Easier Said Than Done: Fundraising Urban Legends Debunked

Status: Partly true
Direct mail's death was, indeed, faked. The perpetrator of the hoax, however, was not direct mail itself but a group of lazy and incompetent fundraisers who have not been able to succeed at raising funds through the mail. Their purpose has been to cover their failure with the elaborate ruse that direct mail is "dead." In fact, direct mail is only marginally less healthy than it's ever been. It has many good and fruitful years ahead of it.