Moustache Fundraising 101: Movember Challenge
Crowdfunding Advisors, FundRazr Team
Hundreds of years moustaches were considered to be a symbol of power and strength for men. In 70s and 80s it turned into a fashion trend between men competing with each other on who can grow the best moustache.
Everything changed in November 2003 when two mates Travis Garone and Luke Slattery from Melbourne, Australia discussing fashion and recurring trends, decided to bring moustaches back. Inspired by a friend’s mother who was crowdfunding for breast cancer, they started fundraising for men’s health and prostate cancer. They found 30 guys who were willing to join their challenge and raise money and awareness for their good cause. That’s how the word “Movember” was created and the movement now known around the world was born.
Since 2003 the Movember Foundation has raised over $550M for 770 men’s health causes and research projects encouraging 4M men and women to participate in the movement.
Now, it’s here again. And you’ve got to be involved, assuming that your friends and coworkers are among the more than 1M participants all around the world, growing facial hair to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues: testicular cancer, prostate cancer and mental health.
Steps to Movember’s Success
Making the movement viral hasn’t happened overnight. The Foundation engaged with a lot of partners, companies and individuals and developed the following steps to success.
1) Using a power of humor
One of the success factors in fundraising for any non-profit is to come up with a fun way for potential donors to raise money and interact with each other. Everyone still remembers the recent Ice Bucket Challenge campaign that became viral instantly and helped the ALS Association raise millions only because of the videos of participants dumping ice water on themselves all over social media channels.
Movember is doing the same by making it fun to grow, groom and maintain a moustache while raising money for the cause. The Foundation even provides with a moustache style guide and their own Hall of Fame.
2) Focusing on social media
Part of the fun is to share your experience and progress with friends, colleagues and family. Nowadays, you can’t do it without social media. Movember encourages everyone to show off their moustaches by taking selfies, making videos of themselves and posting on social media.
The recent Facebook algorithm update has made videos a priority in the newsfeed. It autoplays and reaches more friends. That was one of the reasons why the Ice Bucket Challenge got so much visibility on Facebook and was so remarkable.
With images and videos posted on Facebook and Twitter, millions of people get involved, spread awareness of men’s health issues and support research projects.
3) Leveraging technology
The Moustache movement would not be so successful without technology. Building an online community that requires signing up as an individual or a team, bringing together supporters all over the world to fundraise for the cause and spreading the word over social media channels.
Participants are able to ask for and accept donations from everywhere, update their profiles and progress and compete by money raised with other teams.
How to Fundraise
You could join the movement and grow your stylish moustache or support your loved ones in doing that.
There are 3 easy steps to follow:
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- Register as a Mo Bro or a Mo Sis
The Movember Foundation will provide you with all sources of useful information to make your fundraiser succeed. Just register on movember.com as an individual or a team to get started.
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- Make a video and ask your friends to donate
An easy way to get your fundraiser off the ground is to create a crowdfunding video telling who, how and why is participating and raising money for Movember. Ask to join your team or ask for donations to support your efforts.
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- Update your Facebook with your moustache challenge news
Let your friends know that you are growing a moustache for Movember by sharing your image, video and fundraising campaign’s link that you get after sign-up.
If you know a person who is struggling with some health issues, you could start a fundraising campaign for him to help with his medical bills and use the power of Movember to drive donations.
Crowdfunding on platforms like FundRazr will help your cause reach your friends, their friends and beyond on Facebook. This way you might have a bigger impact on someone’s life.
You decide what to do this Movember. Make sure to get involved. It’s not late to join the movement.
Are you up for the challenge?
