Find, Engage & Cultivate Donors for Your Important Cause

Our principals and senior staff are involved in the strategy, creation, writing, and production of every direct response marketing campaign our agency produces. Our more junior staff are top-notch, but we won’t hand your work off to them and say, “run with it.” Nor will we won’t dial up one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter solutions. Your unique goals and challenges aren’t the same as every other nonprofit and we won’t treat them as if they are. We’ll listen carefully to your input and then we’ll put our 150+ collective years of direct-response fundraising wisdom to work for you.  Our energetic, passion-driven, and friendly team understands best practices, but we’ll continue to innovate and look for better ways and opportunities for you to engage more donors and raise more funds for your important work. 

Numbers, metrics, and analysis are critical and help drive strategy, but it takes bold, emotionally-charged creative to win a donor’s attention. Our results-oriented strategic creative approach will highlight your work in an unforgettable way that makes people care – and act.  While the most effective nonprofit direct response campaigns engage both the “head” (providing facts/ statistics) and the “heart” (story/emotion), industry research shows that “heart” is far more important – and that’s where NRC excels. We’re known for our storytelling – whether sharing the story of a fire-fighter and father of five who gave his life while serving on 9/11; a chimp who finally touched grass after decades in a sterile laboratory; or of a seven-year-old girl who became homeless until another seven-year-old helped rescue her.  We identify and tell stories that move donor hearts and lead them to donate to your good work.

In a world of evolving technologies and communication platforms,  it’s essential to engage with donors where they are – and in a way that enables you to reach them, speak to them, and bring them closer to your cause. Our direct response strategies are built with all mediums – traditional mail, web advertising, email, social media, and more – in mind. When you work with NRC, you’ll get measurable, cost-effective, streamlined strategies across channels. We’re flexible and able to work as a solo agency,  within multi-agency environments, and with internal and external communications and marketing partners, depending on your capabilities and needs. We incorporate the most advanced tools – including artificial intelligence and machine learning – to optimize our fundraising efforts to support your good work.

Leading nonprofit organizations have demonstrated that the “one agency does everything” model is not always in their best interest. While NRC is a full-service agency, we welcome the opportunity to work with organizations on specific programs or projects. We are versed in New Donor Acquisition, Donor Appeals, Lapsed Donor Renewal, Donor Newsletters and other cultivation efforts, Middle Donor Tracks, Monthly Sustainer Programs, Donor Milestone Recognition Programs, and Spanish-language Tracks. Our other capabilities include programs to identify prospects, create awareness and generate leads for Major Donor Development, Planned Giving, and Capital Campaigns.

NRC’s founders and senior staff have been in your shoes on the client side of nonprofit fundraising. In that experience , we never appreciated the “It’s our way or the highway” attitude we got from some fast-talking agencies – and we won’t come busting through your doors with the very thing we loathed. We understand and greatly value that YOU and your team know your organization’s mission, challenges, and goals better than anyone. In NRC, you’ll find a trusted partner ready to listen before we make recommendations. We sincerely believe combining your knowledge and the specific aims of your organization with our direct response knowledge and experience will always result in the truest and most effective campaigns for you.

Our agency’s Principals, Senior VP, and Team have brought home the direct response industry’s most coveted awards that judge not only creativity, but results. Those accolades include the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association Package of the Year award three times, the Direct Marketing Association of Washington DC (DMAW)’s Big Idea (best of show) award, and multiple gold, silver, and bronze MAXI awards. While we appreciate the recognition, winning awards is never the goal. We’re focused rather on creating work that compellingly presents your cause, shows your organization in its best light, and moves donors to generously contribute to your good work year after year.