Inspired by US President Obama's successful use of social media during his election campaign, 85 students from Murdoch University's Communications course launched Project Reach Causathon earlier this month, an initiative that leverages entirely on the internet to drive donations for 14 different causes.

They made creative use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook to win over donors' support for the causes they champion.

Said its spokesperson, Mr Jimmy Ho, 22: "We were drawn to the concept of fund-raising 2.0 as an economical yet impactful manner to reach out to potential donors after we studied the feasibility of collecting donations online in a secure manner. "

"Our initial target is to collect $8000 within 3 weeks. This target has been achieved as of today, but ultimately, we hope to raise as much funds as possible for the various causes because the race for cause does not have a finishing line!"

All donations in this month-long campaign will be collected through GIVE Singapore's donation portal (www.give.sg) which allows fund-raisers to set up their own fundraising pages in a fuss-free, secured manner.

The top two teams that manage to raise the largest amount of funds and using the most innovative fundraising concept will be honoured with the Top Fund-Raiser Award and the Most Creative Fund-Raiser Award respectively at the Project Reach Conference on 29 July 2010.

In support of the launch of Causathon, SMa Institute of Higher Learning, which partners Murdoch University to offer a selection of degree courses in Singapore, will donate $1,400 to the 14 causes to kick-start the fund-raising drive.

Those who would like to join in the race for a cause by supporting their favourite charity can log in to www.causathon.give.sg.

The end date for the project is Aug 1, but according to the Jimmy, "the act of giving should never stop. Our fundraising pages will be up for as long as our partnering non-profit organisations want them to be."