Tony Elischer

At the 2010 Bridge Conference in National Harbor, Md., last Wednesday, Tony Elischer, managing director of Think Consulting Solutions, said fundraisers should focus on the third “R” — rewriting, as in rewriting how you think and how you fundraise. To do that, he proposed looking at fundraising as four babies — brave baby, baby and the bathwater, looking to the future baby, and fully managed baby — in his keynote presentation, “Futurology 2010: Focus, Determination & Transformation."

An organization’s brand touches a person’s head, heart and spirit, says Tony Elischer, managing director of U.K.-based THINK Consulting Solutions. “A brand is a relationship that creates and secures an emotional connection to a cause in a profound way that leads to a funding preference and volunteer loyalty,” Elischer said in his session, “Brandraising: Securing Share of Mind, Heart and Spirit,” at the 2008 Bridge Conference held last month in Washington, D.C. “Do a brand right, and a donor will trust you. They will tolerate us asking for money,” he said. Branding can make or break an organization. Marketers must own and drive an

This month, as we turn our focus to the international face of fundraising, I’m turning over my column and a large part of the editorial planning for the issue to the charismatic, highly regarded Tony Elischer, who very kindly agreed to act as Guest Editor.

Ah, whimsy. It really is my thing. So I was totally tickled when Convio President Sheeraz Haji walked into a session being presented by Scottish fundraising powerhouse Bernard Ross at the Bridge Conference in D.C. last month. Sheeraz is quite the nice guy, but it wasn’t his mere presence that gave me the giggles.