Yay, the final Maovember report is done. And despite starting late, having a much smaller organizing committee, and 2020 being 2020, this year’s campaign raised more than last year’s, a total of 72,793.8 rmb or 727,938 mao* in donations.

(Frankly, we weren’t trying to “beat” a number but this result is satisfying given the challenges we faced.)

As usual, 100 percent of revenues went to our partner, The Library Project, with admin costs covered by the organizers themselves. As usual, the focus was on fun, with everything from corn toss and flip cup tournaments to our annual Dog Pub Crawl.

There were are also some unique fundraising events, including the release of the first Marselan grape beer, a pair of Malaysian-themed wine and food extravaganzas, a hutong dinner with French cuisine and Chinese wine, and more.

I’ve included a summary of each event below so you can see our diverse agenda this year. (Please let me know if you spot any errors or omissions!)

I don’t want to start naming names, as I’ll inevitably forget someone, but suffice it to say Maovember is only possible thanks to hundreds of people who support this quirky project, from veterans like Steve Wang of WE Brewery, who organized yet another amazing corn toss tournament, to new supporters like Jasmine Kho of Kakikopi, who spearheaded two events, joined Dog Pub Crawl and printed our huge Maovember logos. Read more in the wrapups below.

We are lucky to have so many people step up to help a project so quirky and chaotic and creative, and support a philosophy that charity sometimes hits your budget a bit (but are lucky enough to be in a position to handle it), that transparency is crucial (it’s why we stick to giving 100 percent of donations and use the QR code as much as possible) and that, above all, fundraising should be fun.

We’ve requested that our funds be used for schools in Hebei and Shanxi–last year’s money went to Hubei–and will provide updates as they are put to use.

Note: Total includes 65,472.6 donated directly to the QR code, 4,766 donated to The Library Project’s general QR code (all event fees) and 2,545.2 donated from abroad via The Library Project’s overseas link. Our dedicated QR code is especially good as donors can see their money instantly go to The Library Project and return to the QR code page to see the growing donation total.

Maovember focuses on quirky events for good causes. Our 2022 partner is Library Project, which has furnished thousands of reading rooms in rural schools. Learn more about Maovember here. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.