I don’t know why I didn’t think of this idea sooner. It just came to me out of nowhere as my sister and I were driving home from volleyball. I have no idea what triggered it but once I got thinking, it snowballed hard and fast. I texted a few of my friends to see what they thought: “What do you think about putting on a fundraiser for Movember? Girl based, something simple and fun.” And now this entire fundraising campaign just grew and grew and grew. One idea led to another and what resulted?
MOVAMBER ALERT.
“WOMEN OF VANCOUVER!
I want ALL the women, ladies, girls, moms, sisters, everyone, to unite as a female front and make a Movember team. I want to bring us all together to show our support for men and the fight against prostate cancer. The men sacrifice their images enough with their raunchy mustaches and as much as we hate it, we can’t actually hate it. It’s all for a good cause and we want to stand behind them as they do this. All year long, they help us raise money for breast cancer (among other cancers) and if they have only one month to raise as much money as they can for prostate cancer, why can’t we help them out? So my goal is this: make a female Movember team to raise as much money as we can. You can already see that the guys grow their mustaches and raise money for their own personal “team” but if we all get together on board for one team, it would make that much more of an impact.
In the group, there are already 100 people. If we set a goal to raise 50 dollars on our own, that’s 5000 dollars! Imagine we reached this out to all of our friends and we were able to get even 300 women on the team. That is 15,0000 dollars!! And only 50 dollars!?? That’s nothing! We should set a personal goal of 100 dollars each!
So we create our team now, build it as we go along. I want you all to post a picture of yourself wearing a fake stache. Towards the end of November, there will be a finale fundraising event. It’s going to be amazing and one of a kind. Powered, produced and promoted by the women, for the men.
You’re going to do a head shot (mug shot, more like) with a stache on, doesn’t matter what kind of stache it is whether it’s photoshop or drawn on with pencil liner. We’re going to put a poster over it and caption it: MOVAMBER ALERT. The reason I coined the campaign “Movamber Alert” is because you know how the more we get into the month, the more creepy our men start to look? They look like the men that kidnap our children! So the caption? “MOVAMBER ALERT! [Insert your name] was taken on November 1st, 2011 by this man. Help us meet the ransom of $50 to return her safely by November 30th, 2011 11:59pm.” I want EVERYONE to either have this as their profile picture or at least post it. (Profile picture would be ideal but I understand not everyone wants to)
Alright. So that’s said and done. Level of commitment is entirely up to you. All you gotta do is do what girls do well: charm our way into getting what we want, which is only 50 dollars! If you exceed that, you’re a rockstar. A prize will be awarded to the person who raises the most money.
All of this will be simple and easy to track in terms of donations. It’s all set up online so people will just need to do a few clicks and you’re set! Or you can do the old fashion way and collect cash.
MOVAMBER ALERT TEAM – REGISTRATION LINK ON MOVEMBER CANADA:http://mosista.co/movamberalert
Commitment:
- 50 dollars each “Mom, I need 20 bucks. Dad, I need 20 bucks. Boyfriend, give me 10 bucks.” DONE.
- Spread the world via social media and word of mouth
- Extend invitation to team to friends and family
- Post pictures of stache
- Event night – promote event and sell tickets and attend if possible! It’s going to be insane!
It’s not that hard right? So what do you say, are you with me or are you with me?
#teamMOVAMBERALERT
What can you do right now? Invite ALL your female friends and family to this group! Let’s get at least 300 ladies in this group! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=301410103221793
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: @MOVAMBERALERT
Much love and respect,
Amie Nguyen
IT IS STACHE-UTORY LAW TO SUPPORT MOVEMBER.”
The amount of excitement and support that I have been receiving has been overwhelming. People are showing their true colours and it’s so refreshing to see people get worked up and excited about doing good selflessly. I am proud of my MoSistas. Ladies, I hope to see you join the team. Let’s get our stache on!!
***
In coming up with the campaign, the thought about the play on the name did occur and it was a risk I was willing to take, because I believed it would be a catching way to catch people’s attention and have them curious about what it was about. It clearly says MOVAMBER ALERT as opposed to AMBER ALERT. The entire campaign is based on this concept and so far, all but two individuals have expressed negativity about the name. The intentions of the campaign and name are clearly not to “make fun of” or “joke” about the actual meaning. We take Amber Alert extremely seriously and we believe that people understand where we’re going with the campaign. The bottom line is that we just want to promote awareness and raise money for a good cause and if people can’t see past the name, there’s nothing else to say. If we were using this campaign as personal gain and benefit in terms of profit, it’d be an entirely different story. As I’ve heard them say, “No good deed goes unpunished.” I’m sorry if anyone has taken offense to the name but never has it been my intention to make fun of the actual meaning. Please look past the name and see what is behind it. The concept and name fit the campaign and so far, it seems to be well received because all but two of those individuals have shown support in the best ways. In less than 24 hours, we were able to raise over $1,000. If what we’re trying to do is weighed lesser than the concept of the name, we are truly sorry. If you have any more concerns or want to discuss it further, feel free to contact me. Thank you.
We would love to see and meet you!
