Healthier men one moustache at a time Adam Garone

I think the beautiful Mullen put it

perfectly every man deserves the

opportunity to grow a little bit of

luxury ladies and gentlemen more

importantly Mo Bros and Mo sisters for

the next 70 minutes I’m going to share

with you my Movember journey and how

through that journey we’ve redefined

charity we’re redefining the way

prostate cancer researchers are working

together throughout the world and I hope

through that process that I inspire you

to create something significant in your

life something significant that will go

on and make this world a better place so

the most common question I get asked I’m

going to answer it now so I don’t have

to do it over drinks tonight

is how did this come about how do you

Movember start well normally a charity

starts with the cause and someone that

is directly affected by a cause they

then go on to create an event and beyond

that a foundation to support that pretty

much in every case that’s how a charity

starts not so with Movember Movember

started in a very traditional Australian

way was on a Sunday afternoon there was

my brother and a mate having a few beers

and I watching the world go by had a few

more beers and I had the conversation

turned to 70s fashion

and how everything manages to come back

into style a few more beers so there has

to be some stuff that hasn’t come back

then one more beer was whatever happened

to the mustache why hasn’t that made a

comeback so there’s a lot more beers and

then the day ended with a challenge to

bring the mustache back so in Australia

mo is slang for mustache

so we renamed the month November

Movember and created some pretty basic

rules which still stand today and they

are start the month clean-shaven rock

and moustache not a beard not a go to

your mustache for the 30 days of

November and then we agreed that we

would come together at the end of month

have a moustache themed party and award

a prize for the best and of course the

worst mustache now trust me when you’re

growing a moustache back in 2003 and

there were 30 of us back then and this

is before the ironic hipster mustache

movement

it created a lot of controversy so my

boss wouldn’t let me go and see clients

my girlfriend at the time who’s no

longer my girlfriend hated it

parents would shuffle kids away from us

but we came together at the end of the

month we celebrated our journey it was a

real journey and we had a lot of fun and

in 2004 I said to the guys that was so

much fun

we need to legitimize this so we can get

away with it year on year so we started

thinking about that we were inspired by

the women around us and all they were

doing for breast cancer we thought you

know what there’s nothing for men’s

health why is that why why can’t we

combine growing in the stache and do

something for men’s health and I started

to research that topic and discovered

prostate cancer is the male equivalent

of breast cancer in terms of the number

of men that die from it and diagnosed

with it but there was nothing for this

cause

so we married growing a mustache with

prostate cancer and then we created our

tag line which is changing the face of

men’s health and that eloquently

describes a challenge changing your

appearance for the 30 days and also the

outcome that we’re trying to achieve

getting men engaged in their health

having them have a better understanding

about the health risks that they face so

with that model I then cold-called the

CEO of the prostate cancer foundation I

said to him I’ve got the most amazing

idea that’s going to transform your

organization and I didn’t want to share

with him the idea over the phone so I

convinced him to meet with me for coffee

in Melbourne in 2004 we sat down I

shared with him my vision of getting men

growing mustaches across Australia

raising awareness for this cause and

funds for his organization

I needed a partnership to legitimately

do that and I said we’re going to come

together at the end we’re gonna have a

moustache themed party we can have DJs

we’re going to celebrate life and we’re

going to change the face of men’s health

and you just looked at me in laughed and

he said said Adam that’s a really novel

idea but we’re an ultra conservative

organization

we can’t have anything to do with you so

I paid for coffee that day and he’s

parting comment as we shook hands was

listen if you happen to raise any money

out of this we’ll gladly take it so my

lesson that year was persistence and we

persisted and we got four hundred and

fifty guys growing moustaches and

together we raised fifty four thousand

dollars we donated every cent to that to

the prostate cancer foundation of

Australia and that represented at the

time the single biggest donation they’d

ever received so from that day forward

my life has become about a mustache

everyday this morning I wake up and go

my life isn’t about a mustache

essentially I’m a mustache farmer and my

season is November

so in 2005 the campaign got more

momentum was more successful in

Australia and then New Zealand and then

in 2006 we came to a pivotal point we

was consuming so much of our time after

hours on weekends that we thought we

either need to close this down or figure

a way to fund Movember so that I could

quit my job and go and spend more time

in the organisation and take it to the

next level it’s really interesting when

you try and figure a way to fund the

fundraising organization built off

growing moustaches let me tell you

there’s not too many people interested

in investing in that not even the

prostate cancer foundation who had

raised about 1.2 million dollars for at

that stage so again we persisted and

foster’s brewing came to the party and

gave us our first-ever sponsorship and

that was enough for me to quit my job by

consulting on the side and leading into

Movember 2006 we’d run through all the

money from Foster’s would run through

all the money I had and essentially we

had no money left and we’d convinced all

our suppliers creative agencies web

development agencies hosting companies

whatnot to delay their billing until

December so we’d racked up at this stage

about $600,000 worth of debt so if

November 2006 didn’t happen the four

founders well we would have been broke

we would have been homeless sitting on

the street with mustaches

so we thought you know what if that’s

who I think that happens so what we’re

going to have a lot of fun doing it and

taught us the importance of taking risks

and really smart risks then in early

2007 a really interesting thing happened

we had Mo Bros from from Canada from the

US and from the UK emailing us and

calling us and saying hey there’s

nothing for prostate cancer bring this

campaign to these countries so we

thought why not let’s do it so I cold

called the CEO of prostate cancer Canada

and I said to him I have this most

amazing concept it’s going to transform

your organization I don’t want to tell

you about it now but will you meet with

me if I fly all the way to Toronto so I

flew here met down on Front Street East

and we sat in the boardroom I said right

he’s my vision of getting men growing

mustaches all across Canada raising

awareness and funds for your

organization and he looked at me and

laughed and said Adam sounds like a

really novel idea but we’re all true

conservative organization I’ve heard

this before I know I know how it goes

but he said we will partner with you but

we’re not going to invest in it you need

to figure a way to bring this campaign

across here and make it work so what we

did was we took some of the money that

we raised in Australia to bring the

campaign across to this country of the

US and UK and we did that because we

knew if this was successful we could

raise infinitely more money globally

than we could just in Australia and that

money fuels research and that research

will get us to a cure we’re not about

finding an Australian cure or a Canadian

cure we’re about finding the cure so in

2007 we bought the campaign across here

and it was it set the stage for the

campaign it wasn’t as successful as we

thought it would be we’re sort of very

gung-ho with that success in Australia

and New Zealand that stage so that you

really taught us the importance of being

patient and really understanding the

local market before you become so bold

as to set lofty targets but what I’m

really pleased to say is in 2010

Movember became a truly global movement

was just kept at the post in terms of

the number one fundraising campaign in

the world last year we had 450,000

mowbray spread across the world and

together we raised 77 million dollars

and that makes Movember now the biggest

funder of prostate cancer research and

support programs in the world and that

is an amazing achievement when you think

about us growing mustaches and for us we

have redefined charity our ribbon is a

hairy ribbon our ambassadors are the

Mowbray’s and the most sisters and I

think that’s been fundamental to our

success we hand across our brand now

campaign to those people we let them

embrace it and interpret it in their own

way so now I live in Los Angeles because

the prostate cancer foundation of the

u.s. is based there and I always get

asked by the media down there because

it’s so celebrity driven who are your

celebrity ambassadors and I say to them

last year we’re fortunate enough to have

450,000 celebrity ambassadors what what

do you mean it’s like every single

person every single mo bro and mo sister

that participates in Movember is our

celebrity ambassador and that was so so

important and fundamental to our success

now what I want to share with you is one

of my most touching moment moments and

it happened here in Toronto last year at

the end of the campaign I was out with

the team it was the end of Movember we’d

had a great campaign and - we’d had our

fair share of beer that night but I said

you know what I think we’ve got one more

bar left in us so we piled into a taxi

and this was our taxi driver and I was

sitting in the back seat and he turned

around and said where you going

I said how that is an amazing mustache

and he said I’m doing it for Movember

and I said so am I and I said tell me

your Movember story and he goes listen I

know it’s about men’s health

I know it’s about prostate cancer but

this is for breast cancer I said okay

that’s interesting he goes last year my

mum passed away from breast cancer in

Sri Lanka because we couldn’t afford

proper treatment for her and he said

this mustache is my tribute to my mum

and we sort of all choked up in the back

of the taxi and I didn’t tell him who I

was because I didn’t he was appropriate

and I just shook his hand I said thank

you so much your mum would be so proud

and from that moment I realized that

Movember is so much more than a mustache

having a joke it’s about each person

coming to this platform embracing it in

their own way and being significant in

their own life for us now at Movember we

really focus on three program areas and

having a true impact awareness in

education

survivor support programs and research

now we always focus naturally on how

much we raise because is a very tangible

outcome but for me awareness and

education is more important the funds

were raised because I know that is

changing and saving lives today it’s

probably best example by a young guy

that I met at South by Southwest in

Austin Texas at the start of the year he

came up to me and said thank you for

starting Movember I said thank you for

doing Movember I looked at him I was

like I’m pretty sure you can’t grow a

moustache

and I said watch Movember story and he

said I agree the worst miss - ever but I

went home for Thanksgiving dinner and

pretty quickly the conversation around

the table turned to what the hell was

going on and we talked I talk to them

about Movember and then after that my

dad came up to me and at the age of 26

for the first time ever I had a

conversation with my dad one on one

about men’s health I had a conversation

with my dad about prostate cancer I

learned that my grandfather had prostate

cancer and I was able to share with my

dad that he was twice as likely to get

that disease and he didn’t know that and

he hadn’t been getting screened for it

so now that guy is getting screened for

prostate cancer so those conversations

getting men engaged in this at whatever

age is so critically important and in my

view so much more important than the

funds we raise now to the funds we raise

and research and how we’re redefining

research we fund prostate cancer

foundations now in 13 countries we

literally fund hundreds if not thousands

of institutions and researchers around

the world and when we looked at this

more recently we realized there’s a real

lack of collaboration going on even with

institutions that alone nationally let

alone globally and this is not unique to

prostate cancer this is this is a cancer

research the world over and so we said

right we redefine charity we need to

redefine the way these guys operate how

do we do that

so what we did was we created our global

action plan we’re taking 10% of what’s

raised in each country now and putting

it into a global fund

we’ve got the best prostate cancer

scientific minds in the world that look

after that fund and they come together

each year and identified the number-one

priority and that last year was getting

a better screening test so they

identified that as a priority and then

they’ve gone and recruited now 300

researchers from around the world that

are studying that topic essentially the

same topic so now we’re funding them to

the tune of about five or six million

dollars to collaborate and bringing them

together

that’s a unique thing in the cancer

world and we know through that

collaboration it will accelerate

outcomes and that’s how we’re redefining

the research world so what I know about

my Movember journey is that with a

really creative idea with passion with

persistence and a lot of patience

for mates for mustaches can inspire a

roomful of people and that roomful of

people can go on and inspire a city and

that city is Melbourne my home and that

city can go on and inspire a state and

that state can go on and inspire a

nation and beyond that you can create a

global movement that is changing the

face of men’s health my name is Adam

groaning and that’s my story thank you