Consultants help push Movember Australia haul to $100 million
The annual Movember charity drive has pulled in close to $100 million for men’s health projects, with a number of participants from the consulting world prominent fundraisers.
The donations have been counted for this year’s Movember event, with the men’s health charity raising just shy of $100 million over the month, those proceeds set to go to a range of projects tackling prostate and testicular along with supporting male mental health and well being.
Among the country’s largest fundraisers was Melbourne-based Deloitte audit partner Mark Stretton, who narrowly missed out on a top ten position.
A three-decade veteran of the firm, Stretton has been participating in Movember for the past fifteen years, over that time raising more than $150,000 for the charity. This year he contributed close to $19,000 in donations, landing him at 11th on the nation-wide individual honours board and helping to propel Deloitte to the number one spot in the banking and finance teams category, with $65,000 raised in total across the firm.
“A big thank you to all the very generous people who donated to Movember this year, the highest yet, taking the total over the Movember journey to $152,265,” Stretton stated in a post to LinkedIn. “Your support has also helped me achieve the top fundraiser in the Movember Banking and Finance Challenge for Movember Australia. Why do we do this? Because men’s health is in crisis and men are dying too young.”
The $65,000 raised by close to 450 participants from Deloitte, a more than 50 percent increase on last year’s efforts, saw the firm easily top its category ahead of other challengers from the consulting realm, including teams from Accenture, KPMG, PwC, and BDO, all of which also landed in the top ten in collectively raising a further ~$120,000. Accenture placed second, with 100 team-members bringing in a $40,000 haul.
Those firms also featured some outstanding individual fundraising efforts. Runner up to Stretton was Brisbane-based Accenture senior executive Paul Chapman, with over $6,000 raised. Others who featured in the banking and finance challenge top 20 included Ali Qureshi of PwC in Canberra, Sydney-based Grant Thornton manager Jason Feldman, Joshua Langdon of Deloitte in Brisbane, and RSM national health services leader Peter Saccasan.
John Paitaridis – who was appointed as CEO of Australian cybersecurity firm CyberCX upon its formation in 2019 – has meanwhile topped the individual Technology challenge category, personally raising over $11,500 while the CyberX team collectively raised upwards of $32,000.
Brisbane-based Clayton Utz partnership pair Chris Slocombe of Andrew Hay sat atop the Legal challenge category, generating $10,000 worth of donations between them.
The team at Movember note that 2022 donations remain open until next April – with employers invited to match donations in the interim – at which time KPMG will conduct an audit before the funds are distributed to a number of charities, adding to the 1,250 projects funded globally to date. First devised by a couple of friends over a quiet beer in Melbourne in 2003, the charity event this year attracted 333,000 registered participants worldwide.
