Episode 127
Episode 127 of Tales From the Trenches Tuesdays is the last in the series that features Mike Duerksen. Mike Duerksen is the founder of BuildGood, a fundraising growth agency helping nonprofits across Canada and the US grow revenue from new and existing donors — with a particular focus on improving lifetime value from first-time giver to legacy leaver. He’s also the host of the BuildGood Fundraising Podcast and the convener of the BuildGood Summit in Toronto, a two-day gathering of 300-plus fundraising leaders. He’s a fellow Canadian, and he knows direct mail better than just about anyone.
The conversation started where a lot of fundraising conversations do — with the perennial question of whether direct mail is dying. Mike’s answer was clear: it’s not. Direct mail remains one of the strongest performing channels in the fundraising toolkit, and the numbers back that up. Yes, costs have risen — paper, printing, postage — but response rates have held. And there’s something else worth noting: donors who give through mail tend to be stickier. The friction required to open an envelope, read a letter, write a check, and mail it back can serve as a signal of commitment. Not a guarantee, but a proxy worth paying attention to.
What makes Mike’s perspective particularly sharp is the way he reframes channel strategy altogether. There’s no such thing as a “mail donor” or a “digital donor,” he argues — there are just people, and people are messy. They see an ad, send a check. They get a letter, give online. The carefully curated donor journey, in his view, is largely a myth. The goal is to show up consistently, provide real value, and let donors choose how they want to engage.
We do the best to show up consistently with lots of value in the world and people are going to choose how to engage with us in different channels.
That philosophy extends to how BuildGood actually approaches mail volume. The era of blasting 14 or 20 pieces per year — a model that, as Mike points out, often had more to do with agency markup on print than donor experience — is fading. In its place is something more thoughtful: honoring how donors want to participate. Some get more touchpoints. Others give once a year and appreciate being left to it. Some respond to a project proposal format. The strategy follows the donor, not the production calendar.
There’s also the flywheel effect to consider. Turn off direct mail tomorrow and the first few months look great on paper — expenses down, margins up. But six to eighteen months later, income starts falling off a cliff. Mail does a lot of work in the background that doesn’t always tie back to a single piece. It builds trust. It keeps the organization present. And it quietly does the long work of cultivation that shows up in bequests, in loyalty, in the donor who’s been giving $500 a year for thirty years and eventually leaves something significant behind.
That’s the case Mike makes — and it’s a compelling one.
Just click on the picture of Mike below to hear our conversation.
L’chaim,
jack
