he knew he needed to comparison shop in order to be a good steward. That's when he finally tried group purchasing.

Kevin Massey is proud of his penny-pinching purchasing. "I negotiate the price of bubble gum at the counter," says Massey, the minister of administration and music at First Baptist Church in Port Charlotte, Florida. "That's just the way I am." Massey continues to use distributors, even after comparison shopping, "just to keep them honest."

Distributors, purchasing networks, or buying groups, no matter what you call them, have one goal in mind: to save churches money. While each distributor works a little differently, most of them negotiate substantial discounts from manufacturers by agreeing to buy large quantities. In return, the distributor is responsible for processing the orders and, in some cases, for customer service. Thus, manufacturers are able to concentrate on keeping their factories busy and their trucks full, allowing them to give the distributors sizable discounts, which are then passed on to the church.

Gehres, Webb, Massey, and thousands of church product buyers like them have bought from distributors just about everything you can buy for a church—from staples to steeples, pulpits to pencils—at discounts that would have been unavailable to them individually.

"We search the country not for the cheapest products available, but for products that offer the best value at a reasonable price," says Phil Setsma, president of The ChurchPlaza Companies.

"Generally speaking, we save churches 10-15 percent of their annual supply and furnishings budget," says Neal Rosner, president of ChurchPartner Resource and Distribution Service. The amount of total savings depends on the church and its level of participation in ChurchPartner programs. "Savings also are dependent on what churches were paying before they started to purchase from us," adds Rosner, who notes that prices are generally discounted 20-80 percent off MSRP (Manufacturer's Standard Retail Price). For example, after comparison shopping, several churches report saving approximately $10 per chair over comparable brands. That means if you need to purchase 300 chairs, you'll net $3,000 savings.

Discounts can be as high as 75 percent off of the MSRP, but don't look for manufacturer's list prices to cue you on product quality. "List prices sometimes are a tool manufacturers use to place artificial value on their products," says Rosner. Likewise, the numbers can be manipulated to make it look as though you're receiving big savings, when in reality the product is never sold at the list price. It's important to compare price and quality with similar brands from other sources to calculate your actual savings.

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