The best part of Stephen Sutton’s bucket list?
Howard Lake | 2 May 2014 | Blogs
Fair enough. Raising £3.1m for Teenage Cancer Trust in record short time when you are still a teenager is the crowning achievement of Stephen Sutton’s bucket list of wishes. Others have usefully explained how and why this transformative sum might have been raised from so many people.
But for me, there is an equally important point on Stephen’s bucket list, and one that has gone unremarked as far as I can see. It is number 42 (oh number of universal significance).
“42) Inspire someone else to become a doctor or fundraiser”
I’d suggest that Stephen has a good sense that he is a fundraiser and that the activity he wants to inspire in people is not just giving, essential though that is, but fundraising. In what he thought would be his final Facebook update on 22 April, he urged people “if you want to carry on the fundraising please do”.
And yes, I am very proud to think that he equates the remarkable profession that I belong to to that of the art of medicine.
I believe he is right – if you want to go on making an impact for positive change in this world, then inspire or support someone to become an excellent fundraiser. We need more of this rare breed. I’m relaxed about whether they are a professional fundraiser who does it as a job, or it is someone like Stephen who has no fundraising qualifications or work experience to his name.
Since he has marked number 42 on his list as ‘DONE’, I would say that is the best impact his campaign can have. Indeed, a good fundraiser could well raise many multiples of that £3.1 million during her career. That is worth a lifetime of thumbs up from us all.
Stephen Sutton’s JustGiving page shows that income is still increasing.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.