#nomakeupselfie has turned into a viral fundraising campaign overnight. Civil Society Media’s Jenni Cahill, who gave £3 to CRUK after her selfie, gives the donor’s view.

Over the past few days social networks have been awash with fresh-faced females posing without make-up as part of the #nomakeupselfie cancer awareness campaign.

Having passively noticed many of my friends’ bare-faced posts, I have to admit I had mixed feelings when I woke this morning to find that I too had been nominated.

Alongside the general wave of support sweeping the internet, I have also read many disparaging comments dismissing it as ‘boring’, ‘ineffective’ and most vehemently ‘a self-indulgent display of vanity’.

To a certain extent I understand the negative reaction, especially as many early participants failed to affiliate their photos with a specific charity or to identify a donation method. This initial confusion, coupled with a general sense of apathy towards people using their social media pages as bragging platforms has resulted in an inevitable polarisation of opinion.

So did I take one? The answer, as you’ve probably gathered, is yes. It took no more than a few minutes to snap, upload, and text my £3 donation to Cancer Research UK. It was only afterwards that I found out it wasn’t their campaign.

In fact, nobody seems to know where the trend has sprung from. The phenomenon has swept across social media platforms faster than it has been possible to analyse, with multiple charities piggybacking on its success and reporting an unprecedented increase in donations. With hindsight, perhaps I would have supported a smaller cancer charity, or ideally the unidentified organisation who initiated the campaign, but in the grand scheme of things I think that’s irrelevant.

The benefits associated with harnessing social media to raise both awareness and funds for a worthwhile cause are still astounding. If anything it is testament to the incredibly strong brands of charities such as CRUK, who despite being entirely unrelated to the original flurry of posts, have reported a surge of donations raising £1m over the past twenty-four hours alone.

My personal motivation for participating was to be a part of what I think has been an inspiring and uplifting display of support for charities working to find a cure for this disease which continues to disrupt so many people’s lives. Even if my motive had simply been to disguise vanity as philanthropy, my financial contribution remains intact.

Find Jenni on twitter @jennicahill