Nedd’s Uncomfortable Challenge passes half-way mark and hits $3.5m raised, 54,000 donations and 11,000 signed up for their own challenge

Nedd Brockmann has surpassed $3,500,000 raised through Nedd’s Uncomfortable Challenge for We Are Mobilise, a charity providing functional care to those experiencing homelessness in Australia. Even though Brockmann finished his 1,000 mile challenge last Wednesday morning, momentum has continued with fundraising now sitting at $3.59 million (as of today Monday Oct 21, 9:00AM AEDT). This has come from over 54,000 individual donations.

Brockmann completed his 1,000 mile or 1,609.34 kilometre run at 6:17 AM AEDT on Wednesday morning in 12 days, 13 hours and 45 seconds at Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre. Brockmann’s time ranks him as the second fastest Australian to run the 1000 miles and places him in the top ten in the world.

Partnering with Brockmann in his fundraising efforts for the second time has been creative company Bursty, who have been driving all creative, content, social, PR, events and sponsorship activity for Nedd’s Uncomfortable Challenge.

This work included producing a 24/7 TikTok live stream for fans to follow Nedd’s momentous journey nonstop with live update shows twice daily hosted by some of Australia’s favourite social, sporting and media personalities including Shepmates, Hello Sport, Matty J, Adam Peacock, Swag on the Beat, Hamish Blake and Luisa Dal Din. Guests included Olympian Jess Fox, UFC Star Alex Volkanovski, young runner Hugo Russell and AFL Legend Trent Cotchin.

Over 4.9 million people tuned into the TikTok live stream with more than 1 million of these coming from overseas, as well as 5.3 million likes and 35,700 comment.   On Instagram there has been over 50 million organic views of Bursty produced content documenting Nedd’s run, including 20 million views of the content piece Nedd shared directly after he finished.   Traditional media coverage has been extensive across Australia and the globe, with more than 2,500 pieces generated to date, highlights included live broadcasts from the Carrie and Tommy Show, Sunrise and the Today Show. (Source – Meltwater).

During Nedd’s final days, his celebrity and media friends came together with Bursty to create Nedd’s Pledge to encourage corporate Australia to get around Nedd and not leave the heavy lifting of donations to the everyday Aussies.   Within 24 hours more than 100 people and organisations had signed up, committing to give their ‘air time’ – be it social space or traditional media space, to promote any brand that donated $100K or more.  ‘Pledgends’ include Hamish Blake, Ben Fordham, Mick Fanning, Ariarne Titmus, Richard Wilkins, Hello Sport, We Mean Well podcast as well as media outlets JC Decaux, Triple M Radio, The Today Show and more. Brands include PUMA, Team Global Express, Commonwealth Bank, the REA Group, Nedd’s Milk and Grill’d have all donated a minimum of $100K, alongside Tik Tok Live who were the first corporate donation.

Altogether, the Nedd’s Pledge group represents a combined audience of over 20 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, plus millions more from the media outlets above. The Pledge is still open to any brand that donates $100K to We Are Mobilise, reach out via enquiries@neddsuncomfortablechallenge.com

The Uncomfortable Challenge has seen strong partner support who were integral in making the event a reality – including presenting partner PUMA, major partners Samsung, LYNX, RT Health, Sydney Water, Team Global Express, Mitre 10, Grill’d, Foxtel, 7-Eleven, JCDecaux, Nedd’s Milk, Accor, and Sydney Olympic Park, as well as TikTok and BarTV Sports who worked closely with Bursty in bringing the live stream to life.

Beyond his own run, Brockmann has invited everyone to join the Uncomfortable Challenge, which kicked off yesterday October 20 and runs to October 29. The challenge encourages participants to embrace discomfort and commit to a personal challenge for 10 days alongside their own fundraising efforts for Mobilise. 11,220 participants have signed up to participate including 1,000 teams.

Says James Ward, co-founder and creative director at Bursty: “Nedd’s efforts on the track are incredible and hard to put into words.  What he has put his body through is nothing short of amazing, and we were very lucky to have had a trackside position to witness something iconic.

“Our role has been to try and manage things off the track whilst Nedd does all the heavy lifting on the track, as well as try and share what he is experiencing with the world so they get a real understanding of the sacrifices he has been making.

“The 310 hour stream, daily shows, daily content pieces and partner content pieces we have created have hopefully done this and I’m very proud of what the Bursty team has done to date.   Alongside Nedd, we are very grateful for the support from our incredible partners and from the public – it’s been a mind-blowing couple of weeks and we have another 9 days to go!”

Says Noah Yang, CEO and founder of charity We Are Mobilise: “What Nedd did over those twelve days captivated the country but thanks to him, will change the lives of so many people.

“Thanks to Nedd and his courageous efforts, we’ve raised over $3.5 million dollars and still growing that will go directly to providing programs that support getting people into housing and providing fresh opportunities for people across the country.”

Nedd has inspired the nation and brought to life the importance of the work needed to address homelessness in Australia. He has shown us that anything is possible, and we’ll be working tenaciously to make both Nedd and the 50,000+ donors very proud.”

(Images credit: Marty Rowney/Bursty)