This year’s Kiltwalk grew by 200% and rocketed into the UK’s top mass fundraising events. This progress was unthinkable in 2015 when it was wracked by crisis. Writing exclusively for TFN, Sir Tom Hunter gives the inside story of a remarkable transformation.

£4.6 million raised for nearly 2000 charity causes by over 20,000 walkers – the Kiltwalk by numbers in 2018.

It makes me immensely proud of the 20,000 walkers who got out there and walked the talk, raising money for the extraordinary causes they believe in.

Joanna Lamb, 17, defines everything there is to know about the Kiltwalk.

She led out our walks in Edinburgh and completed The Wee Wander; her abiding principle, “I will not let my cancer define me”. She raised thousands of pounds for children’s cancer retreat It’s Good 2 Give.

Joanna has terminal osteosarcoma and is giving her all to causes she believes in – simply magical, a spirit that if you could bottle it, would lift our entire nation up.

The 2018 Kiltwalks are over, the lowest cost fundraising platform in Scotland is thriving and is now one of the UK’s most successful mass participation events.

Now it’s time to get ready for 2019 but before we do, let’s answer the questions a lot of people ask me.

Why did we get involved and how did we turn it around from the dark days of February 2015 when major charities quit the Kiltwalk amidst rancour over the events costing more than the money raised for charity? The reason was simple – it looked to the Hunter Foundation like a fantastic model that had simply over extended itself and had not tempered ambition with a good old-fashioned focus on costs versus impacts.

Then chairman Mike Ure asked us to get involved knowing full well it was a pretty big challenge with the media, charities and some participants pretty much going negative. But we like a challenge and Mike had real passion for the Kiltwalk.

We agreed to take it on, installed a new board with significant business and charity experience, and took some tough decisions to right the ship. We cancelled two out of five walks that year as the costs were simply out of control.

So how do you turn a brand around and make it one of the most successful participation events in the UK and what can the sector learn, if anything, from that experience?

I’d love to say we have a Midas touch, but we don’t. The board simply focussed on four critical areas. Firstly, re-engaging with all the participating charities, particularly the four that had left, and opening up an honest dialogue with the media and partners.

Secondly, we retained some core experience from the Kiltwalk team and recruited a highly focussed and motivated group of individuals, led by Paul Cooney, a long-term partner of the Hunter Foundation through his work with Radio Clyde’s Cash for Kids. We reckoned with half the staff we could do twice as much.

Thirdly, and importantly, we reviewed every single line of the cost base, from offices to paper clips, marquees to crisps and applied the principles of business and tendered or negotiated fair and equitable cost reduction on what was a substantive opportunity for service providers.

Lastly we pulled in incredible sponsors prepared to go on a journey with us in the full knowledge this was a turnaround; if we succeeded so did they, but equally if we failed…

Royal Bank of Scotland, Arnold Clark and Johnston Carmichael put their hands up and we in the Hunter Foundation pledged to underwrite any cash shortfalls in the running costs so every pound raised by walkers went to their charities and did not subsidise operating costs.

This was the only message we could take to the charities who felt aggrieved by the Kiltwalk of old to engage them again to participate. Did they all jump at the chance? No. Rightly they tested us out; would we be true to our word, was the honesty a smoke screen?

Over the course of time we won them back but we also started to learn from doing – what worked, what didn’t, which costs could we prune, where could we never compromise (safety!)

In 2016, our first year of managing it on our terms, 7,500 walkers pitched up; 2017 saw an 87% increase to 14,000 walkers (by this time the charities really were on board) and now as we close out the books for 2018, we can report 20,082 walkers.

At The Hunter Foundation our message had always been we will commit significant funds to this and once the walks and all operational expenditure are funded and breaking even (through the walker subscription model) the surplus funds would go to charity.

So in 2017, when we realised we were heading to break even, we thought of two things; firstly we’ve put this infrastructure up so why not let any charity walk, not just children’s charities? Secondly, for our foundation it was a unique way to support as many charities across Scotland as we could so we offered, on a test basis, to add 40 pence to every pound raised by walkers.

As we head for the 2019 Kiltwalks, I can absolutely confirm that our 40p for every pound raised is here to stay, which surely for anyone reading this must make it an uber compelling proposition to raise money for what you care about.

For me this article is about thanks. Thanks to the walkers and our volunteers who give it their absolute all for amazing causes, causes they truly care about. Thanks to our sponsors who put a bet on the Kiltwalk Team led by Paul Cooney – thank you Paul and all the team. And thanks to the charities who tested us out and figured we were in it for the long haul.

What’s next for the Kiltwalk? We are always exploring opportunities, always thinking about overseas walks, different challenges but as my dad would always tell me, “stick to what you know works”.

Our focus is to enable as much money to be raised for as many charities who can muster up the time, energy and commitment to walk for what they care about.

The true secret sauce of the Kiltwalk, the Midas touch, is our walkers; thank you from the bottom of my heart, Scotland’s charities need you.

Sir Tom Hunter is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist.