Viral Nonprofit Campaign “No Makeup Selfie for Cancer Research”

In the 21st century, there have been countless organizations and foundations that have been created to bring awareness to a social cause. Through social media, these organizations have had the opportunity to grow into something bigger than they could have ever imagined. The “No Makeup Selfie” movement is one such example of this.

It all began when American author Laura Lippman tweeted a picture of herself with no makeup on in support of actress Kim Novak who attended the Oscars without makeup. Novak was criticized for not wearing makeup, something that is completely superficial but is unfortunately something that many women face. Several weeks later the movement kicked off when 18-year-old Fiona Cunningham of the UK tweeted her #nomakeupselfie and connected it to the charity Cancer Research UK.

Cunningham never expected the cause to blow up the way it did. In 24 hours, 1 million British pounds were donated to the cause and several days later, they had raised 2 million British pounds in donations. Cunningham created the Facebook page called “No Makeup Selfie for Cancer Awareness” which received over a quarter of a million likes with women posting their no makeup selfies.

Cunningham said of the movement: “The no-makeup selfie craze really captured my imagination and I was amazed at the response from people around the world and just thought how great it would be if it could be done for charity. After seeing nothing similar on Facebook or Twitter, I thought there was something in it that it could raise awareness of cancer.”

The reason why this campaign was so successful is because it wasn’t created by a marketing executive from Cancer Research UK; it was a sort of grassroots organization created by the community.  Buzzfeed UK editor Luke Lewis put it best, “It was a rare example of pure, not manufactured, virality.”

For more information about the cause, visit the Cancer Research UK website here.