What happened to #IceBucketChallenge donations?
MANILA, Philippines — It has been a year since the so-called “ice bucket challenge” gained popularity on social and mainstream media.
The campaign, supposedly aimed to spread awareness about a neurological disorder called ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) while encouraging people to extend monetary help to assist in the treatment of the patients, was immensely successful. For months, news feeds were populated with videos of political personalities and well-known celebrities dousing themselves with icy water.
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A year after the viral videos hit the Internet, we ask this question: Did they actually donate after doing the challenge? What happened to the money they donated?
Reports from the national chapter of the ALS Association (ALSA) that the challenge brought in a staggering $115 million excluding an additional $13 million to the association’s regional branches.
Where did the money go? Below is the breakdown of the total used money spent, so far. About 20 percent of the money has been spent on patient and community services while 11 percent was spent on research. The website also noted that figures will be updated as new commitments are added in the coming weeks and months.
Patient and community services
- Grants to Treatment Centers - $2,700,000
- Community and Support Grants - $8,500,000
- Public and Professional Education
- Regulatory Guidance to Speed Drug Development - $500,000
Research
- ALS ACT - $10,500,000
- New York Genome Center - $2,500,000
- Neurocollaborative - $5,000,000
- Project Mine - $1,000,000
- Clinical Management Grant - $50,000
- Clinical Research Training Fellow - $86,667
- Biomarker Discovery and Validation Projects - $1,199,841
- Cytokinetics, Inc. Phase 3 Trial - $1,500,000
- 2015 Annual Research Awards - $11,621,638
* Total includes $2 million in already paid external processing fees for credit card transactions and web overage charges due to increased volume of daily web visitors during the 2014 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
