Lewis Direct

For this week’s Advisor, FS asked a number of agencies and other companies that serve the nonprofit fundraising sector for tips on making the most of the client/vendor relationship. Here are some more of their thoughts. “1. Treat your agency like a partner, not a vendor. 2. Invest in testing. 3. Share and discuss all data as a team to drive strategy. 4. Hire the best you can find and then trust them, based on past performance. 5. Be willing to take calculated risks in order to achieve creative breakthroughs.” — Steve Maggio, president and chief creative officer, DaVinci Direct (www.davinci-direct.com) “Consider [your

Wow! Who ever thought the Gold Awards could be so exciting? The sun was setting on judgement day, and we had a tie for Package of the Year. A first! So, I polled our four judges — Steve Froehlich, director of development analytics at the ASPCA; Tim O’Leary, vice president of McPherson Associates; Paul Bobnak, director of North American Publishing Co.’s Who’s Mailing What! Archive; and FS Senior Editor Abny Santicola. After some soul searching and spirited debate, they weighed in: two for one package and the other two for the other package.

Can an 85-year-old Roman Catholic human-services organization reach out beyond its traditional donor base without compromising its strong spiritual identity?

The answer is a resounding “yes,” according to a successful series of fundraising mailings for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen that was launched this past year in greater Detroit by the Capuchin Province of St. Joseph.