Effective philanthropy is hard to achieve. It’s difficult to access money for a worthy cause but also difficult to give money away effectively with impact.

Yet Australians are generous by nature, as we see in times of emergency. They do hold the hose and give intuitively of their resources and as volunteers for causes they believe in.

When The Hill of Content bookshop in Bourke Street was forced to move its premises, and 17,000 books to a new location, 120 metres up hill, they put out an online call for help, and 300 people braved the July cold to form a human chain to move the books. Most were devoted readers but tradies passing by joined the human chain.

The Australian Tax Office data shows that in 2021 more than $13 billion was donated to charities and six million people volunteered, equating to about $765.00 per adult on average. But thousands more give money in small donations.

The story of the partnership between Bakers Delight and the Breast Cancer Network of Australia is an exemplar of giving and receiving with maximum impact for all involved in the process.

Roger and Lesley Gillespie, a husband-and-wife team established Bakers Delight with a single bakery on Glenferrie Road in Hawthorn, Victoria in May 1980. Forty-five years later, Bakers Delight operates 500 bakeries with more than 350 franchisees throughout Australia with a further 200 across New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

In 1999 they attended the annual dinner of the Williamson Foundation and listened with interest as Lyn Swinburne, someone they knew as their daughter’s primary school teacher, who also played on a netball team with Lesley, spoke of her experience with breast cancer. The Gillespie’s approached Lyn and asked what they could do to help. At that time Bakers Delight was expanding, and they offered to house BCNA in their new offices. Roger and Lesley say, “It seemed like a good thing to do at the time”.

Lyn moved into the Bakers Delight premises in 2000 and was provided with a desk, chairs, access to meeting rooms and IT support, along with the established security of the Bakers Delight Network. As BCNA took on staff, they were given more space.

In 1993, Lyn Swinburne had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 40. She underwent surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy, and was unhappy about the way she was treated – the disrespect from some medicos and the lack of information available about her disease. Cancer was only whispered about; those inflicted felt doomed and isolated. Lyn decided Australia needed an organisation that would better inform, empower, represent and link women diagnosed with breast cancer together, to give them a voice. In 1998, when Lyn set out to establish BCNA, more than 10,000 women in Australia were diagnosed annually with breast cancer.

Lyn had to put a board together and that’s where I came in. I, too, had breast cancer and was most unimpressed by the treatment I had been given and by the silence about cancer. I became the founding chair of BCNA which was incorporated as a public company limited by guarantee on 22 July 1999.

The relationship with Baker’s Delight evolved, after Lyn and Raelene Boyle (a board member and also a breast cancer survivor) spoke at the Bakers Delight Conference on the Gold Coast in 2001. When Raelene spoke, Roger said, “you could hear a pin drop” and although it was not a fund-raising event, the group was motivated to act. Two franchisees auctioned the right to shave their moustaches off, a regional manager offered to have his head shaved on stage, and one of the suppliers put the question to the boss, Roger, asking how much it would take for him to have his head shaved. Roger lost his hair, and the evening raised $36,000 for BCNA.

It did not take much convincing to have the franchisees, and their suppliers, get behind what would become the annual Pink Bun Campaign focused around Mother’s Day. All income from the sale of those buns would go to BCNA. Franchisees took on the challenge and Bakers Delight shops turned pink for three weeks in May. Pink lady silhouettes decorated the walls, some staff wore pink wigs, and some staff even donated part of their salaries. The campaign was a simple way to help as it became clear that the BCNA and Bakers Delight’s primary market was one and the same: mature women.

In 2004, when the pink iced finger buns were introduced, Bakers Delight raised $186,692 and was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Community Business Partnership for their involvement with BCNA.

The Pink Lady brand gained national recognition in 2005 when BCNA connected with the AFL to conduct the Live Field of Woman where 11,000 people stood on the MCG dressed in pink ponchos, together forming the shape of the pink lady logo, demonstrating powerfully that breast cancer was a big problem that needed to be addressed openly. Bakers Delight had been the bedrock for BCNA to reach that point.

By 2009 the total income raised from the Baker’s Delight campaign was $1,020,000, given by thousands of Australians buying their bread and customers sharing their heartbreaking experiences with breast cancer to the employees at Bakers Delight. In May this year, the total raised by the pink bun campaign had more than doubled to $2,412,508. Since 2021, the Gillespie Foundation has contributed an additional 10% of the donations received annually.

Roger and Lesley have their suppliers involved; Manildra Flour Group donates 25 tonnes of flour each year as an incentive and donates directly to BCNA; Star Packaging provides warehousing space and manages their distribution. Between the increased sales and the donation of flour by Manildra, the campaign does not really cost the franchisees anything. “The bulk of the network seems to understand that giving back to the community is the right thing to do.”

Over the 25 years the partnership has operated, BCNA, now led by Kirsten Pilatti, has developed a network of 250,000 members who have connected through information and support services. There were 21,194 people diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia last year, including 221 males. But today there is an organisation that fights to improve the lives and outcomes of all those affected. BCNA’s impact has led to new drugs and treatments included for government subsidy, reduction in out-of-pocket costs for tests and imaging, and advocacy towards improved cancer data collection and reporting. Bakers Delight has been a solid partner for BCNA throughout, providing a secure base, a friend to turn to for advice, but freedom to set and pursue its own goals.

For Roger and Lesley Gillespie, philanthropy is not just about giving, it is about involving others. They have backed an important cause and, in the process, motivated their franchisees and suppliers to involve themselves in their community, and the consumers to contribute what they can in exchange for a pink bun.

Giving, for them, is not about putting their names in lights or achieving, by stealth, an appearance of generosity when aggrandisement, guilt and publicity are at play. Roger and Lesley hold the view that “when one has been fortunate to accumulate funds, it is important to help others. Where we can, we like to give a dollar in the hope that others will follow”.

There are lessons here for those aiming to be involved in philanthropy. And readers, Pearls and Irritations can do with your financial support too.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.