What Happened to the Money from the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Did you film yourself dumping a bucket of ice-water on yourself?  Did you nominate others to do the same?  The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a massive social media movement in 2014 to raise awareness and support ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease and motor neuron disease.  It ballooned into a dare and peer-pressured trend that overtook Facebook (The New Yorker reports over 17 million videos were posted), then diffused in a couple months.  The diffusion was not without its rewards, however.

Worldwide, $220 million was given to ALS organizations—and in only eight weeks!  The Ice Bucket Challenge was particularly popular among millennials, a portion of the population who typically donate the least amount of money.  But since the age group most dominant on social media is millennials, the challenge was mainly shared among them, which inspired their donations.  Funding for research for the ALS Association increased threefold because of the movement.  Forbes reported the most successful find since the Ice Bucket Challenge.  It was through the Massachusetts Medical School project (Project MinE), which used $1 million to identify a gene (NEK1) among people who have ALS connected to certain neuron functions.  Further research is being conducted to determine how exactly the gene is a part of the disease.

At the time of the movement, critics condemned the Ice Bucket Challenge to another bout of slacktivism, which for many people, it was.  Some just dumped a bucket of ice on their head because they were dared and didn’t even think of donating.  Others did both.  The challenge was also criticized for wasting water.  But the real takeaway was the magnitude of connection and change that was brought forth from the mechanisms of social media and smartphones: the video, the like button, the share button.  That connection is a runway for a liftoff of social change.  Millions, if not billions of people have the potential to be united and wielded like a sword to combat worldly issues, ranging from disease to global warming.

All it takes is the right motivation or activity to inspire action, which isn’t easy.  It takes incentive, which for millennials could mean hopping on board with something that everyone is doing because of a fomo (fear of missing out).  Another difficult aspect of a social media movement such as this challenge is keeping the movement going.  If there is success while it’s happening, it’s going to be hard to keep that success rolling, which is what these organizations need.  The donation amount has remained at a level 25 percent higher than years before the challenge, according to The New Yorker, and the average age of donors has come down 15 years to 35.

To all the naysayers and critics who thought the Ice Bucket Challenge wouldn’t actually do anything—here’s your proof!  The connections of social media can unite people toward a cause, and they can motivate people to donate to change.