7. Tony Gaston – Growing major donor income from zero to £2m / year

How can you increase high value income for your charity? Clearly context matters - the same strategies will not work for every charity - but if you want ideas and an increased belief that growth is at least possible, then a good place to start is to look at a fairly small charity that’s achieved an impressive year on year uplift in major gifts income. In this episode of the Fundraising Bright Spots podcast, Rob Woods talks to Tony Gaston about the strategies he feels contributed to the way EMMS International transformed its high value results so dramatically in five years. He talks about how he manages to deliberately pause and see the bigger picture, and how this habit has helped him spend precious energy on solving the most important (and lucrative) challenges; he explains what he feels is the single most important thing to get right when meeting supporters; and how learning to act very quickly when you notice an opportunity has helped secure several generous major gifts.