We understand you have a choice, and that many of our competitors are located in the VA/MD/Wash DC area. Why should you choose us, a company located in the Houston area? Here are the seven (7) good reasons why:

ACI is a closely-held, minority owned company. Maureen Otis is an attorney who has dedicated her law practice to the representation of non-profit organizations and their direct response agencies.

So, in addition to contracting the services of a company owned and managed by an attorney with expertise in the fund raising industry, your organization will have the added advantage of contracting with a minority owned business.

While large enough to meet the needs of our clients by offering full service donor processing, we are small enough to ensure that your organization will not become "just another client" lost in a sea of non-profit clients and direct response agencies.

While summer time in Houston may be brutally hot, there are many advantages of doing business in Houston. First, the cost of doing business in Houston is substantially lower than on the east and west coasts. Our overhead is lower and the workforce is large. Our lower operating costs are passed on to our clients in the form of lower fees.

Since ACI specializes in donation processing, we understand the unique needs of the fundraising community, and we have a successful track record in meeting those needs. Furthermore because we have focused our efforts on lockbox and related data entry services, we have developed a specialization in this area. Some of our competitors have expanded their services in order to attempt to be a "jack of all trades" only to end up as a master of none. By contrast, specialization has allowed us to excel.

Our staff has experience in customer service banking, accounting, direct response fundraising and legal compliance, as well as computer data processing, so we know the importance of good stewardship and how to deliver it.

Where stewardship is concerned, excellent service is not enough. Therefore, we provide our services in a highly secure environment. By maintaining effective security, we ensure the integrity of our work while protecting donor information and the contributions they make. To protect our clients and their donors we:

Maintain full bonding
Contract yearly audit conducted by an independent CPA firm
Maintain video surveillance of cage and data entry areas
Provide redundant and remote site data storage
Utilize task separation procedures (as confirmed by independent auditors report)
Ensure limited site access by utilizing off-duty police officers; electronically controlled access to office

7. Legal Representation

Legal representation by The Law Offices Of Maureen Otis, P.C. is available to all clients of ACI.