Tony Abbott, in his political life, has witnessed on many occasions the powerful impact an individual can have through sustained effort and influence. ‘What does it take to make a difference?’ he asks. ‘Essentially, focus. If you decide you want to make a difference in a particular area and you have brains, you have energy, you have people skills, and if you’ve got resources, you can make a vast difference. I think one of our besetting errors is that we underestimate the difference we can make. Obviously the more capable you are, the better resourced you are and the easier it is, but the world is full of people who have made a difference. Sometimes we just assume that there’s nothing we can do. But if you really want to do something, you can’.
Tony adds: ‘When I was a kid at school, one of my Jesuit mentors had a phrase, paucis humanum vivit genus, which roughly translates to “the human race lives by a few”. There are some people who change the world and there is the vast majority who are changed by it. It’s our choice which category we fall into, but the more people who decide to change the world, the better we’ll all be’.
Tony maintains that the impact of Sue’s work goes well beyond a singular financial contribution: ‘Susan has massively raised awareness, she’s given hope to hundreds of thousands of families, and she’s made a significant difference to the way the subject of diabetes is researched and the way people with type 1 are treated. She really has made a difference at so many different levels. It’s never been about her, it’s always been about the cause … All of us need a purpose in life. For most of us it’s keeping body and soul together and being as good as we can for the people we’re close to. With Sue, in addition to those standard concerns, she’s made it her business to be concerned for the wider world, in particular the impact medical research has on the wider world. What drives Susan is idealism of a high order and selflessness of a high order’. Tony says that Sue’s motto is ‘Never underestimate the power of one’.
Indeed, Sue is a strong believer in creating your own future and earning the right to seek support. ‘To be successful with advocating and lobbying, you really need to put your hand in your pocket and enlist support from other people’, she says. ‘We started with the little fundraisers and every dollar absolutely counts. It is a matter of working to develop a network of supporters, keeping people up-to-date and showing the progress you make. The more effort you make, the more people are prepared to support you.’
Ita Buttrose knows full well how personal donations are the backbone of philanthropy. ‘The generosity of the average person is amazing’, she attests. ‘They may not give large sums of money, but people on small or standard incomes are very, very generous. The $5 here and $10 there, when you get a lot of them, add up to a large sum. It shows the spirit of giving that exists in Australia.’
Another fundamental part of Sue’s approach is her belief that big business should give more. ‘It’s a win-win’, she says. ‘Ordinary Australians give a lot. They are incredibly generous. Business needs to support areas that don’t get a lot of support. Times have changed and we must all do what we can to contribute. And when it comes to asking for government money, you need to put some in yourself and you need to find backers.’
Integrity is another cornerstone of Sue’s style. Gus Nossal says, ‘Trust is a very important quality and people will contribute far more willingly if they can sense that someone is genuine, that someone is committed and doing something for good purposes rather than for self-promotion. It helps the relationship and the cause’.
As a former CEO of the advocacy group Committee for Melbourne, Kate Roffey got to know Sue in business and philanthropy circles, as well as through football: ‘Sue’s obviously a very smart businessperson and knows how to work from the start through to the finish … I look at Sue’s work and she seems to always have a good strategy behind what she does. What I see is a well-thought-out process, a measured plan. A lot of that comes with experience and age, where over time you find the level that you comfortably sit at. You learn where to put your energy. Sue would have seen a lot with her background and her experience and she understands that it’s about channelling time as efficiently as you can—not wasting people’s time, or your own’.
Still, Kate says, she has encountered many instances of a negative Australian response to philanthropic donations in her work with local government: ‘We have to remember that philanthropists are giving money away that they don’t have to give. Instead of making comments like, “They’re just rich people giving their money away to make themselves look good”, we need to realise that, yes, philanthropists may get some profile, their name on the centre or whatever, but it’s still giving. In the US, you don’t go to a university without seeing the basketball stadium named the Fred Smith Basketball Stadium or the Barbara Brown Gymnastics Centre. Someone paid for it and so they get their name on it. In Australia, we hesitate to recognise contribution. It shouldn’t be the reason you give, of course, but if someone does, it is not inappropriate to acknowledge contribution’.
The power of public acknowledgement on a school, hospital or university building is not often a major driver for philanthropists, but it certainly helps to normalise the act of giving. ‘Over the years, my contribution has been acknowledged quite widely’, notes Sue. ‘The Sue and Angelo Alberti Diabetes Discovery Wing was established at the International Diabetes Institute of Monash University in Caulfield. That was to focus on epidemiological diagnosis and research.’ Another example is the Angelo and Sue Alberti Cytometry facility, which was established in 1997 in the Autoimmunity and Transplantation Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Sue was also responsible for establishing the JDRF Danielle Alberti Memorial Centre for Diabetes Complications at the Baker Research Institute in 2002.
The Governor of Victoria, Linda Dessau, describes Sue as a true philanthropist: ‘She gives money but she gives of herself as well. That to me is the mark of a true philanthropist—the generosity of spirit. Giving money is only one element of generosity’.
Sue’s philanthropic horizons have broadened considerably over the years. ‘In the past, most of my philanthropy was around personal giving and asking my direct network to give, with a real focus on fundraising and events’, she acknowledges. ‘Over time, I’ve taken a more sophisticated approach to lobbying government, which is something that happened organically. As I became exposed to more people in positions of influence, I became more adept at sharing the narrative and refining the need in each case. In a way, I have become better at defining the ask at the same time as broadening the audience that I am advocating to.’
Sue has even extended philanthropic support to Olympic dreams. In February 2014, Australian Olympic sprinter Melissa Breen was the stunned recipient of a cheque for $12 000 from Sue when she didn’t receive the funding she’d expected from Athletics Australia upon breaking a twenty-year-old national 100-metre sprinting record. In an article for The Sydney Morning Herald, journalists Samantha Lane and Michael Gleeson reported Sue saying, ‘I wouldn’t know her [Melissa] if I fell over her’, and admitting ‘I don’t understand what goes on at Athletics Australia. I’ve never been involved in it’. But Sue simply thought to herself, ‘This is not fair. She needs to be supported!’
On learning of Alberti’s pledge, Breen was overcome: ‘It is so overwhelming that someone I have never met would be prepared to do that. I am in shock. Obviously the money is wonderful, but it is the belief in me she has shown by making this sort of gesture that is so overwhelming for me’.
In talking about acts of giving, particularly in addressing disease, Sue fully acknowledges her good fortune in business: ‘It’s so important that people who enjoy success give something back. We live in such a wealthy country. The power of the collective conscience and the generous spirit of individuals are the key to driving medical cures’. Having reflected on her own experiences, she is concerned that people wait until tragedy strikes before they consider donating to scientific research: ‘Rather than waiting until you are sick or dying, or it happens to someone you know, I want to inspire people to invest in their own healthy future. Donations of all sizes are important. It’s true that every dollar does make a difference. We’ve got to encourage the next generation of philanthropists to donate and to support health and medical research in Australia’.
Like every serious footy fan, Sue never fails to buy a footy Record on the way to the gates. It is less about the player stats and insights—for a long time she was already privy to this information as a Western Bulldogs board member—and all about supporting the individual selling the publication. Sue being Sue, she always has a chat with the regular vendors, which is how she came to know that one of them needed a new set of teeth. Unable to afford the dental costs, the man had made appeals to several key figures in football for assistance, but to no avail. On learning about his situation, Sue decided the difference it would make to the vendor’s life was worth the investment: ‘He’s there every week, rain, hail or shine. He has some issues and I knew he wasn’t getting much support elsewhere so I covered the dentist bills. It was a few thousand dollars. It made such a difference for him’.
The small and loyal team at SAMRF sees Sue in action and feels her positive force on a daily basis. But beyond the office of Sue’s own foundation, there are many with a story to tell about the impact she has had on their lives. It’s not unusual, for instance, to tune into local radio station 3AW and hear Sue bidding for auction tickets in corporate boxes on the spur of the moment, so that some Bulldogs fans can attend a match. A casual conversation with a football journalist yields his memory of how Sue extended kindness to a friend of his at short notice: ‘I had a mate whose dad was a Bulldogs fan and when they made it to the 2016 grand final, he was devastated he couldn’t get tickets. I rang Sue and within an hour she called me to say she’d got a couple of tickets. My mate sent me a photo of him and his dad after the game—his dad was in tears’.
When friends are going through personal or workplace difficulties, Sue makes the time for coffee catch-ups to offer support or guidance. Close friend Carrie Keller remembers the mentoring and financial support that Sue gave to a young woman early in her career: ‘Sue provided her with a car and financial support to allow her to leave a hostile work environment’.
‘I just really enjoy giving’, Sue says. Leaning forward, with elbows resting lightly on a table, Sue clasps her chin with her fingers and shrugs: ‘It’s a very important part of who I am. I’ve always done it and it was instilled in me at a very young age’.
After being prompted, she tells the story of how she organised a Bulldogs jumper signed by the players for a terminally ill man: ‘I had spoken at a primary school, where little girls were learning to play footy, and one of the teachers was a friend of this particular man, who had daughters at the school. This fellow had been a Doggies supporter all his life and he was dying. The teacher contacted me and asked if there was any chance of getting a signed football jumper from the club’. The request came on Christmas Eve 2016, and Sue knew there would be no-one at the club. She also had thirty people coming for lunch the next day. But she still made the time to go to the club and find a jumper: ‘I knew this man was dying and that it would be his dying wish. I thought, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll just do it”’.
Sue says it was a rewarding experience: ‘I spent a couple of hours with him. He was a young man who had lung cancer. He’d never smoked by the way—he looked a fit and healthy man, very handsome … Gee, he was so happy, you’ve no idea. He loved the Dogs so much, had loved them all his life, and that was his one true wish. Because we’d won the grand final, I gave him a premier’s jumper, which all the players had signed. I would have liked to get it framed, do it properly. I like to get things done all nicely. But I didn’t have time’.
Somehow, Sue finds time for most things. For someone with such a high profile, she remains relatively accessible, so people often seek her out for support. Sue Le Fevre says there have been some odd requests over the years, recalling how ‘someone wrote a letter which basically said, “You’re rich, I’m not, therefore you need to buy me a house”. And another one asking her to pay their child’s school fees. Seriously! Really, there are worse things in life than your kid changing schools. People can be odd’.
But when people approach with a genuine request, Sue goes out of her way to help. She says the main criterion for her personal support is whether she can make a difference: ‘I like to see people achieve their ambitions. I will step in where I can see there is a chance to make a real difference’.
Sue is not one to suffer fools, however, and she has a canny sense of return on investment, so she tends to regulate her contributions and closely monitor the activities of her chosen subjects. This is apparent across the spectrum of her giving, from targeted donations to medical research through to the sponsorship of individuals. Of course, in backing people and causes that she believes in, the policeman’s daughter has rattled plenty of cages: ‘I have had the odd run-in with the establishment along the way. I’m not prepared to stand by if I can see someone is being wronged or treated unfairly’.
Sue sums up her chosen approach: ‘Religion is a private matter, and while I do have a faith in a higher being, I prefer to demonstrate a love for others through philanthropy and my emotional support for women’s sport, medical research, and providing opportunities for people in the community who are less fortunate’.
As an AFL commissioner, one of only a few women in the role at the time, Linda Dessau saw first-hand how Sue’s leadership does not revolve around financial generosity: ‘Sue is a shining example of being a feminine but serious board director and leader in the game and industry of football. She has been a wonderful director, a great role model to show that the world doesn’t fall off its axis when you have female directors as well as male directors. She has done a superb job as one of the early women in leadership in the industry. She brought business skills, personal skills and her resilience’. The Victorian Governor emphasises the criticality of this at the Western Bulldogs during Sue’s time on the board: ‘When things go bad, people can easily start to crumble, as people react to crisis in irrational ways’.
The Governor says, ‘Sue works with people from all different backgrounds. She can turn up looking glamourous, and yet she is willing to, figuratively, roll up her sleeves and get things done at the grassroots level. That’s the superb paradox that is Sue’.