With Canada Post and CUPW continuing their negotiations, many of us fundraisers are having flashbacks to 2024 year-end, when an unexpected postal strike derailed months of work.

What happened next was something of a natural experiment: without mail, would donors simply move online? Would digital pick up the slack? Or would revenue vanish altogether? The 2025 Direct Mail Benchmarks report has the answers. And the numbers tell a powerful story about just how essential mail still is to Canadian fundraising.

When the mail went quiet

When we published 2024’s Benchmarks report (encompassing the results of fundraising in 2023), we were looking at the “new normal” for direct mail fundraising. It was stability after the wild swings of the pandemic and post-pandemic years. But 2024 turned out to be a “great upheaval”.

When the strike hit, 33% of participating Benchmarks organizations cancelled at least one house mailing, while 97% of participants delayed at least one house mailing. The impact was swift and severe. For those charities, we estimate lost revenue to be around $2.5 million. Extrapolated across the sector, the picture is even starker: Canadian charities may have lost as much as $1.2 billion due to the strike.

And the damage wasn’t limited to the present. With 4,391 new donors never acquired because of cancelled acquisition campaigns, charities also missed out on more than $600,000 in future revenue.

Didn’t donors just shift online?

Some fundraisers, marketers, and leadership assumed that donors would simply switch channels and make their gifts online instead. After all, mail’s a dying channel, right?

But the data paints a different picture. Overall revenue was stagnant year-over-year, rising just 1% – so it might seem like the strike had no impact.  However, total donors dropped by 9% between 2023 and 2024, representing more than 30,000 fewer people giving to Canadian charities in 2024.

The truth is that some donors shifted to digital, but many more simply didn’t give at all. And now, those lapsed donors will need to be reactivated (and with reactivation rates around 11%, that’s a much tougher proposition than renewing, which is 59%)

Even with year-end campaigns sidelined, direct mail still accounted for 61% of total fundraising revenue in 2024 and generated 56% more revenue – $13.1 million – than other channels. If there was ever a year to prove that mail remains the backbone of donor engagement in Canada, this was it.

Benchmarks under pressure

The benchmarks themselves reflect the disruption. Response rates on house mailings dipped from 6.25% to 5.59% without year-end powerhouses to boost them, while renewal rates fell slightly to 59%. Average house gifts, however, rose 6% to $112, though average gift from acquisition dropped sharply from $68 to $56.

The most encouraging results came from multi-channel donors, who proved more valuable than ever. Donors who engaged across mail and other channels gave more—with an average gift of $182 compared to $112 for mail-only—and more frequently, at a rate of 1.48 gifts per year.

Subsector spotlights

The story varies when we look at Hospital Foundations, long known for strong donor generosity; they continued to see above-average gifts, with donors giving $190 compared to the sector average of $112. However, response rates plummeted from 0.66% to 0.33% and renewal rates dropped 6% to 54%, below the sector average of 59%. Considering the disenfranchisement we see from people in Canada about the state of our healthcare system, this doesn’t feel surprising to us.

By contrast, community and social service organizations found themselves in a stronger position. Response rates and average gifts both increased, with donors giving an average of $130, while renewal rates improved from 52% to 62%.

So what happens to mail fundraising in a postal strike?

The story of this year’s Benchmarks is ultimately one of disruption and resilience. The postal strike stripped away the predictability of year-end campaigns and forced charities to reckon with just how much their fundraising relies on mail.

What the data shows is that direct mail remains a cornerstone of donor loyalty and sector sustainability. Even when sidelined at the most important moment of the year, it outperformed every other channel.

The lesson for fundraisers is not to scale back mail, but to integrate it more effectively—pairing the emotional power of a letter with the convenience of online giving to meet donors where they are.

The 2025 Canadian Direct Mail Benchmarks report offers more than numbers—it offers insight into the state of fundraising in a year defined by disruption. And it serves as a powerful reminder: in good times and in crisis, direct mail remains essential to Canadian fundraising.

Want to be a part of the next Benchmarks report? We invite any Canadian charity with a mail program to apply – and as a special thank-you, you’ll get your very own benchmarks report (plus early access to the overall report!). Curious to know more? Sign up now, and you’ll be on the list to hear from us with data details in early 2026.

Charlotte Field is a fundraiser and digital native with more than 15 years of experience in communications and fundraising. She’s a strategic thinker with a mind for integrating offline and online tactics to create cohesive donor journeys that generate exceptional results. As a partner at Good Works, she’s worked with charities of all sizes and causes to raise funds from annual and legacy donors. Charlotte is a co-author of ‘You Can’t Take It With You: The Art & Science of Legacy Fundraising’ (2019), a regular on the conference circuit, and pronounces ‘GIF’ with a hard ‘G’.

 

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