About Dare to Hope
Dare to Hope was founded by Paul Dear and his wife Cherie in 2020, when Paul - 1991 Norm Smith Medallist and Hawthorn premiership player - was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
We are a volunteer-led Australian charity with one purpose: to change the outcomes for a disease overlooked for far too long. We do it three ways - we share the lived experience of those this disease has touched, we advocate for greater investment in pancreatic cancer research, and we fund the science that will move survival forward.
Photo Courtesy Nicki Connolly/ Herald Sun
About Pancreatic Cancer
Pancreatic cancer is Australia's third deadliest cancer - and on track to be the second by 2030. It kills more than 11 Australians every day. Yet it has received less than 2% of cancer research funding.*
The five-year survival rate has sat around 14% for a generation, while breast cancer survival has climbed past 90% and prostate beyond 95%. That gap isn't chance. Where research has been funded, survival has improved - the figures here show it.
This isn't inevitable. It's a gap we can close. Dare to Hope exists to close it.
*https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/publications-and-resources/cancer-australia-publications/key-drivers-funding-trends-cancer-research-2012-2020-final-report
Lost Voices
How has it got to this?
Pancreatic cancer is ruthless. Patients are often critically ill by the time they're diagnosed, and decline fast - average survival is around seven months, and only three in ten live a year. When you're fighting for your life, there's no room left for advocacy or fundraising.
Part of why other causes have built such powerful movements is that their champions survived long enough to lead them. Pancreatic cancer rarely grants its patients even a year. Families are blindsided by shock and grief, often traumatised by a loss that arrives in weeks. By the time the dust settles, the moment for action has passed - and the people who lived it are no longer here to demand better.
Their loved ones are left to be their voice. We refuse to let those voices be lost. We want urgent action - so the 4,825 Australians diagnosed each year* don't go through what we went through.
*Source: Cancer Australia
What's Possible
When Australians rally behind a cause, the result is extraordinary. Through the tireless advocacy of the late Neale Daniher AO and FightMND, motor neurone disease has drawn over $180 million in support and transformed research, care and awareness. It is a model of what's possible - and proof that public support - can change a disease's future.
Pancreatic cancer takes more Australian lives, yet still waits for that kind of investment.
This isn't a competition between diseases. It's a gap that shouldn't exist.
Why We Exist
Dare to Hope began with two men taken by the same disease in the same year: Paul Dear, and just months later his father-in-law, Don.
Same diagnosis. Same shortage of options. Same outcome a generation of underfunding has made almost inevitable.
What turned private grief into Dare to Hope was a refusal to accept that this is simply how it goes. Today we are a movement of ordinary people - patients, families, carers, scientists and supporters across the country - who carry that same resolve. Almost every one of us is here because this disease reached someone we love. That lived experience isn't a footnote to our work. It is the reason for it.
Built differently - and deliberately so
Most charities our size couldn't fund research at Peter MacCallum or the Garvan Institute. We can - because of how we're built. We are entirely volunteer-led, with no paid staff, supported by pro-bono experts who keep our cost base exceptionally lean.
In our first full year as an independent charity, 93 cents in every dollar went directly to research.
→ See the verified numbers
What your support funds
$760,000 committed to research in two years - two fellowships at two of Australia's leading institutions, funded entirely by this community, with a third now funded and its research focus being finalised.
In a sector where fewer than one in eight grant applications succeed, that's three years of certainty for the early-career scientists most at risk of being lost to the field.
Official Charity Partner
Each Easter Monday, Hawthorn and Geelong meet at the MCG for the Dare to Hope Match - the biggest event in the country dedicated to pancreatic cancer awareness, with a crowd of more than 80,000 and a broadcast audience over 1.5 million.
The support of our Official Charity Partner, Hawthorn Football Club, and our Match Day Partner, Geelong Football Club, turns one of the biggest days on the Australian sporting calendar into a national conversation about a disease ignored for too long.
The Moment is Now
For the first time in decades, there is real scientific momentum - genomic sequencing, drugs targeting the KRAS mutations present in over 90% of patients, a vaccine in development. The tools to move that 14% five-year survival rate are within reach, and the researchers are ready.
Australia has a proud history of world-class medical research worth protecting - and worth funding. What's missing is funding.
