I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
The Summer of the Ice Bucket
Unless you were living under a rock in 2015 (or offline), you probably heard about the Ice Bucket Challenge, a fundraising campaign for the ALS Foundation. You may have seen it on Youtube, heard about it in the lunchroom, or even participated yourself. Over a year on, let’s check on whether all that icy water actually accomplished anything.
The short answer is a resounding yes. The campaign, which raised money for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), raised over $115 million dollars. It has become a model of how fundraising with a clever catch can yield big results.
What Happened with the Money?:
The Ice Bucket Challenge broke all the records. Not only did it fly far above its goal, it set a standard for what a social media fundraising campaign can accomplish. Here’s a glimpse of how the money was allocated:
- $77 million (67%), went directly to research
- $23 million (20%) went to patient and community services
- $10 million (9%), went to public and professional education
- $3 million (2%), went to fundraising
- $2 million (2%), went to payment processing fees
But what has been accomplished? The amount was certainly a surprise, but how was it used? At least one major breakthrough has happened thanks to thousands getting drenched on Youtube. So far (much of it hasn’t been touched yet), the money has:
- Allowed the ALS to fund research for drug treatment
- Enabled the ALS to provide monetary incentives for researchers to create technologies to enhance the quality of life for people living with the disease
- Allowed a breakthrough in the discovery of the gene NEK1. One of the most common genes that contribute to ALS, its discovery took more than 80 researchers and over $1 million of the Ice-Bucket money.
ALS is a neurodegenerative, ultimately fatal disease for which there’s no cure. While the discovery of NEK1 was a minor breakthrough, it’s one more piece of the larger puzzle of how ALS functions. The closer the puzzle is to completion, the closer we are to an effective treatment.
Express Yourself:
One of the things that made the Ice Bucket challenge different from other online challenges was how much the participants could personalize it. While many did the standard dump-and-drench, many others put their personal stamps on it, like Patrick Stewart, who wrote a cheque and poured himself a scotch on the rocks.
People flocked to videos of celebrities taking part because it humanized them. They had glimpses of them in t-shirts in their backyards, and many of the celebs rose to the task in their own unique ways:
- Bill Gates showed his inventive side, engineering a tall metal frame to hold the bucket aloft over his head.
- Robert Pattison couldn’t find a bucket, so he used a saucepan
- Matt Damon dumped a bucket of toilet water on himself to make a statement about access to clean water across the world
- The New England Patriots, and many other sports teams, did it en-masse from their classic Gatorade buckets
Apart from celebrities, it was inspiring to see how people personalized the challenge. From water dumped from helicopters to entire Police Detachments, thousands of people took the initiative to dunk and help, and now their help is yielding real fruit.
Here is a celebrity video compilation of celebs doing the challenge:
http://listovative.com/10-famous-people-who-have-taken-als-ice-bucket-challenge-so-far/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=SuuJjILyrNs