The ALS Association is credited with making one of the most successful viral campaigns to promote Lou Gehrig’s disease. The organization promises to find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease, and it allows people to donate to the cause. The Ice Bucket Challenge went viral, and the ALS foundation attracted $115 million to fund ALS research and support the disease’s patients. With charity organizations struggling to raise money, it is essential to evaluate the focus of the ALS Association, how the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral, and the basics of creating viral campaigns.
The ALS Foundation
The ALS Association is one of the major nonprofit organizations fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease. The organization’s mission is to explore new treatments and eventually develop a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ALS is a neurogenerative disease affecting the spinal cord and brain nerve cells and leading to muscle control loss (Kuehn, 2018, p. 535). It is commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease because it is linked to a baseball player diagnosed with the ailment.
The ALS Association does several activities in its bid to cure ALS. First, the organization conducts research through its global program. It has funded over $120 million for international research in various collaborations. The unrelenting spirit of the organization has led to excellent research discoveries. The charity foundation is responsible for identifying the C9orf72 gene, a significant research discovery in the ALS field in about two decades. It researches six areas, including developing therapies, discovering disease biomarkers, finding ALS genes, using stem cells for therapy testing and disease modeling, and improving clinical trials (ALS Association, n.d., para. 2). In addition, the foundation’s global research studies the understanding of disease mechanisms.
Furthermore, The ALS Association supports various people and projects by offering different awards and grants to the private industry and individual scientists to accelerate the discovery of ALS cures and other treatments. Such awards and grants include The Milton Safenowitz Post-Doctoral Fellowship for ALS Research and Sheila Essay Award. The foundation also holds workshops yearly to host neurogenerative disease scientists to share fresh research suggestions and insights. Additionally, play a significant role in advocating for private and public support for ALS policy initiatives that reflect the needs of persons living with ALS. Finally, the Association raises awareness regarding ALS and the search for treatments and cures using the internet, social media, public outreach, and media relations (ALS Association, n.d., para. 2). Charities struggle to raise money for their causes; thus, exploring the biggest charity ever conducted by the ALS foundation is essential.
Ice Bucket Challenge: Creation of Awareness
The Ice Bucket Challenge created awareness of ALS when Pete Frates, a former baseball player and ALS patient, challenged family, celebrities, and friends to participate in the campaign to expose the disease to the public. With celebrities sharing videos of themselves performing the challenge on social media, everyone started posting short videos to raise awareness of the disease. The challenge entailed dumping ice water on a person’s body, posting a video on social media, and tagging several friends. The tagged friends had to donate to the charity or do the challenge within twenty-four hours. As a result, most people performed the challenge and donated money to the ALS Association (ABC News, 2014). For instance, Taylor Swift and Microsoft founder Bill Gates spotlighted the neurogenerative disease in social media videos.
The campaign succeeded using three ways: personalizing participation, celebrity involvement, and leveraging the power of positive peer pressure. The participation was personalized because people had to pour ice water on themselves to complete the challenge. The campaign gave many individuals an engaging and fun way to give back by getting involved. It showed social media power when effectively managed, directed, and harnessed. By tagging friends, the campaign leveraged the power of peer pressure to encourage friends to post their videos on Facebook and other social media sites. Celebrity involvement drew significant media coverage, effectively spreading the campaign’s message (ABC News, 2014). Although they were not hired for marketing, their participation in the challenge increased exposure and aroused their interest in the challenge.
The Ice Bucket Challenge’s Uniqueness
The Ice Bucket Challenge could not be duplicated as it had the perfect elements to succeed. Several aspects made the Ice Bucket challenge hard to reproduce. First, the challenge provided a fun way for people to participate in the challenge. Pouring ice water on their bodies meant that individuals were left feeling cold after the challenge. The campaign gained traction in the summer, indicating that people were more comfortable partaking in it (Reddy, 2014, para. 7). The ice water served as a temporary break from a hot day. In addition, the challenge was an easy thing to do.
Charities often struggle to raise money or maintain the sudden influx of large donations. When many people see something, their interest wanes off. Thus, duplicating the challenge could not have worked since it would be a repetition of the Ice Bucket Challenge, which people were already accustomed to and becoming tired of the trending campaign. Daniel Hessekiel argued that many charities might try to duplicate the Ice bucket Challenge but would not raise significant amounts of money compared to ALS Association (Reddy, 2014, para. 8). Social media viral phenomena happen fast, and it is nearly impossible to achieve similar results by copying the challenge.
Impact on the ALS Association
The Ice Bucket Challenge was good for the ALS Association as the charity saw a significant rise in donations. The Ice Bucket Challenge led to donations of $115 million, which helped transform the future of ALS research. ALS increased the funding for research projects by about 187 percent. As a result, ALS researchers made significant scientific advances, and the organization has recorded increased federal investment in ALS research (Kuehn, 2018, p. 536). In addition, the challenge enabled ALS Association to increase its fundraising base to 30,000 from 20,000 in the United States. The campaign changed the ALS conversation forever, with everyone in the U.S. knowing about the dangers of the ailment (Reddy, 2014, para 18). The increased awareness made people interested in the disease, drawing interest to ALS-related public policies and future donations.
Creating Viral Nonprofit Campaigns
There are several ways of creating nonprofit campaigns that can quickly go viral. First, Nonprofit organizations should dedicate sufficient energy to creating real emotional connections with audiences when crafting video content. Rather than using content as a method to express a nonprofit’s mission, it is essential to connect to the emotional sense of humans. The emotions evoked by a particular message can leave viewers with feelings that necessitate them to share videos, volunteer or donate. From sadness to anxiety, strong emotions can amplify the likelihood of action, such as video sharing. In some instances, real emotional connections can be achieved by connectivity. For instance, if a nonprofit is fighting cancer or alcoholism, members of different communities can relate to the problem and empathize with people affected by alcoholism and cancer. Thus, they will be stimulated to take action by sharing the message or donating to local charities (Nisar et al., 2022). For example, the message resonated with viewers when people with ALS shared their Ice Bucket Challenge videos.
Viral nonprofit campaigns can also be created through the credibility of sources. Credibility here does not imply that video sources must be reliable. It is more concerned with how the public perceives a charity organization. Nonprofits should establish credibility with audiences if they want to reach viral status. Most nonprofits can achieve credibility by remaining transparent in their operations. Nonprofit credibility takes years to build by hiring respectable leaders, fulfilling mission and vision, and maintaining accountability. Finally, creating viral nonprofit campaigns requires ease of distribution. Messages communicated by nonprofits must be easy to share across multiple mediums, including Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok (Nisar et al., 2022). In addition, nonprofits should consider how news magazines and outlets will view their content or message regarding social relevance and originality.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is essential to evaluate ALS Association’s focus, how the Ice Bucket Challenge became a success, and the basics of developing viral nonprofit campaigns. The ALS Foundation is a leading charity organization dedicated to ALS research and support of ALS patients. The organization aims to find treatments and an ALS cure. The Ice Bucket Challenge created awareness through the influence of celebrities, resulting in millions of shares across social media. It was unique because it provided a fun way for the public to give back. The challenge helped the ALS foundation increase its fundraising base and ALM research funding. Nonprofits can succeed by creating viral campaigns in three ways: creating emotional connections, making message distribution easier, and establishing credibility with the public. Ultimately, nonprofits can try to create creative promotions for various causes as there is not a guaranteed way to raise money successfully.
References
ABC News. (2014).“Ice Bucket Challenge” sweeps America. YouTube. Web.
ALS Association. (n.d.). About us. Web.
Kuehn, B. M. (2018). Simple models and ice bucket challenge fuel progress in ALS treatment. JAMA, 319(6), 535-537. Web.
Nisar, T. M., Prabhakar, G., & Bourlakis, M. (2022). Unravelling influential individual level factors during a crowdfunding campaign: Insights from the ALS ice bucket challenge. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 175, Article e121342. Web.
Reddy, S. (2014). Charities seek their own ice bucket. Wall Street Journal. Web.
Silverman, R. E., & Gellman, L. (2014). Ice Bucket Challenge: When success creates problems of its own. Wall Street Journal. Web.