Colorprint puts a quarter of its profits back into the neighborhood

A quarter of the profit is a substantial thing to promise away. At Colorprint, the commercial printer in Burlingame, that promise sits alongside brochures, business cards and requests for a quote. The company says it donates 25% of its profits each quarter to local charities. Its giving page puts the running total above $307,000 as of March 2026. Behind the percentage is an owner who discovered what it felt like to need other people.

The business itself is pleasingly tangible. Colorprint designs materials, prints them and helps send them through the mail. Its customers need reports that look considered, postcards that arrive, banners that can be read across a room and somebody who will pick up the phone when a deadline starts looking uncomfortable. Around those ordinary transactions, the company has built a local giving practice with a specific number attached.

The help that changed the owner’s mind

In the backstory published on Colorprint’s website, owner Mark Jaffe describes a formerly self-contained attitude toward life: he would look after his family, and other people would look after theirs. His wife Samantha’s breast cancer treatment changed that. Friends and neighbors offered their time, concern and prayers. Receiving that generosity altered his understanding of why people give.

As Samantha began recovering, Jaffe decided the business could take a different approach. He saw people nearby struggling to afford food and shelter despite working hard. The response he chose was recurring: give away a quarter of profits every three months. An older company giving page dates the commitment to June 2012 and records a $5,308 contribution for that second quarter.

“My goal? To give away as much as I can.”

Mark Jaffe · Owner, Colorprint

The policy has a clear economic boundary. A percentage of profit follows the business’s results; it is not a quarter of every customer’s invoice. A buyer ordering newsletters is purchasing a production service, with the company committing part of its resulting profit to charity. That distinction matters for anyone tempted to copy the idea. The obligation has to fit the economics of the business that funds it.

Some of the customers also tell the story

The names around Colorprint help explain its place in the neighborhood. Its giving overview lists organizations including LifeMoves, Mission Hospice, CALL Primrose and the Burlingame Community for Education Foundation. These are connections to housing, food, care and schools, close to the everyday concerns Jaffe describes.

There is evidence on the other side of the relationship, too. LifeMoves includes Colorprint in its 2024 impact report. Mission Hospice’s 2010 annual report credits the company as its printer, and its 2012 report lists Colorprint among donors. The education foundation’s 2018-2019 annual report thanks Colorprint for donating the printing. A finished publication can therefore be both a useful product and a contribution in kind.

For a school foundation, the report helps explain where money went and why another donation matters. A hospice publication introduces care, people and work that readers may find difficult to discuss. In each case, the printer is part of how an organization presents itself. Paper selection, legibility and dependable delivery have a practical purpose long after the box leaves the shop.

The real product is a finished job

Colorprint’s catalog covers the familiar contents of a business’s supply cupboard: stationery, envelopes, business forms, folders and cards. It also offers annual reports, catalogs, newsletters, invitations and wedding printing. Larger pieces include banners, posters, yard signs and trade show displays. Promotional merchandise extends the offer beyond paper.

The customer mix follows that range. Colorprint describes serving medium-sized businesses and large corporations. Its published testimonials include marketing coordinators, an event organizer, an office manager, a graphic designer and a print broker. They describe a recurring set of needs: help preparing files, advice on cost, quick delivery and continuity with people who know the work. These are company-selected accounts, but they make the intended buyer easy to recognize.

A particularly useful example comes from real estate agent Raziel Ungar. In an April 2013 article, he described the work behind his annual Burlingame market report: detailed data, photography, paper choices and repeated design reviews. He also linked a video made with Colorprint showing the printing process. The report was a marketing object that had to carry actual information, including distinctions between neighborhood markets.

That is a revealing assignment for a commercial printer. A report must survive the move from a designer’s screen to thousands of physical copies without losing the details that make it useful. The client brings expertise about the subject. The printer brings expertise about making that subject readable, reproducible and ready to distribute.

The postcard has to reach somebody

Mailing is central to Colorprint’s offer. It advertises a full-service mail house and two Certified Mail Experts. Its direct-mail service includes consultation, design review and access to mailing-list vendors. Customers can bring a single campaign or plan recurring mailings. The useful part is getting distribution questions into the conversation while the piece is still being designed.

Its variable data printing service allows individual pieces to carry different messages. A campaign can retain a common visual design while changing content for particular recipients. That gives buyers a way to address different audiences within one project. Whether personalization is worth doing depends on the quality of the audience information and the usefulness of the message. Printing a person’s name does not make an irrelevant offer relevant.

The practical lesson for a buyer is to start with the recipient and the desired action. Then discuss the format and mailing plan before approving artwork. A designer, a printer and a mail house can each do competent work while leaving the customer to coordinate the handoffs. Colorprint sells the convenience of bringing those decisions together.

A quote is only as good as its scope

Colorprint sells custom projects through estimates. Its printing page describes matching the assignment to suitable equipment, including one-, two- and four-color offset and digital presses. Its design page advertises a wholesale design rate for print customers. Free local delivery is another part of its published offer. These details are more useful to a purchaser than a sweeping claim that one company is always cheaper.

Its clearest price commitment appears on the page describing the Colorprint difference: “If the job doesn’t change, your price won’t.” The condition does real work. Quantity, materials, design and delivery requirements should be settled before comparing proposals. Buyers should ask for the whole assignment to be priced, including any design and mailing work they need, so the comparison reflects the finished job.

The same page promises to redo work if the customer is dissatisfied. Together, those commitments put the emphasis on responsibility after an order is placed. For customers facing an event date or a fundraising deadline, avoiding another round of coordination may matter as much as trimming the unit price.

There are alternatives at several scales: another local commercial printer, an office-print chain, a specialist mail house or an online print seller. Colorprint’s own customer testimonials name Staples and Kinko’s as previous choices. Its strongest argument is the combination of familiar people and production help. A buyer with a finished file and a straightforward commodity order may assign less value to that assistance.

The local market also contains working relationships between printers. A June 2024 testimonial on SpeedPro of SF Peninsula’s website, attributed to a Burlingame reviewer identified as L.M., says Colorprint has used that company for years. SpeedPro sells large-format graphics and displays, overlapping with part of Colorprint’s advertised range. The account suggests that a broad service offering can include calling on another specialist. For buyers, the useful question is who will take responsibility for the completed assignment, including any work passing between suppliers.

Repeat business, fewer repeated conversations

The website offers password-protected storefronts for individual business customers. These let returning buyers reference previous projects and reorder stationery, cards and marketing materials. The feature fits a business where the next order is often related to the last one. Once the specifications are settled, the customer should not have to reconstruct the entire conversation.

Colorprint also describes specific material choices: soy-based inks, post-consumer recycled house papers and donating or recycling surplus paper. Its environmental page says its offset plate process uses water in place of traditional processing chemicals. These are purchasing and production choices a client can discuss when specifying a job. They are more concrete than treating every printed item as environmentally interchangeable.

The company even notes that the inks smell better to its press team. It is a small, human detail in a category usually discussed through finishes and turnaround times. The people making the product experience those material choices all day.

For another service business, the most transferable ideas are similarly specific: state what happens when work disappoints, tie an estimate to an agreed scope, make reordering easier, and give a community commitment a schedule. Colorprint’s example depends on customers continuing to buy useful work. The presses, the deadlines and the donations belong to the same business. Every new job gives that quarterly promise something to work with.