In 1998, I had testicular cancer. I was told that first stage testicular cancer is a good one to have (as cancers go) but, all the same, I wouldn’t recommend it to a friend. Flash forward to 2011, and the Edelman Los Angeles office launches a Movember fundraising campaign. I hadn’t heard of Movember before then, but when I found that they funded testicular cancer research, I jumped in with both feet.
As the father of a six-year old, I’m very familiar with fundraising. Every jog-a-thon, trike-a-thon and book-a-thon my daughter’s school ropes our family into ends in me sheepishly asking friends and co-workers to sponsor her efforts (and then, usually, just writing a big check). Frankly, I hate it. I didn’t want to just ask for money for my Movember campaign, I wanted to give something unique and rare in exchange for donations. So in 2011, I created a blog – The Upperlip Blip - where I posted celebrity interviews about mustaches in exchange for donations. I’ve had the great fortune of working and being friends with some great comedic talent in Hollywood, and they all jumped at the chance to help.
Over the last couple of years I’ve interviewed people like Melissa McCarthy, Octavia Spencer and Eric Stonestreet for the blog. The interviews are funny and absurd because we only discuss Mos – style, history, preferences, trivia, etc. My only ask of visitors to the blog: Donate to Movember. There are links everywhere for visitors to donate, and most do. Last year I raised almost $4,500 from the site and was the Top Individual Earner in our Movember Agency Challenge (I even got a custom skateboard deck for my efforts!). A little warning: Melissa and I had a couple of beverages when we did the interview so it goes a little off the rails. It’s definitely worth a listen.
Check out Steve’s Mo Space page and help put him back on top of this year’s Movember Agency Challenge: http://mobro.co/StevesBeard. For more information about where Movember, please go to Movember.com.
