Author Topic: Ice Bucket Challenge and ALS?  (Read 4250 times)

Offline Sexy Frog

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Ice Bucket Challenge and ALS?
« on: August 20, 2014, 09:12:39 PM »
As I am sure most of you know, the new 'thing' as of late has been something for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Dumping a bucket of ice cold water over your head as a means to raise awareness and calling upon others to do the same. If they challenged parts fails to accept and perform this challenge within a span of 24 hours, they must donate $100 to ALS to help find a cure. Now, I want to start off by saying that this is a great cause in my opinion. Raising awareness for any kind of disease is truly admirable and inspiring -- however, I also want to state that this ice bucket tom foolery is completely autistic. The premise behind this challenge is wonderful, but the reasons it has become to popular disgusts me. The way I see it, it's no longer a thing to do in order to actually raise awareness, (which, by the way, if you didn't know: the reason it is actually ice cold water is because supposedly the effects of the cold water is supposed to be a (albeit, likely inaccurate) simulation of what Lou Gehrig’s disease is actually like for those afflicted by it) but rather something that people are doing because everyone else is doing it and because it's all over the internet and they all want to be edgy. Just how all those Gangnam Style video and stupid fucking Harlem Shake videos went viral, then everybody and their paraplegic grandmother was doing it. On top of that, if this is a drive to actually gain research for money, and the water dumping to something you do in order to NOT have to donate, as an actual, quote on quote, "supporter" of this cause which you are participating in, wouldn't doing the challenge itself be a non-issue since you would have donated? I mean, sure, you could donate and do it anyway just for shiggles, but there are people that are not even doing that -- which I have a problem with.

Thus far on Facebook, I have been challenged a total of 3 times this week by family and friends. I personally don't give a rats ass about Lou Gehrig’s disease and have no desire to donate to it even if this Ice Bucket challenge wasn't a thing, but that's neither here nor there. But never the less, I decided to look into it despite not wanting to actually do it just to be informed. What really sparked my interest to know was a video this one man made after he was challenged and decided to research. He pulled up the ALS Associations annual financial report and it turns out that out of the over $55 million dollars they raised, only 7.71% ($3 million) actually went to research purposes. So out of the $100 donated, only about $7 goes to research. Of course, this was just in 2012; two years ago. I reposted this video to show have the people doing this were, in my opinion, a little silly. The comment I received was that the numbers had to be out of date, being from 2012. So I looked into it further and pulled up the 2013 annual report and did the math myself. Here is what I wrote in reply:

Quote
In 2012 they generated $55,446,772 in total combined revenue. They put in approximately $3,904,240 of the revenue into research making for about 7.71% of the generated income going into the actual cause of finding a treatment for this disease. In 2013, they generated a staggering $64,661,521 of total combined revenue. That's $9,214,749 more than their 2012 income. According to their 2013 financial report that I am looking at right now, they spent a bit more for research; $ 6,616,367. If you do the math, that is roughly 10.23% of the income that they generated. Of the $100 that people are donating for this 'cause', only $10.23 are actually going to what they say it is going to. The rest, go to the following --
Other program activities: $ 40,164,177
Fundraising: $ 9,137,186
General & administration: $ 5,414,990

That was just last year. The numbers are increasing, but by far too pitiful amounts to seem fair.

All in all, this fund raiser -- well no...that would be false to say that. It's not the fundraiser that pisses me off. I mean, at the end of the day, a fund raiser is a fundraiser and since it is a facility, it's only natural that they'd have other motives. I mean, at least they are actually donating even if it's only a little amount. What pisses me off is how this thing exploded and took a complete sharp right from what it was initially intended to be. Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass? Maybe I'm just being a dumb, insensitive hipster? I don't know, but this really rustled my jimmies.

What do you guys think about all this?


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Offline Statua

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Re: Ice Bucket Challenge and ALS?
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2014, 10:44:23 PM »
I honestly had no idea what it was for and for the first week, thought it was for some paramedic thing (ALS stands for Advanced Life Support, a more trained crew called in for crazy shit and advanced drugs) until I heard it on the radio.

It seems some people are going good for it (which doesnt end up good anyway) like the radio station in my town did, but others are doing it for lols and arent even putting effort into it anyway. It's become a fad, not a fundraiser. I'm sure if you asked most of the people what they even remotely thought ALS was, they'd have no clue. Hell I didn't know until I researched it and I went to school for this shit. So it's not even a widely affected disease like MS or Cancer.

It sounds like this 'organization' is just like Unicef in regards to where the money goes. Unicef donates I think like 1%? Yeah. BS.



Offline Sexy Frog

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Re: Ice Bucket Challenge and ALS?
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2014, 11:39:30 PM »
I've never tried looking into Unicef, though I do remember that one being a big name back when I was a kid and it probably still is. I honestly wouldn't be surprised by that number, though. I'm sure there's a lot of "non-profit" organizations that are like this. A lot of people are saying that the 7% thing isn't true, though that's because they are looking at this colorful little pie graph that all nice and big instead of scrolling down and looking at the rest of it. But again, it's not even so much that fact that so little is donated to actual research in comparison to what they actually gain. I'm not even trying to preach on my high horse, or anything. It just frustrates me that people make something that is supposed to be one thing into some stupid fad.

Colorful Pie Chart



Not Colorful Chart in Revenue PDF




sources:
http://www.alsa.org/about-us/financial-information.html

http://web.alsa.org/site/DocServer/annual_report_fye2013.pdf?docID=107222
« Last Edit: August 20, 2014, 11:43:49 PM by Sexy Frog »


Quote
>No matter what happens, no matter how old I get.
>I'll never forget...
>Fats Mcgee. And his Retard Three.

 

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