Vistaprint Looks to the Horizon

 For the small business owner, the dynamic online printing and marketing service Vistaprint remains one of the web’s best-kept secrets. This fifteen year-old company operates facilities in six different countries and processes an estimated 57,000 orders per day.

They specialize in printed marketing materials – business cards, banners, postcards, letterhead – at incredibly low prices. They also offer affordable web-hosting, plus a variety of additional services, ranging from business consulting to copywriting and company logo design.

I first heard about this Internet innovator - shall we call them an Intervator? - from my fiance, who recently relied on their products and services to launch (shameless plug!) her own small business, Enchanted Party Tales, specializing in creative and fun high-end children's entertainment. She used Vistaprint software to personally design her site. She also affordably purchased a bevy of elegant, glossy postcards, business cards and promotional materials.

But if Vistaprint is a best-kept secret of successful small businesses like hers, so too are their philanthropic endeavors proving a burgeoning success. The company has spearheaded a wide range of charitable initiatives, most recently organizing an employee volunteer day just last week for workers at their Lexington, Massachusetts, offices.

Their employees teamed up with Boston Cares to plant trees, shrubs and greenery around the Charles River Walkway, while another group of workers joined Lexington Conservation to build boardwalks and other preservation infrastructure in a nearby seventy-eight acre protected wooded region; yet a third group coupled with Community Servings to prepare meals for the ill and homebound of Boston.

That’s only a fraction of the efforts Vistaprint supports. They also have a long history of work with Toys for Tots. In addition, each holiday season, the company sponsers a program in which employees choose organizations to assist, designing and executing their own projects.

Vistaprint’s most commonsense breed of philanthropy, though, comes through their online outreach to charitable groups around the world. As detailed on the company’s site, Vistaprint offers their marketing and promotional supplies and services at very deep discount to philanthropic groups, slashing their already low prices, lending a hand to those that lend a hand. They similarly offer a variety of free services, helping to build stronger charities through services like email marketing and online search profile development.

Vistaprint realizes the nature of their true expertise – promotion - and they utilize their knowledge and resources to equip charities for the best kind of success.