Once the mopping up is complete, I think it will be clear
that the Ice Bucket Challenge (ICB) will have been the most successful
stunt-based fundraising effort ever.
Like many, if not most, American fundraisers I followed the Challenge
closely and have thought about it quite a bit.
My first thought about the Ice Bucket Challenge was a fervent and
sincere wish that I had invented it. My
second, was that the Challenge is a huge
win for a cause -- ALS -- that had begun to fade from the public consciousness.
The Ice Bucket Challenge put ALS back in front of the
public. ALS, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis,
originally entered the public consciousness as “Lou Gehrig Disease”
but, aside for baseball and old movie fans (“Pride of the Yankees” w/Gary
Cooper), relatively few people today know much about Gehrig or, for that matter, ALS.
The Challenge produced enormous growth in unrestricted
giving. The Ice Bucket Challenge has the
ALS Association fast closing in on twenty-fold growth in annual giving raising
upwards of $110 million from 2.4 million donors for a cause that in recent
years had not raised more than $6 million in general contributions.
The Ice Bucket Challenge produced very significant growth in
the renewable base for ALS Association.
The Challenge is, admittedly, a transactional form of fundraising. As a result, it will probably add proportionally fewer donors to the ALS
Association’s renewable base than might some other type of fundraising (if
comparably successful). On the other
hand, the ICB is so vast – 2.4 million donors and rising – that it really only requires
retaining a small percentage to double or triple the ALS Association’s
renewable base.
What made the ICB work so well?
I think four things came together to make this a uniquely
powerful fundraising tool.
1. Peer-to-Peer Contact -- Remember, ICB began as individuals
challenging specific friends, family, associates, their peers, to support the cause or take a bucket of water over the head
and post the video.
2. Good Plain Fun -- No matter how smart or sophisticated we
think that we have become, low comedy is still funny.
3. Social Media Use -- Since we’re all kind of tired of cat
videos and this summer’s actual news has tragically painful to watch, ICB videos
were an immediate “hit” on YouTube© and that popularity very quickly and
efficiently gave this fundraising initiative enormous reach.
4. Successful Celebrity Involvement -- When the butt of the
joke is someone prominent or powerful, low comedy becomes just that much
funnier. As a result, once high profile
people started participating in the ICB, the videos were MUCH more broadly
accessed and the challenge took off like a rocket (my personal favorite of the
celeb videos is probably former First Lady Laura Bush dosing ex-President
George W. Bush)
So, what will be the “next Ice Bucket Challenge”?
I don’t know. But, I
certainly hope to be the person who invents it!
