Episode 119
Episode 119 of Tales From the Trenches Tuesdays again features Mike Duerksen. Mike is one of those people you immediately feel like you’ve known for years. Also a fellow Canadian, Mike is the founder of BuildGood, a fundraising growth agency helping non-profits across Canada and the U.S. grow revenue and build lasting donor relationships — from first-time giver all the way to legacy leaver. He also hosts the top-rated BuildGood Fundraising Podcast and convenes the BuildGood Summit in Toronto, a two-day gathering of 300-plus fundraising leaders.
We dove deep into something a lot of organizations are quietly terrified of: failure. Mike’s position is clear — innovation requires a dedicated budget, separate from operations, because when you mix risk capital with the money that keeps the lights on, everybody loses. He talked about inviting donors directly into that risk. Be transparent. Tell them what could go wrong. Tell them what could go right. Ask them to be partners in carving a new path. Because his argument is that the right donors don’t just tolerate that honesty — they get energized by it.
Action always yields information. Either we’re going to learn this works, or we’re going to learn this doesn’t work — and it’ll point us toward a better place.
What to Look for When Hiring a Fundraiser
We also spent real time discussing hiring fundraising staff, and Mike had some of the freshest thinking I’ve heard on this subject. He doesn’t screen for degrees. He doesn’t care about CFREs. What he looks for first, above everything else, is curiosity — the kind that’s insatiable. He described the ideal fundraiser as an internal investigative journalist, someone who asks relentless questions, understands the language of donors, and can translate that back to the program team and vice versa. His proxy for curiosity? He skips straight to the bottom of a resume — the hobbies and interests section. Reading biographies. Listening to podcasts. Those small signals tell him a lot.
Second on his list is ownership — the ability to take real responsibility for your work in a field that has no standard operating procedure. But on the long-held idea that fundraisers need to be extroverts? Mike pushes back hard. What actually matters, he says, is how someone approaches problem-solving when the plan meets reality.
This conversation was a reminder of why I love doing this show.
Just click on the picture of Mike below to hear our conversation.
L’chaim,
jack
