Maovember 2015 funded cataract surgery for 100 elderly men in rural areas via Orbis, known for its “flying hospital”. Orbis wrote about last year’s campaign in its in-house publication, noting the many venues involved. Check out the story below:

Here are some spots to pick up your Maovember 2015 pin, an attractive accoutrement for almost any fashion ensemble. As per tradition, pins cost rmb50 each, with all funds to Maovember and, via Orbis, the mission of funding cataract surgeries for elderly men in rural China.

Get your pin seller to take a photo of you and your purchase and we’ll include it in a ‘500 Mao Club’ collage, like the one below. If you want to be sure the pins aren’t sold out, check before you go via the links to our partners:

• Beer Mania
• Cafe de la Poste
• Home Plate
• Irish Volunteer
• Jing-A
• Paddy O’Shea’s
• Ramo
• Single Malt Club

I’ll post updates as more venues stock pins. Buy early, buy often!

It’s almost Maovember! Here are a few highlights of this year’s campaign to fund cataract surgeries, via the charity Orbis, for men in rural China. (Click here for details on our partnership with Orbis.)

First, we not only have a new — and blue — pin design for 2015, but also will get support from Orbis for the costs of producing and distributing this year’s pins. The pins have posed logistical challenges in the past and hopefully Orbis’ support will make things easier and free up resources for events and other activities.

Second, we have a growing list of events lined up, including at Pop-Up Beijing, Paddy O’Shea’s, Irish Volunteer, Hockey Bar, Q Mex, Jing-A Taproom, Bungalow, Home Plate Barbecue and Beer Mania, with more in discussion. See the working list here.

Third, we are asking bars, restaurants, shops and other venues that sell Maovember pins for a minimum rmb500 buy-in. That covers the first ten pins and gets the venue’s name and link on our donors page. This will also help our campaign be more efficient.

Fourth, along with input from donors and venue reps from years past, a weixin group has been formed to help deal with macro issues and includes reps from last year’s top three fundraising venues (Zach Lewison from Irish Volunteer, Richard Ammerman from Jing-A and Paul R from Paddy O’Shea’s), two top individual donors (Steven Schwankert and Alex Jennings) and two co-founders (Julian Tavalin and Jim Boyce). In conjunction with all the input from other stakeholders, this will help involve more voices in the decision-making process.

Look for lots more posts on this site in the coming weeks!

Call it double vision: Orbis is back as the charity partner for maovember. Donors were satisfied last year with the –pun intended — visible results last year, as Orbis used maovember funds for cataract surgeries for poor men in rural China. Progress was easy to measure given each operation cost rmb800 and we ultimately funded 131 surgeries (see list below). Given this, and a dearth of men’s charities in China, it made sense to again back Orbis.

Orbis will also devote more resources to this year’s effort. There will be more written materials, including pamphlets and fact sheets, to explain where donor money goes, and a page in the organization’s annual report to list contributors.

Orbis also offered to back the logistics involved in making, distributing and collecting money raised via our Maovember pins. These logistics are very time-consuming and support from Orbis will help free resources for events and other activities.

In terms of last year’s results, confidentiality rules mean we do not have the full names of all of the men who received surgeries. We do have case studies, like the one below, and will be getting more:

And we have a list of the surnames and ages of the men helped. Some received surgeries on both eyes but I have only listed them here once:

Mr Li (65), Mr Zhou (77), Mr Wang (69), Mr Li (59), Mr Hu (63), Mr Zhang (72), Mr Liu (81), Mr Chu (71), Mr Ying (61), Mr Zhu (75), Mr Wang (58), Mr Cao (66), Mr Qing (63), Mr Bei (58), Mr Fu (61), Mr Zhou (66), Mr Li (72), Mr Guan (56), Mr Wu (79), Mr Wu (66), Mr Ding (65), Mr Wang (71), Mr Pei (70), Mr Long (64), Mr Gao (69), Mr Pan (63), Mr Leung (61), Mr Xu (75), Mr Hu (64), Mr Lin (58), Mr Qing (61), Mr Min (65), Mr Lu (61), Mr Wang (50), Mr Dai (68), Mr Li (77), Zhang (73), Mr Chiu (59), Mr Rai (64), Mr Liu (72), Mr Ding (77), Mr Yang (59), Mr Lin (71), Mr Lang (66), Mr Cao (58), Mr Shi (79), Mr Liu (87), Mr Ren (68) Mr Xu (65), Mr Lu (80) Mr Wang (58), Mr Zhou (65), Mr Xin (64), Mr Hu (73), Mr Bei (65), Mr Wei (73), Mr Wong (72), Mr Zhang (66), Mr Deng (57), Mr Ling (63), Mr Zhang (68), Mr Wang (61), Mr Rong (59), Mr Li (79), Mr Li (62), Mr Lin (72), Mr Qing (70), Mr Hu (69), Mr Ding (73), Mr Jiang (62), Mr Shi (73), Mr Xie (54), Mr Liu (67), Mr Ying (58), Mr Wu (72), Mr Mo (86), Mr Xin (72), Mr Ping (82), Mr Xu (76), Mr Lu (66), Mr Han (64), Mr Ren (53), Mr Fu (72), Mr Ling (72), Mr Ming (85), Mr Zhou (71), Mr Min (77), Mr Hu  (59), Mr Chu (81), Mr Meng (63), Mr Bai (77), Mr Pan (62), Mr Fung (84), Mr Li (74), Mr Dou (65), Mr Min (69), Mr Zhang (55), Mr Liu (74) and Mr Gu (62).

Finally, we are talking with Orbis about having some key donors check out the Flying Eye Hospital early next year. More details on this soon!

For more details on Orbis, please see this site. And keep an eye on this site for updates on events and fundraising totals!

Preparations for Maovember 2015 are underway, with details on this year’s campaign slated for release this coming week.

The “mao” in maovember refers to the bank notes of that name—worth one-tenth of a yuan or about 1.5 cents—with the idea that many small donations can lead to big achievements.

The inaugural campaign started a week into November in 2013 and, with insufficient time to find a suitable men’s charity in China, the funds went to The Library Project, which allows donors to see a practical result from their efforts. Over a dozen Beijing bars, restaurants and vendors — and hundreds of donors — teamed up to raise over 22,000 yuan and furnish a reading room at a migrant children’s school on the outskirts of Beijing.

In 2014, Maovember backed Orbis, an organization focused on preventing and treating blindness and known for its “flying hospitals“. The initial goal was to raise 20,000 yuan and fund cataract surgery–at 800 yuan per operation—for at least 25 men in rural China. The campaign far exceeded that goal and ultimately raised 135,000 yuan, enough money to fund more than 130 operations.

 More details on Maovember 2015 soon!