If you notice a surge in moustache-wearers this fall, you can probably thank Adam Garone, CEO and co-founder of Movember. He’s transformed the moustache into a symbol of support, a conversation starter, and a monster fundraiser for men’s health across the globe.
Adam’s work is proof of the new ways young people are giving back. They’re not just writing a check once a year during the holidays. They’re living their values on a daily level and contributing with more than their dollars. That means the future of fundraising is not just about moving people to give money—it’s about engaging them in interesting ways and empowering them to carry your work into their communities.
Tell me what happens in ‘Movember’.
Movember is the month formerly known as November, where we challenge men to grow a moustache for 30 days.
The idea is that you register at www.movember.com, start Movember 1 clean shaven and then for the remainder of the month grow, flow and show your moustache.
And why the moustache?
The moustache becomes our ribbon by which we raise funds and awareness for the fight against men’s cancers.
Each of the guys becomes a walking billboard promoting men’s health.
After all, if you’re sporting a moustache for the first time in your life you will be compelled in meetings and out socially to explain your new look. The moustache opens up conversations about prostate and testicular cancer, conversations men don’t normally have.
What about the other 11 months of the year?
Last year the campaign raised $24 million USD and was run in the US, Canada, Australia (where it originated), New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and Spain. We had more than 172,000 registered participants, more than 600,000 individual donors and had 28 end of Movember parties attended by around 30,000 people. When you run an event on that scale it’s a year round effort.
Throughout the year we work closely with our beneficiary partners who administer the funds we raise and report back to the participants on the impact they are having from the funds they raise.
So you’re growing moustaches, you’re throwing parties, you have sponsors like DC Shoes, Canadian Club, Quiksilver. That’s a pretty new type of nonprofit, isn’t it?
One of our stated aims is not to be like a typical charity—we don’t do auctions, we don’t do dinners, we don’t do runs or walks. We grow moustaches!
To engage men in a charity about cancers that affect men you need to approach things very differently. First and foremost, Movember is FUN, it’s irreverent and a little anti-establishment but it’s for a critically important cause that has long been neglected. It’s this combination that engages men and women in the campaign.
Your background is in business and marketing. I want to know how the work you’re doing now is different than the work you were doing in the software industry.
There are very few differences. Movember is a brand, we have customers, we have a product that needs to provide real value to in order to engage our customers. We use web based technologies and social media to efficiently reach our customers and operate the campaign.
I don’t like the term not-for-profit and we don’t use it at Movember. We are all about profit—our fundraising and administration costs run at 9% of the funds we raise. The only difference is how the profit is applied. In our case the profit is used by our beneficiary partners—the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Lance Armstrong Foundation to fund programs that help improve the state of men’s health.
So you can see that we run Movember as a business.
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[...] but whether or not I can participate, I really like what TOMS is doing here. I like it for the same reason I like Movember, the charity that raises money for men’s health by asking supporters to “grow, flow and [...]