MDC breaks through $50 million donation mark (and extends more lives affected by breast and ovarian cancer)
Last night at The Langham in Melbourne, the culmination of many months of organising and fundraising came to a brilliant conclusion with the announcement of $3.5 million as the 2025 donation from The Mother’s Day Classic Foundation to fund life-saving breast and ovarian cancer research, up $200k on the 2024 donation.
Of this total amount, $2.13 million will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) and $1.37 million to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) in accordance with the selection of MDC participants.
Unfortunately, both breast cancer and ovarian cancer have taken the ultimate toll on women dear to me, with my sister Mary passing away from breast cancer in 2012, aged 44, and ovarian cancer taking the life of my valued colleague and friend, Kristen Florance, in 2018, at age 53.
Neither the NBCF nor the OCRF receives a cent of government funding so these donations have a massive impact on the investment in research that both foundations can afford to fund.
The $3.5 million donation took the total funds raised over the past 28 years by the Mother’s Day Classic beyond $50 million.
All of that money goes directly to research, contributing to the five-year survival rate for breast cancer, increasing from 84 per cent to 92 per cent since the Mother’s Day Classic started in 1998.
Recently-funded research includes that of Professor Scott Mueller (Rejuvenating the lymph nodes to treat breast cancer metastasis) and Professor Kylie Gorringe (Investigating new treatments for mucinous ovarian cancer).
It was an extra special night for me as joining me, Michelle, Guy, Nikki, and James was Mary’s son, Ned (far right in the photo, above).
Ned has spent the last seven months in Sydney on his gap year and flies back to London today to prepare for his first year at the University of Nottingham, where he will commence a Bachelor of Science, majoring in agriculture, next month.
This year, 122 generous donors tipped in a total of $24,637 to my 2025 MDC campaign, making me the second-highest individual fundraiser nationally and taking my 15-year fundraising tally to $163,402. This makes me only the second person to have raised more than $150,000 in the history of the MDC (the other person, Lauren Coulter, who has raised over $300k, is pictured with me at last night’s event, below).
A special thanks to my very generous ‘four-figure’ donors – Robert and the team at TCT, Mark and the team at Concentis, Maarty, James and the team at LTI/Smaart, John and the team at Role Relay, and Ross and the team at Infinity Staff Global.
Thank you to all my donors.
Every dollar counts on the road to no deaths from breast and ovarian cancer.
In line with MDC’s commitment to innovate, they are trialling a half-marathon event (only at the Melbourne MDC, held at the Domain) at the 2026 MDC.
I gave up running a long time ago, so I won’t be participating, but my sons are definite prospects for a start.
It’s another exciting part of the MDC board’s commitment to keep growing the event.
If I can raise more than $37k next year, then I will have exceeded $200k in total donations. This will mean a fifty per cent uplift on this year’s total, so if you want to help me do this, then please get in touch.
Mother’s Day next year is 10 May – put it in your calendar.
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$3.3 million donated to breast and ovarian cancer research (thanks to you)