How Jane Tewson’s incredible idea changed the world for the better
Jane Tewson has dedicated her life to others helping others and along the way has inspired some of the world’s most famous people. Now she reveals how her simple, but incredible idea to change the way charities engage with the community helped her raise billions for much needed causes.
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How much do you do for other people? If you are like me, it isn’t enough. I was introduced to Jane Tewson by a mutual friend last week who said, “You won’t meet someone who spends a bigger percentage of their life helping others”. He was right. We spoke about giving coal at Christmas, dyslexia, Richard Branson, Lady Diana, Gordon Brown, the importance of curiosity, and a life devoted to those who need a voice.
HM: Jane, am I right in saying you grew up in a fairly privileged family with a couple of doctors as parents who thought it was important to give to whoever they could give too?
JT: That’s pretty fair. I had the happiest childhood of anyone I know. My parents were very non-judgemental, and they just saw people as people.
HM: Did your mum drop bags of coal off to those who couldn’t afford it at Christmas time?
JT: She did — she knew the community well, and she was friendly with the ‘coal guy’, so she’d drop off bags of coal to the families who were struggling. She wasn’t a ‘do-gooder’, she was just a very thoughtful person.
HM: Do you think you got your charitable endeavours from her?
JT: I think I saw what you could do for people, but I think that came when I realised I’d flunked all my exams at school!
HM: Is that because of your dyslexia, or because you simply weren’t a good student?
JT: A bit of both. I loved school. I went to a famous English girls’ school in Oxford, and after a family sailing holiday, I wrote about putting the oars in the bollocks of the boat, instead of the rowlocks of the boat …
HM: … not taken well?
JT: … I was given a three-hour detention. Mum was outraged with the school. When she picked me up she said: “You’re not going back to that school. It is not a place I want you at”. I loved learning, I just wasn’t good at exams. I realised then what it was like to be labelled.
HM: You spent time with a friend with Down syndrome when you were growing up?
JT: Mum had a friend who had a child called Jimmy with Down syndrome, and I used to really enjoy spending time with him. I saw something very positive in him. But when I was working at an organisation that was supporting children with Down syndrome, I was appalled that their logo was of a little boy crying. I knew then that it was just wrong. My experience had been something very different. Jimmy wasn’t pathetic, he was somebody with a lot to give.
HM: That labelling of people with Down syndrome as “unhappy and sad” sparked something in you?
JT: It did. I was around 20 at the time. Initially I really wanted to be a youth worker, and I wanted to work with people who were homeless, but I realised very quickly I’m not made of the stuff that you need to be made of to do that kind of job. Second best for me was working to support those people working on the frontline, which is what I’ve spent my life doing.
HM: At just 22, you set up your first charity.
JT: Yes. I was very young, I was very passionate, and I thought it could be done in a different way. I’d heard about a man called Tim Bell, an advertising guru, who sadly died last year. I went and sat in the Saatchi & Saatchi office until he agreed to see me. I explained to him that I had an idea to make charitable giving active, emotional, involving and fun. I wanted to ease the whole interaction between giving and receiving and give a voice to people who didn’t have one. He said, “Here’s £12,000, go and do it”.
HM: And that was called Charity Projects. What were you wanting to do?
JT: To show that charity could be involving, fun, and create a bit of a stir. At that time, I was working quite a lot with The Young Ones, and the team from Not The Nine O’clock News. You’re probably too young to remember …
HM: I remember both!
JT: Good! We had a lot of fun encouraging people to see people as people, and not to look at labels. We did a couple of live shows involving comedians and musicians. The whole premise of what we did was to make sure we didn’t have huge overhead costs. Those were covered separately to any money we created. And we involved the people that we wanted to help in all aspects of our work. The office continually had people who were homeless popping in and out, or people who were doing it really tough, and they were a part of the team. That’s exactly what Igniting Change is now. At Charity Projects, we were working with the community and getting out and about. Then Live Aid happened and brought attention to people doing it really tough in Africa. Richard Curtis, who was a good mate, thought it would be great to do something that would support people in Africa, as well as people in the UK. We launched Comic Relief, and later Red Nose Day, which in the UK was set up to create awareness of the huge challenges people faced both in Africa and the UK.
HM: Charity Projects, Comic Relief, Red Nose Day, Ignite Change … how much money have you raised in your life now?
JT: More than a billion pounds so far, Hamish!
HM: How incredible …
JT: It’s all been so much fun too. I’m better at starting things than running them! I absolutely loved Comic Relief, but there was a time when it was far too big, and it was time to move on. I’ve set up five organisations now, and they’re all going really well. I’m a great believer that when you let go, you let go. You don’t hang around!
HM: When did you run into Richard Branson?
JT: In my early 20s.
HM: Did you walk into his office and say, “Why don’t you cover my wage for three years?”
JT: It was his boat, actually … I said, “I’ve got this idea.” We had never met but a lawyer, Colin, who I still speak to and who helped me set up Charity Projects and Comic Relief, was also Richard’s lawyer. He introduced us, and that started a long friendship.
HM: You asked him to cover your wage for three years, and he said?
JT: “Yes. Fantastic!” He started Virgin Unite 20 years ago, and I was one of the first trustees. I’ve only recently resigned from that globally, although I’m still on the board in Australia.
HM: How would you describe Sir Richard Branson?
JT: He’s a lot of fun. He genuinely sees the person, and not their label. He connects with people by giving them a lot of dignity, and he’s really curious. As a result of visiting the prison here he now runs a program employing people out of prison in the UK, and he’s employed hundreds of people, very successfully. He cares passionately about our world, and he’s a terrific father and grandfather. He has great kids. Very human, very kind, very curious, very deep thinkers.
HM: When did you cross paths with Lady Diana?
JT: She had a passion to work with homeless people. She had something very, very special, and she was keen to come out with us and meet the people who were homeless we were working with. She was terrific. That’s what I’ve learnt throughout my working life. We’re all made of water, and some people have a gift to make people feel comfortable. She had that gift, and the kids would talk to her very openly. She was interested to listen to them, and then try and change things as a result of what she heard. She was a magnificent woman.
HM: Why the move to Melbourne in 2000?
JT: Love! I married an Aussie, an amazing man who still fascinates me.
HM: Moving here didn’t stop your desire to help people.
JT: No … well, so many need it. I’m appalled at the circumstances that many people live in here in Australia, and some of the human rights abuses going on. I was lucky to spend quite a bit of time with Tim Costello early on, just because I was interested in what he was doing and where the gaps were. That’s when I decided to set up another organisation, really with exactly the same remit as the other organisations I’ve set up.
HM: That’s Igniting Change. What are you focused on?
JT: We like the really thorny issues, and we like to give people their own voice. Our office, which is donated, is in Balaclava. On any day, it could be full of South Sudanese people, people who have just come out of jail, youth workers. It’s a little hub.
HM: Somebody’s told me you’ve got an amazing ability to bring unusual combinations of people together, for an excellent outcome.
JT: I love doing that! We do a lot with Port Phillip Prison, with the youth unit. You take people who are in a position to employ people in there, and they come out saying, “I want to employ those kids”. They see that they’re resourceful, they’re entrepreneurial, but they’ve just mucked up, sometimes very badly. But the scales fall off people’s eyes.
HM: You had a day with Gordon Brown, and a group of street kids.
JT: I really enjoyed working with Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor. He is an extraordinary leader. I said to him, “Have you actually met the young people that you’re making policies about?” He looked at me and said, “I accept your challenge”. I spent quite a long time working with him, and the cabinet, to enable them to meet the people that they were making policies about. Young mothers, people who were homeless, growing up in poverty. Gordon said it changed the face of policy making.
HM: Are we doing that enough in Australia?
JT: I don’t think we are. You absolutely need to talk to people experiencing the issues. “Don’t talk about us, without us!” It’s inconceivable to me that we’re still doing that. There’s a huge amount of knowledge out there that’s not being tapped into.
HM: What’s given you your greatest joy over the journey?
JT: My family. We are close. The friendships, getting to places other people don’t get to, and shining a light on them. It is phenomenal the people that I work with — many people have written them off, and they’ve brought such light to my life.
HM: Where are you wanting to shine the light most brightly in the next few years?
JT: Humanity. We can all do something. Encouraging people to start a conversation with someone they wouldn’t normally. To see them as a person, not a label, and ask questions.
HM: What are we going to see that’s positive out of COVID-19?
JT: I’ll tell you what we’ve seen … When COVID-19 struck, we rang up the 68 projects we’re working with and said, “What do you need?” Initially, the message was very clear. “Connectivity.” A lot of the youth workers and charities said they were not able to talk with their clients because they weren’t online; they needed phones. Immediately we got in touch with the Igniting Change family, and people rallied around, donating goods. Since then, with the support of Lauriston (Girls’) School, we’ve been delivering 400 emergency care packages a week, and they’re all supplied by people we know! We find what people want, then we send out the list and people deliver it directly to those in need of it. It’s not costing us a penny, and the most extraordinary people are doing the deliveries. That’s on top of everything else we’re doing.
HM: That’s cool.
JT: It really is. See the person, not their label, and don’t judge — dig deeper. Be kind. At the Black Lives Matter march recently, I saw that there was a great placard that said, “Human Kind”, and underneath it said “Be both”.
HM: Spot on. When you look at the Black Lives Matter commentary and conversations, what do you feel?
JT: I feel very optimistic. Things have got to change; they’re unacceptable. We all know about the rates of imprisonment, and anyone that thinks they’re any better than anyone else completely baffles me. I always look at the positives. There’s a chapter in Martin Flanagan’s new book about a wonderful woman called Mariam, who arrived here from Somalia, now lives in Brighton, and has five kids. Imagine being black in Brighton. They all faced a lot of prejudice, and she thought, “I’m going to nail this one! I’ll get a job as a cleaner, just so I can experience how the other people in life work. I’m going to rip down the fence around my garden, open it up, make it into a community garden, and I’m going to change things”. And she has. She’s changed Brighton. It is phenomenal. An unbelievable woman. She is just so beautiful. It’s amazing seeing the people pop into her garden, and the people she gets to talk with. We need more Mariams in the world, and we need to give them their own voice.
HM : Wow. Tell me why you wrote Dying To Know.
JT: I had a period in my life when I wasn’t well, and a lot of my friends had died, sadly, from being sick. Inspired by my sister in law and Andrew Knight, we created a book.
HM: Is that Dying To Know?
JT: It is. I’m really proud of that project. It was a recipe book for life and death. It seeks to break the silence around death and dying and stimulate a discussion that genuinely connects people on the most profound level.
HM: Your best friend, Kerry, was dying of ovarian cancer. Was it your idea for her to put the coat hanger on her bedroom door handle when she wanted to talk to you about death?
JT: It was.
HM: Just a way of saying, “When you want to talk, let’s talk”.
JT: It was just really good not to have to say, how are you? When you’re dying, it’s a pretty daft question to ask, but I didn’t know how else to ask it! We arranged her funeral together, we managed to have the hard conversations, and it made it a lot easier for her family because she knew what she wanted.
HM: Another book you did is called Small Ways To Shape Our World.
JT: We asked the people who we worked with, ‘If there’s one thing you can share with the Igniting Change family, what would it be?’ I remember asking somebody who struggled with substance abuse, and they said, “No kid dreams of becoming an addict”. So powerful. And one said, “People who need love the most often ask for it in the most unloving of ways”. They came up with some corkers.
HM: Do you have a broad philosophy after all you’ve done?
JT: Be curious. I’m very curious. I’m always keen to start a conversation with somebody that I wouldn’t normally start a conversation with, and to ask, not assume. A big thing in my working life has been the importance of working with people, and not just giving to them.
HM: You are big on that differential, aren’t you?
JT: I am. A lot of philanthropy is about giving to people, whereas for me it’s about working with people. It’s really important to involve the people who need the support in the decision making. I don’t know what it’s like to live measuring pieces of white bread out every day for my kids to eat, but a lot of people do. It’s best to talk to them first hand, rather than make assumptions.
HM: A life devoted to helping others … that really is significant.
JT: There’s nothing special about me — I’m just lucky. I’ve got the best job in the world! I can go anywhere, do anything, and what I find is everybody wants to help. How good is that! If you put some thought into why you’re asking somebody to work with you, very, very rarely do people say no. We’ve got this extraordinary group of people around us. I love the courage of the people that I work with, and I don’t think people realise what they’re missing out on. You get much more out of it than you put in.
You can read about Jane and her team of incredible people in The Art of Pollination.