The Sausage Sizzle That Started A Movement
Michael Sheldrick didn’t come from money. Or status. Or even confidence, really.
He grew up in Perth, Australia—the exact opposite side of the world from where he lives now in New York. “If you drilled through the center of the earth from here,” he says, “you’d come out in my hometown.” He jokes about the distance, especially now that his parents are trying to visit their granddaughter. But there’s more than geography in that gap. There’s also the distance between who he was then—and who he’s become.
As a kid, Michael struggled. “I sucked at school, wasn’t good at sports, didn’t have a lot of self-confidence,” he says. “But I had one teacher who believed in me.” That teacher made a deal with him: if Michael worked hard, he’d work with him. That changed everything.
Within a few years, Michael went from the bottom of the class to the top. He got into law school. But he never forgot that moment—that first person who gave him a shot when he didn’t believe in himself.
That sense of gratitude turned into action. While most of his classmates were angling for internships, Michael was organizing quiz nights and asking local businesses for free vouchers to help raise money for school projects in Papua New Guinea. The first event raised $1,000. It was something. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t enough.
“I started asking—who’s paying the teacher’s salary 365 days a year? Who’s making sure these kids eat every day, not just when a charity dinner is held?”
He realized what a lot of well-meaning volunteers don’t: charity alone won’t fix poverty. “No amount of lemonade stands or quiz nights were going to raise the billions needed to end extreme poverty,” he says.
So when he met the other founders of what would become Global Citizen, everything clicked.
Back in 2009, social media was just emerging as a tool for influence. Michael and his co-founders started with an app—one that let people take action on global issues. But the big question remained: how do you get millions of people to care? How do you scale that kind of engagement?
That’s when the concerts started.
“We realized people might not pay to come to a show about ending poverty,” he says. “But if we made it cool—if we partnered with artists and made action the price of admission—then maybe we could get people to show up.”
That first concert was anything but glamorous. Michael didn’t know how to run an event. His biggest claim to fame was a disastrous sausage sizzle fundraiser at university that left him with burnt meat and no attendees. But he had belief—and just enough audacity to fake it.
He wrote an email to anyone who might listen. One of them forwarded it to Lindsay Hadley, an American producer who had just moved to Australia. They got on a call. She asked the hard questions.
“Do you have any funding?”
“No.”
“Any artists lined up?”
“My friend’s dad opened for the opener of Bon Jovi once…”
“Do you have budget to hire me?”
“If you raise it yourself, I’ll include it.”
By all accounts, the emperor had no clothes. Michael knew it. “I hung up that call and just felt like—it’s over. This is never going to happen.”
But a few hours later, she called back.
“She said she’d had job offers from all the big nonprofits, but my idea stuck with her,” Michael says. “She asked, ‘Do you really believe this could raise millions for polio eradication?’ I said yes. And she said, ‘Okay. I’ll help you bring this to life.’”
Over the next six months, Lindsay helped them get MTV on board. She landed grants. She brought legitimacy. And somehow, John Legend agreed to perform. That first show had 25,000 people take action for 5,000 tickets—and the Australian government committed $50 million in new funding.
What started as a rough idea became a global model.
Nine months later, Michael was on the Great Lawn in Central Park hosting the first Global Citizen Festival in the U.S., with Foo Fighters, Neil Young, and The Black Keys.
But it didn’t happen because they had the most polished pitch. Or the right pedigree. It happened because they asked for help—clearly and directly. “People underestimate how powerful a well-crafted ask can be,” Michael says. “You don’t need an hour-long call. You need clarity. You need to articulate what you want, what’s at stake, and how they can help. That’s how doors open.”
Over the last decade, Global Citizen has catalyzed over 40 million individual actions, helping to unlock more than $40 billion in global aid and impact over 1 billion lives. They’ve produced concerts across five continents, brought artists to underserved communities in Africa, and this fall, they’re bringing the festival to the Amazon rainforest in partnership with Indigenous leaders.
Still, Michael sees himself as a work in progress.
He recently published From Ideas to Impact, a book that distills 15 years of lessons into 8 principles for policy entrepreneurship. It’s not a memoir, he insists—it’s a playbook. And he’s helping his wife grow her own purpose-driven consultancy, all while raising their 16-month-old daughter.
The scale may have changed. But the mission hasn’t.
“Whether it’s a concert in Central Park or a sausage sizzle in Perth,” Michael says, “I’m just trying to make it easier for people to take action. That’s what matters.”
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