This Is for Charity?

Raising Money for Good Causes Has Gotten a Lot More Wacky

Popular opinion in a crowd of beer-guzzling 20- and 30-somethings is this: Mustaches are sexy. And if not entirely sexy, then utterly hilarious.

The guzzlers are gathered at Tom Tom in Adams Morgan, Budweisers in hand, cheering and hooting at the parade of men strutting across the stage.

Welcome to Washington's first Sweet 'Stache ManPageant, where facial hair is flaunted in the good name of charity.

Thrown by a group called SMASHED -- formally, the Society of Mature Adults Seeking to Help, Entertain and Donate -- the hirsute spectacle raised more than $3,000 for Capital Queen for a Day, a local nonprofit group that aids children with cancer.

"There's nothing that this 'stache wouldn't do for the kids," says Steve Weldon, a 26-year-old from Arlington and the newly crowned Mr. Sweet 'Stache 2006. With sparse growth atop his lip, he is a doppelganger for Goose from "Top Gun."

"Lip hair," Weldon says, "is because we care."

Consider this the changing face of philanthropy, one that looks more to the "fun" in fundraising. There is no shame in heavily imbibing, no emphasis on the kind of propriety that one might find at a more conventional $250-a-plate charity dinner. Hence, the SMASHED motto: "Remind me tomorrow that I helped someone today."

Events like the Sweet 'Stache ManPageant reflect a nationwide trend: Young professionals are looking for more innovative, entertaining and entrepreneurial ways to do good. Increasingly, business schools are starting programs dedicated to social entrepreneurship. The fall marked the launch of Good, a magazine aimed at 20- and 30-somethings "who give a damn." In May, a philanthropic services consulting firm called Changing Our World started a blog called FLiP, for future leaders in philanthropy ( http://flip.onphilanthropy.com/).

"The term 'social entrepreneur' is getting more and more traction," says Jessica Stannard-Friel, 24, a founding editor of FLiP. "A lot of the ways that young people do fundraising tend to be really creative in ways that might set them apart from people more high-ranking and established in their careers."

So it's no surprise that the District -- a city filled with young professionals big on networking if short on disposable income -- would be ripe for new twists on old do-gooding.

* * *

Ellen Shortill, a 38-year-old event planner, calls herself the "co-president of cockamamie." And let's face it: As founder and co-president of SMASHED, she's responsible for some indisputably ridiculous events.