So, er..."Ice Bucket Challenge"? What do you think?

[The Intransigent Faction]

http://www.vice.com/read/dumping-a-bucket-of-ice-on-your-head-does-not-make-you-a-philanthropist-813

http://www.vice.com/read/the-worst-part-of-the-ice-bucket-challenge-is-the-people-criticizing-it-822

There are two different perspectives, both from Vice articles. I'm just wondering what you all thought about it, because it's been brought up a lot in conversations lately.

Neither of these articles, of course, mentioned the Palestinians' "rubble bucket challenge". I happened to mention it to someone, just as a provocative thing, and her reaction was "Oh, don't believe the mainstream media, they aren't doing it to criticize the ice bucket challenge". On the one hand it's pretty obvious the latter was inspired by the ice bucket challenge, but they aren't saying directly "Don't do that!", as much as pointing out that they, um, can't, because of something else that the media's quiet about.

Yeah...partly an excuse to rant or something, but, thoughts?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I don't get cuz like all I see is people dumping water in their head and I thought that means you're not donating or doing shit so it's like an elaborate fuck charity thing to me. Plus I mean, save some water for the fishes wtf.

[The Feral Underclass]

http://www.icebuckethack.com/

Donate to Ferguson.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Clearly a massively successful marketing idea from whoever is responsible for donations at MNDA/ALSA.

I think that, as far as charity campaigns go, it is one of the least harmful for what charity should do; namely raise awareness of overlooked causes (which is definitely the case with ALS) and ensure that money flows directly towards helping those causes.

From what i've seen amongst videos of my friends/i've come across online, there has mostly been a focus from people on directing people towards making a donation to MNDA/ALSA, and highlighting what ALS is. To that extent, I think this represents what 'charity' should be a great deal better than the permanent, institutionalised charity promoted by overpaid charity executives who are paternally trying to 'help Africa' or something.

Plus it's good fun :)

[Connolly1916]

I enjoy them, but only when the ice has melted, because solid turning to liquid is gas*.


* Gas = funny, in Irish slang speak.

[#FF0000]

I enjoy them, but only when the ice has melted, because solid turning to liquid is gas*.


* Gas = funny, in Irish slang speak.

get out

[Connolly1916]

get out

:grin:

Don't tell me you didn't laugh.

[The Feral Underclass]

You realise that ASLA only give 7.71% of the money they fundraise to research? That's less than 8p/8c for every £1/$1 you donate.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There's a tick-box on the donation form where you can opt-in for your donation to be used solely for ALS research. Also do you have a source for that, sTFU?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Clearly a massively successful marketing idea from whoever is responsible for donations at MNDA/ALSA.

I think that, as far as charity campaigns go, it is one of the least harmful for what charity should do; namely raise awareness of overlooked causes (which is definitely the case with ALS) and ensure that money flows directly towards helping those causes.

From what i've seen amongst videos of my friends/i've come across online, there has mostly been a focus from people on directing people towards making a donation to MNDA/ALSA, and highlighting what ALS is. To that extent, I think this represents what 'charity' should be a great deal better than the permanent, institutionalised charity promoted by overpaid charity executives who are paternally trying to 'help Africa' or something.

Plus it's good fun :)

I've done marketing for a great majority of the charities, ranging from wounded veterans to firefighters to breast cancer to special Olympics to last wish for kids charities, etc etc etc. From this I know, only a tinsy tiny percentage of that money goes to the actual cause or actual research the great bulk of it goes to people in the business wing of the org. Awareness is great and all but charity is a racket and like again, am I missing something here? Cuz again I thought if you poured water on your head you're not donating and so on? So that means everyone from your mum to George Bush who all get wet is saying in effect, "I rather waste nice ice water and not donate 100 bucks to ALS? In fact, I remember I use to be able to tell people in most cases oh yeah 60-40% of this goes directly to the cause, now, I'll be lucky if I can even tell them 10%.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I've done marketing for a great majority of the charities, ranging from wounded veterans to firefighters to breast cancer to special Olympics to last wish for kids charities, etc etc etc. From this I know, only a tinsy tiny percentage of that money goes to the actual cause or actual research the great bulk of it goes to people in the business wing of the org. Awareness is great and all but charity is a racket and like again, am I missing something here? Cuz again I thought if you poured water on your head you're not donating and so on? So that means everyone from your mum to George Bush who all get wet is saying in effect, "I rather waste nice ice water and not donate 100 bucks to ALS?

I've worked for charities, too. I'm aware that there are a great many rackets out there. I think, though, that it is un-realistic to expect charities to funnel 100% of income into spending on research. For what it's worth, the ALSA spent 28% of income on research last year, only 7% went to admin (http://issuu.com/alsassociation/docs/annual_report_fy2014?e=2279079/8917546), and the MNDA in Britain apparently spends 76% of income on research, though I can't find a source for that right now.

I think the idea originally was that you either do the icebucket challenge or donate, but from what i've seen amongst my own friends group and other videos i've seen is that people are doing both, which is great because obviously you get the awareness side of things from the 'craze' of the challenge, and the income from the donations (I think the MNDA has received £2,000,000 in ice-bucket challenge-related donations so far).

In a perfect world, this sort of research would be funded better by governments, and you're right that there are a lot of charities that are used as corporate stepping-stones by their big-wigs. I think, though, that the fact that a chief exec or chair of a charity may not be in their position for solely altruistic reasons, is not to say that a lot of charities do at least some useful work, and some charities do a great deal of useful work in terms of research and education.

[The Feral Underclass]

There's a tick-box on the donation form where you can opt-in for your donation to be used solely for ALS research. Also do you have a source for that, sTFU?

Their own public records.

[Loony Le Fist]

The Ice Bucket Challenge is one of the dumbest memes going around I've seen on the Internet in a while.


http://cdn.meme.li/instances/500x/53578701.jpg

[Art Vandelay]

The Ice Bucket Challenge is one of the dumbest memes going around I've seen on the Internet in a while.


http://cdn.meme.li/instances/500x/53578701.jpg


Http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbZIFZm204E

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Their own public records.

Their own public records don't say that though. Oops ;)

[The Feral Underclass]

Their own public records don't say that though. Oops ;)

I don't know which public records you have been reading, but in the 2012 annual (http://www.alsa.org/assets/pdfs/2012-annual-report_als-association.pdf)report their cash flow for research was 7.71% and in their 2013 annual report (http://web.alsa.org/site/DocServer/annual_report_fye2013.pdf?docID=107222) research it was nominally up to 9.77%

That 28% figure that is reported on their website is misleading, since their full annual report hasn't been released yet. I am almost certain that when it is, the actual amount of money spent on direct research will not be 28%. They do give research grants and they fund animal testing, so I imagine that 28% is inflated due to those two things.

[Lord Testicles]

Fuck charity. I don't care what your charity is about or how much of your donations actually goes to help alleviate the problem that you campaign for. Fuck charity and it's backwards approach to our problems.

[The Feral Underclass]

Fuck charity. I don't care what your charity is about or how much of your donations actually goes to help alleviate the problem that you campaign for. Fuck charity and it's backwards approach to our problems.

This is an accurate representation of Skinz:

http://www.britishboxers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/welsh-dragon.gif

[Lord Testicles]

Smaug ain't got nothing on me.

[Futility Personified]

A lot of the time it seems people just do it to 'get involved'. I heard a great narcissistic splash from the home of a known cretin today and it set me wondering whether opposing everything is generally good for your constitution.

I don't know who annoys me more, the people who do it just so they can post it on FB or the people who chastise the people on FB for not donating. It's telling that the most ardent supporters of charities tend to be people who are fucking minted but aren't particularly fond of sharing it. There are good people who work for charity, if you have to work it is conscience easing, but pretending it is an apt substitution for properly organizing society is just futile. Comforting, but ultimately fucking annoying.

Is there a cure for thinking like this?

[The Intransigent Faction]

Well, there are fair points one way or the other, but...if there's one thing we should all cringe at a little, it's when someone like George W. Bush can dump a bucket of ice on his head and be congratulated as if he was some kind of humanitarian or philanthropist.

[Bala Perdida]

Well, there are fair points one way or the other, but...if there's one thing we should all cringe at a little, it's when someone like George W. Bush can dump a bucket of ice on his head and be congratulated as if he was some kind of humanitarian or philanthropist.
The usual bullshit with charity and donations. The person that fucks everything up, throws a dollar into a basket and they're a fucking hero. Fucking Batman type shit, that makes them immune to criticism. Then they can keep fucking shit up and anyone who criticizes them is a 'dilusional moron' apparently.

The weird thing about this challenge is that a lot of people aren't doing it right. I heard it's a $10 donation for dumping the bucket on your head, but a $100 donation if you choose not to. Yet a lot of people are just dumping ice on their heads and not donating. Kinda sad and stupid.

[Lord Testicles]

The weird thing about this challenge is that a lot of people aren't doing it right. I heard it's a $10 donation for dumping the bucket on your head, but a $100 donation if you choose not to. Yet a lot of people are just dumping ice on their heads and not donating. Kinda sad and stupid.

From what I've seen most of the celebrities make a point of writing out check before doing it, apart from 50cent who seems to have used it as a platform to attack some someone's illiteracy.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't know which public records you have been reading, but in the 2012 annual (http://www.alsa.org/assets/pdfs/2012-annual-report_als-association.pdf)report their cash flow for research was 7.71% and in their 2013 annual report (http://web.alsa.org/site/DocServer/annual_report_fye2013.pdf?docID=107222) research it was nominally up to 9.77%

That 28% figure that is reported on their website is misleading, since their full annual report hasn't been released yet. I am almost certain that when it is, the actual amount of money spent on direct research will not be 28%. They do give research grants and they fund animal testing, so I imagine that 28% is inflated due to those two things.

Why do research grants and funding animal testing not count as 'research'?

Anyway, as i've said above, I do agree that 'charity' is too often a by-word for wasted funds and the corporate revolving door for careerists, who hide behind the word 'charity' because people feel like they can't attack anything that is attached to 'charity'.

But, in this case, I think the ice-bucket challenge shows the positive sides of charity; raising awareness of a serious disease and raising donations that will directly or indirectly go towards researching a cure.

It's easy to point to headline figures like you have done, but ultimately whether a charity has a social or corporate ethos, or good or bad intentions, you cannot expect anything close to 100% of revenue to go directly towards research. Charities do not operate within a vacuum and I think putting un-realistic expectations on them just so you can shoot them down is a bit pointless.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Does anybody seriously think that they could have raised this much money just by trying to educate people? This ice bucket challenge may sound dumb to some of you but it is hella effective, and frankly I don't care if some people are just doing it without donating, they've still raised a ton of money in a short amount of time and spread awareness.

[Bala Perdida]

From what I've seen most of the celebrities make a point of writing out check before doing it, apart from 50cent who seems to have used it as a platform to attack some someone's illiteracy.
I heard Zuckerburg and others, I think lil Wayne, forgot to mention it. Then they apparently set off a chain of worthless bucket dumping. I saw a random youtube guy getting all mad. Telling all non-donaters to re-do the challenge.

[The Feral Underclass]

Why do research grants and funding animal testing not count as 'research'?

It's not a question of them being or not being research, it's about how much money is actually being spent directly on researching Motor Neuron Disease. That amounts to less than 10%. Those research grants and funding for animal testing are not listed, so who knows that they actually are. It's certainly not direct research for MND.

[ReindeerThistle]

It is not politic for activists to bad-mouth anyone trying to do good. It alienates us prematurely.

Save it for the bourgeoisie.