Doing something outrageous, new and fun while working towards a cause is Movember's ultimate goal. This non-profit organization in Australia grew from 30 to millions in a decade wherein they encourage men to join a 30-month challenge of growing their mustache to raise funds for cancer foundations.
The success of the movement can be traced back to 2003 when Travis Garone and Luke Slattery were talking over beers. They discussed on how fashion trends were repeated every now and then. However, they noticed that growing mustache among men disappeared.
The idea was to create a challenge to grow facial hair for one month. They were able to recruit 30 men who were willing to accept the challenge. In 2004, Adam Garone, Travis's brother, registered their movement as a foundation and established a website.
"Trust me, when you're growing a mustache back in 2003 – and this was before the ironic hipster mustache movement – it created a lot of controversy. My boss wouldn't let me go and see clients, my girlfriend at the time, who is no longer my girlfriend, hated it. Parents would shuffle kids away from us," Adam Garone, CEO of Movember said.
By 2004, they were able to raise $40,851 with 480 members (Mo Bros and Mo Sistas) from just 30 members the previous year. All their proceeds were donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia in their purpose to raise awareness for cancers affecting men and to help fund research on treatments to curb the disease.
Three years after, men and women from other countries like Canada, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States joined the foundation. By that time, they were officially launched in the United States and a Movement Board was established.
In 2010, the foundation reached a milestone of having one million members since it was founded and raised a staggering $157,593,318 with a total of 352 men's health projects funded. Members grew to three million by 2012 raising almost half a million dollars.
Their campaigns have reached other countries like Ireland, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France and Sweden. In 2014, the membership grew to 4 million and was ranked 72nd of the top 500 non-government organizations around the world.
Movember 2015 has been officially launched this month and there are rules to follow when signing up for the event. Everyone should begin on Nov. 1 and for the entire month, participants should grow a mustache.
The rule says only mustaches, no beards or goatees. Aside from that, they must act like a true country gentleman throughout the period. At the end of the month, everyone meets up and shave their mustaches clean.
With their vision, "To have an everlasting impact on the face of men's health," Movember aims to fund several projects dealing with men's health issues like prostate cancer, testicular cancer, poor mental health, and physical inactivity.
