The Logic Behind the Ice Bucket Challenge

Here is a video of a guy making the point that www.als.org is not a worthy charity…

If you’re the type of person who doesn’t have time for videos I’ll summarize. His argument is that only a small percentage of money donated (8%) goes to research and a larger amount goes to administration costs and fundraising. There are a couple of problems with this argument as you can see in this screen-grab from als.org’s financial disclosure page.

First, it’s not 8% that goes to research but 28%.

7% goes to administration costs but this is reasonable. You can’t run a successful charity without effective, qualified staff anymore than you could run a successful business. The CEO makes six figures? So what? Would you rather have a guy with a Harvard business degree running your business or your Aunt Margaret who does it on a volunteer basis on Tuesdays, Thursdays and alternating Saturdays?

14% goes to fundraising. This is the part that seems to aggravate this guy so much but I can’t understand why. Charities are…charities and that means they have to raise money. It’s kind of the definition of “a Charity”.

The rest of the pie goes to education and community service so, really, only 21% of your donation goes to…well, I was going to say “non-essential” expenditure but we just established that administration and fundraising are essential parts of a charity.

My main objection was that accepting the Ice Bucket Challenge was actually a way cheapskates get out of paying the full amount of the requested donation. “What?? You poured water on your head so you could chisel a charity out of 90 bucks and you’re bragging about it?? What kind of monster ARE you?

A listener named Hector was kind enough to point out the flaw in my logic:

Good point, Hector! As soon as I ask www.als.org for my hundo back, I guess I’ll be getting ice water dumped on my head!