It’s rare that a successful fundraiser has no board of directors or official governing body. It’s unheard of that 100% of an organization’s collected donations go directly to the charity. But that is exactly what the Maovember campaign does. Each year during the month of November this informal team of everyday Beijingers hosts events ranging from corn hole tournaments and beard growing contests to puppy pub crawls and individual fundraising challenges to raise donations.
True Run Media’s own Mike Wester walked 900 km to raise money while the former Beer Mania’s Thierry de Dobbeleer raised RMB 20,000 in one night. Patrons voted with cash whether or not to shave his beard live on stage…spoiler, they shaved it! Then local businesses like CHEERS Wine, Kakikopi, and TRB stepped up and absorbed the overhead costs of printing and provide event spaces while other volunteers like Jim Boyce cover expenses such as domain fees. This allows all donations to go directly to Maovember’s partner charities. Boyce told me “The Library Project is our most consistent partner…TLP gives us a dedicated QR code. When people pay for their event or other fees, they can see the money goes directly to TLP. We don’t have to touch a thing.”
The Library Project’s reading room program was established by an American expat named Tom Strader back in 2006. The program works with rural schools and centers in China and Vietnam to provide reading rooms, books, and teacher training. To date, 1,372 reading rooms have been created, over 2 million books provided, and 38,000 teachers trained according to their website at www.library-project.org .
Boyce is modest when discussing the achievements of Maovember: “In the grand scheme of things, Maovember does not raise a tremendous amount of money. But I think that it creates a good model of transparent fundraising and that it is a kind of incubator for ideas, with lots of creative initiatives over the years.” In the opinion of this writer, the children and schools who benefit from the group’s generosity and ingenuity absolutely think their work is tremendous.
The newest reading room paid for with funds from Maovember 2020 is set to open this month in Hebei. If you would like to get involved in Maovember you can go to http://www.maovember.com/ or reach out to Jim Boyce on Wechat at beijingboyce.
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Photos: Jim Boyce