Think Consulting Solutions

Tony Elischer Managing Director

“Consultancy is such a privilege, as it allows you to apply your skills and experience to a wide range of causes and challenges. Working alongside people, you can help them find a way to move to new heights of performance, map a route to success and see things clearly.

After more than fifteen years as a consultant, I still relish every challenge and start every assignment with an open mind and fresh eyes. That way I can apply objective, original solutions to help clients with their challenges.”

Background

Tony began his career nearly thirty years ago as a Community Fundraiser at Help the Aged, where he learned the craft of fundraising at the sharp end, through groups, events, schools and collections. His corporate fundraising skills were also born there, when he wrote the first paper to propose a corporate fundraising team.

After seven years Tony had covered most fundraising disciplines at the charity and was starting to focus on leadership giving and major gifts. This led to a new role as Development Director of the Zoological Society of London. There he not only adopted the two UK sites of the Society but also the Institute of Zoology, the Learned Society and the international field programme. After only six months in post Tony also launched the famous multimillion-pound Save Our Zoo campaign to balance the withdrawal of Government funding.

It was a natural step to become the Director of Fundraising for Imperial Cancer Research Fund, now Cancer Research UK. This was an amazing job that lifted Tony’s skills and experience to a whole new level on many fronts.

Building on these solid fundraising foundations, Tony then took up the mantle of Director of Consulting at the Management Centre, and later Burnetts. From there he set up THINK in 2001. His vision was to create a dedicated consultancy that delivered the highest standards of thinking and practice to the not-for-profit sector worldwide.

Consulting expertise

Tony’s approach is to keep a broad view of all the disciplines and the ways they integrate. From this perspective he is able to tailor original, effective strategies for each charity he works with.

He is involved in a great deal of strategy facilitation and leadership-giving support (at the time of writing he is steering and supporting over £50 million worth of campaigns), as well fund-raising reviews and corporate fundraising work.

He is passionate about the power of creativity and builds it into everything he does, as well as delivering dedicated consulting work in this area. He loves asking why, but he loves asking why not even more!

The other aspect of Tony’s role in the sector and at THINK is as a trainer and presenter, helping to share skills and to inspire people on the ‘art of the possible’. He speaks all over the world and has opened or closed more conferences than any other not-for-profit presenter.

“Tony has been an invaluable support to Maggie’s in helping us shape our strategic thinking, contributing new insights and fresh perspectives and bringing challenge and creativity.”

Frances Milner, Fundraising Director, Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres