The story of Movember: Grow a tache and raise some cash
From 30 Mo’s in a Melbourne bar to a £1bn global movement, Movember has turned hairy upper lips into a serious force for men’s health – and this is how you can get involved
It’s probably the only charity campaign for which looking like Captain Haddock or a particularly anxious caterpillar counts as doing your bit for public health.
The roots of Movember lie in Melbourne in 2003, when friends Travis Garone and Luke Slattery were having a cold one and wondered whether they could make the Tom Selleck look trendy again. Thirty mates agreed to grow a moustache. The following year, they decided to turn their stunt into a fundraiser for prostate cancer.
The plan sprouted spectacularly. Within a year, hundreds of participants had signed up, raising funds for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, which received what Movember says was its largest single donation at the time. And in 2007, Movember officially expanded to the UK, US, Canada and (to a lesser degree, funnily enough) Spain.
More than two decades later, Movember is, appropriately, still growing. The 2024 global campaign alone raised £69.8m, with 78.9% allocated to men’s-health projects. And to date, Movember says it’s raised £1bn globally and funded more than 1,320 men’s-health projects across mental health, suicide prevention and cancer support.
While its Nuts & Bolts resource supports people navigating testicular cancer, its Sexual Health and Wellbeing programme, built around what Movember describes as the world’s first clinical guidelines for sexual health care for prostate-cancer patients, has trained up more than 210 clinicians for the often-neglected sexual side effects of prostate cancer treatment, with projects under way across eight countries.
Meanwhile, Movember’s ‘Ahead of the Game’ programme has reached more than 100,000 young people across seven countries, using sport to build mental-health literacy and resilience.
So what’s your own Growmitment?
Grow a mo
The classic. Start clean-shaven on 1 November, then stop shaving, start grooming and start fundraising. Patchy, lopsided, itchy or magnificent – it’s all good. The Mo is essentially a walking billboard for men’s health, designed to get people asking questions and starting conversations.
Move for Movember
Follicles not pulling their weighticles? Walk or run 60km during November. Why 60? That’s the number of men Movember estimates take their own lives globally – every hour. Spread it across the month – or do it in one burst. (Pro tip: if the latter, change your socks and trainers halfway through.)
Host a mo-ment
Get your friends, family or colleagues together and raise money by throwing a party, a quiz, a sporting challenge, dinner or fancy dress – anything that gets people involved.
Mo your own way
Or make up your own challenge. Climb a mountain. Break a personal record. Give something up. Take on a ridiculous dare. Just do something that gets people talking and turn it into fundraising.
By the way, a 2025 Movember survey of thousands of people across six countries found that two out of three participants said their fundraising helped kick-start their own health goals. So, as it turns out, doing something daft for men’s health might actually be good for yours, too.