Michelle Rodger: Motivator behind the Moonwalk

Published on Saturday 14 June 2008 14:42

WHEN I was just 15, I put my last 55p in a charity tin and walked home to Pollokshields from Glasgow city centre. It was a month after my gran had died of cancer and I popped my bus fare in a cancer research charity collection tin in her memory. A small gesture, but it meant a huge amount to me back then.

Since then, I have been involved with a lot of charities, few requiring as much effort as the most recent, though. In the early hours of this morning, I power-walked 26 miles through the streets of Edinburgh in a beautifully decorated bra (thank you, Debs) to raise money for Walk the Walk, a charity that raises funds for breast cancer research.

Now, those of you who know me will understand when I say I'm not a girl who chooses to walk anywhere. Give me four wheels any time. Even two (twin-valve as opposed to pedal power, obviously) is great. But walk for six hours? In my underwear? Two years in a row?

Believe me when I say that it takes tremendous powers of persuasion, not just to get me off my backside but also to encourage the 11,999 other bra-clad walkers (including men) and hundreds of organisational volunteers that took part today.

What inspired us? A fifty-something breast cancer survivor with a zest for life and a brilliant, fun, spectacularly successful, entrepreneurial idea to raise money.

Nina Barough woke up one morning with a plan to power-walk the New York Marathon in a decorated bra to raise money for breast cancer and in November 1996 her dream became a reality when she and 12 other women took to the streets of Manhattan in their bras, generating more than 25,000 for Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research, as well as raising more than a smile from spectators and participants along the course.

Like all good things, word spread and more people wanted to join Barough's next event. But fate intervened, and just two months after the New York marathon she discovered she had an aggressive tumour in her breast. Supporters worked with her to organise a power walk on the London Marathon in 1997, where another 25,000 was raised just days before she was admitted to hospital for a mastectomy and a course of radical treatment.

Barough's idea snowballed and, despite battling cancer, she organised a Walk the Walk team to enter the 1998 London marathon for the second time. Unfortunately, only 25 people managed to get places. Not wanting to disappoint them or waste their fundraising or training, Barough decided to create a one-off marathon for the other 25 girls. The nearest thing to being part of the London Marathon would be to start at midnight and finish at seven in the morning on the day of the marathon in Trafalgar Square. Not for the first time, her determined and innovative approach paid off and the Moonwalk was born.

Since then, Barough and Walk the Walk's hundreds of thousand of participants in Moonwalks and Sunwalks across the UK – and the world – have raised more than 40m. There are walks in Paris, Boston, Iceland, San Diego, Dublin, Peru, Bristol, Holland, Germany, Newcastle, New York and Edinburgh. And Walk the Walk now has its sights firmly set on Italy, South Africa and Australia for more events.

Taking an entrepreneurial approach to charity and the normally frustrating and not very exciting fundraising activities has clearly had an impact. Barough has built her "business" in 10 years into a global entity with a determined and ambitious vision, the logistics and operational skills required to organise massive events from Portobello to Peru and successful communications with participants, volunteers and sponsors.

What makes Walk the Walk different is the person at the helm. She is inspirational, courageous, leads from the front (she takes part too) and motivational – all essential qualities for a successful business leader.

What makes a motivational leader? The ability to inspire hundreds of thousands of women to walk 26 miles in their bras? Or the ability to inspire would-be Apprentices to blatantly lie in a bid to work for you? Both, I reckon.

It's a waste of time to go down the route of criticising the Government for not putting enough money into cancer research; the fact that charity money is essential to fund research into curing cancer is nothing short of a national disgrace.

But where entrepreneurship meets fundraising there is quite obviously a huge opportunity to save lives, whether through scientific research or food parcels, by bra-wearing power walkers or wine-drinking couch potatoes.

Just imagine what could be achieved if such an entrepreneurial and motivational leader was driving forward campaigns for organ donation and the blood transfusion service, to name just a couple.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage," said diarist and eroticist Anas Nin.

No wonder Walk the Walk is such a success.