Movember 2026 – Men’s Health Awareness Month

What is Movember?

Movember 2026 runs from Sunday 1 November 2026 to Monday 30 November 2026. It takes place throughout November every year.

Movember, also known as Men’s Health Awareness Month, takes place throughout November each year. It is run by the charity Movember (registered in England and Wales as Movember Europe, charity number 1137948), which raises money and awareness for prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention. The 2026 campaign line is “Make a Growmitment”: challenge a friend, grow together and change men’s health. What began as a joke between friends in Melbourne in 2003 is now a global movement, and in the UK it is the biggest month of the year for talking about how men look after themselves.

Movember is an annual fundraising campaign that asks people to grow a moustache, move 60 kilometres, host an event or set their own challenge during November, and to collect sponsorship for men’s health. Participants are known as “Mo Bros” and “Mo Sisters”. Everyone who signs up gets a personal fundraising page, called a Mo Space, where friends, family and colleagues can donate.

The money funds research, early-detection programmes and mental health projects in more than 20 countries. In the UK, Movember is run by Movember Europe, which is also registered as a charity in Scotland (SC041981). It is not a government or NHS campaign, though many NHS trusts, employers, universities and sports clubs take part.

Why Movember matters

The campaign focuses on the conditions that most affect men, and the numbers explain why. According to Prostate Cancer UK, about 1 in 8 men in the UK will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, rising to about 1 in 4 Black men, and the risk is two and a half times higher if your father or brother has had it. The NHS says prostate cancer usually affects men over 50 and often has no symptoms at first, but can often be cured if it is diagnosed early.

Testicular cancer is most common in men aged 15 to 49, and the NHS advises checking your testicles regularly so you know what is normal for you and can spot a lump or swelling early. Movember’s Move challenge is built around a third figure: globally, around 60 men die by suicide every hour, which is why participants walk or run 60 kilometres in November.

Movember’s answer is to get men talking. A moustache is a visible conversation starter, and every conversation is a chance for someone to book a GP appointment, check themselves or ask for help.

How to take part in Movember 2026

You do not need to grow facial hair to take part. Movember lists four ways to make a “Growmitment”, and all of them can be done solo or as a team:

• Grow a Mo: start clean-shaven on 1 November and grow a moustache for the whole month. Use it to explain why you are doing it and to ask for sponsorship.
• Move for mental health: walk or run 60 kilometres over the month, in one go or spread across the 30 days, for the 60 men lost to suicide every hour worldwide.
• Host a Mo-ment: get people together for a quiz, bake sale, five-a-side match, shave-off or dinner and ask for donations.
• Mo Your Own Way: set your own challenge, from a cycle ride to giving something up, and fundraise around it.

How the fundraising works. Sign up free on the Movember website or app, which creates your Mo Space, your personal fundraising page. Add a photo, set a target and write a line about why you are taking part, then share the link by message, email and social media. Donations go straight to the charity, and UK taxpayers can add Gift Aid. You can also join or create a team so that colleagues or club-mates fundraise together and appear on the leaderboards, and the app can track your kilometres for the Move challenge. Full details are on the Movember get involved page.

If you would rather not fundraise, you can make a one-off or monthly donation, sponsor someone you know, or simply use the month to start a conversation with the men in your life about check-ups, sleep, drink and how they are really feeling.

Movember at work, school and home

Workplaces: Movember is one of the easiest campaigns to run in an office or on a site. Set up a company team, hold a “Shave the Date” photo on 1 November and a judging session on 30 November, and run a weekly 60km step challenge. Many employers match what their staff raise, and it is a good moment to remind people about any employee assistance programme.

Schools, colleges and universities: students and staff over 18 can grow, while younger pupils can take part in the Move challenge, a non-uniform day or a sponsored walk. Keep the health messages age-appropriate and lead with the “talk to someone” theme rather than cancer statistics.

Clubs and at home: sports clubs, pub teams and gyms can run a club-wide Mo Space. At home, the simplest contribution is to ask the men you live with when they last saw a GP.

History of Movember

Movember began in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia, when friends Travis Garone and Luke Slattery, over a drink at the Gypsy Bar in Fitzroy, joked about bringing the moustache back into fashion. Inspired by a friend’s mother who was fundraising for breast cancer, they decided to do it for men’s health, charged ten dollars to take part and found 30 people willing to grow. In 2004, with Adam Garone and Justin Coghlan now involved, they registered a company, built a website and partnered with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia; 450 participants raised AUD 54,000 that year.

The campaign spread to New Zealand, the UK, Canada, the United States and Europe over the following decade. Mental health and suicide prevention were added to the cancer causes, and Movember now describes itself as a global men’s health movement. Since 2003 it has funded more than AUD 1.8 billion of prevention-focused work across mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

What the money does

• Prostate cancer: research into better tests and treatments, and programmes that help men understand their risk and get checked earlier.
• Testicular cancer: education on self-checking, and support for the young men most likely to be affected.
• Mental health and suicide prevention: projects that reduce isolation and reach men where they already are, including sports clubs, workplaces and online.
• Research: the Movember Institute of Men’s Health coordinates studies across all three areas.

Related awareness days

Movember sits in a busy month for men’s health. International Men’s Day falls on 19 November, inside the campaign, and is a natural date for a workplace event or a mid-month fundraising push. Earlier in the year, Men’s Health Week in June, Testicular Cancer Awareness Week in April and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in March cover the same conditions in more depth. For the mental health strand, see World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September and World Mental Health Day on 10 October.

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