How does this affect capital campaigns? "When we do a building project or capital project, donors want to see the government at the table," Offord says. "They want to see the stamp of approval that it is a legitimate project."

In the States, by contrast, universities sometimes pride themselves on building projects without government funding.

A second difference between the two countries is the prevailing attitude about money. While wealth often is celebrated and talked about in the U.S., Offord said, "Canadians are especially reluctant to talk about money. This is challenging for major fundraisers" since "a lot of money is quiet. It's almost gauche to be too rich."

"I realized we had very common values around client servicing, and what a strategic counsel company could do for charity."

Thirdly, many Americans define themselves by their charitable work. "Canadians are much less like that," Offord says. Alumni giving to schools, colleges, and universities is not as high in Canada as in the U.S.

Marts & Lundy hopes to build on such insights. "Americans very often are not as well equipped to understand the culture," Sinkus said. "Nicholas' understanding and appreciation of Canada can help put them together with us in a way that we think is very powerful."

Marts & Lundy and The Offord Group share a passion for research that creates another tool for strategic growth. "We complement each other very well," Sinkus said. "We both operate with a series of analytics and metrics, and what's interesting is they don't duplicate each other. The Offord Group has a very good capacity for polling, for example. We have a very good capacity for Internet surveys. ...We're also able to take historical information and project it out for capacity."

Offord said he has two underlying principles. "One: we would value building the capacity of organizations - teach people how to fish rather than fishing for them. The second principle was that we would value market research as a way of providing objective information to inform strategy."

Until The Offord Group entered the Canadian marketplace, he says, "The typical trend analysis would be what a consultant had done by interviewing a few dozen people. While canvassing opinion leaders is important, we do want to look at a more statistically valid picture of the entire donor community."

Offord partners with the Innovative Research Group, a public opinion research firm, to conduct a variety of studies, such as peer-to-peer benchmarking and donor attitude surveys. In January, The Offord Group issued a report that found that while Canadian giving grew between 2001 and 2005, "the number of new charities being formed has slowed considerably and the majority of gifts are given to the largest organizations that have trusted brands among the communities in which they work."

The study examined tax revenue reports from about three-quarters of the 80,000 charitable organizations registered with the Canadian Revenue Agency. Offord observes: "We're small and agile and prepared to experiment with research and other tools that add value for clients."