Merkle (www.merkle.com), one of the nation’s largest and fastest growing customer relationship marketing agencies, today announced that its Response Management Group has been selected by Feeding America to manage processing of the nearly half million responses generated each year by the organization’s direct mail fundraising program. The work includes caging, data capture, acknowledgement fulfillment, and call center services for donor support. Feeding America is the nation’s top domestic hunger-relief charity that supplies food to 25 million Americans annually.

Merkle’s Response Management Group’s comprehensive service solution includes the scanning and imaging of checks and reply documents. Merkle’s highly efficient processing operations provide a more cost-effective means for nonprofits and associations to store and access documents. Within 48 hours of receipt, Feeding America’s staff can view images through Merkle Response’s proprietary Arch-e web-based image viewer application. As a result, Feeding America is able to respond to donor service inquiries more quickly and effectively.

Lisa Nelson, Manager of Gift Administration, Feeding America, said, “We went through an extensive RFP process and Merkle’s Response Management Group emerged as the clear winner. We had been looking for a vendor that could provide both caging services tailored to fundraisers and bank lockbox services, and narrowed our choices down to two. In the end, we selected Merkle because of its dedication to state-of-the-art technology, clean and efficient facilities, secure operations and strong process management. We also needed a caging facility that can not only handle what we do now, but also support what we may be doing in five years. We’re excited about what the future holds for our relationship with Merkle Response.”

Bill Sayre,President, Merkle’s Response Management Group, said, “Merkle has had the privilege to work with Feeding America for the past seven years in an agency capacity and has helped grow the organization’s fundraising revenue more than four-fold during that time. We are especially thrilled to now have them as a Response Management Group client. Feeding America is an organization that does great work to make a difference in the lives of hungry Americans, and its work is especially important now when the need is so great. We will ensure Feeding America’s contribution processing runs smoothly and efficiently, so the organization can focus more of its staff and financial resources on its mission.”