So how’s that cure for ALS coming along?

CONFESSION: When the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral, I was more than a little bit jealous. As a fundraiser who has spent many days and nights scraping and clawing for every dime, armed with a noble mission and compelling case statement (and not a cheesy gimmick), it filled me with envy to see all of those buckets of cash pouring into the coffers of the ALSA.

And I’m still bitter. Because the outpouring of support for ALS had much less to do with the actual cause (many people didn’t even know what ALS was), and much more to do with the vain, solipsistic, “look at me” mentality of our society, which was fed by the opportunity to film one of those inane ice bucket videos. Should it matter that people weren’t really connected to the cause? No. ALS is an insidious disease, and the association got an amazing infusion of cash that can be used for treatment and research, which is a very good thing for ALS victims and families.

So back to my original question: How’s it going?

According to this week’s edition of TIME, The Ice Bucket Challenge brought in $115 million – roughly four times the amount that the ALSA brought in the previous year.  At press time, the ALSA had spent $47 million, with about $31 million allocated toward research, $11 million spent on patient and community services and the remaining $5 million on education, fundraising, and processing fees. I won’t bore you with the geeky science of it all, but the infusion of cash has already yielded some encouraging results with respect to both treatment and cure.

So I guess it’s time for me to stop being bitter and focus on what I, and other fundraisers, can learn from the Ice Bucket Challenge.  Did the ALSA catch lightning in a bottle, or is there something there that the rest of us can use, learn from, build on in the future to make our fundraising more successful?

Sigh. I’m still bitter. Maybe another time.