Ice Bucket Dept: for champagne or the ALS Society?

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What percent of this windfall should ALS keep?

10% (3.5 times their annual need)
0
No votes
20% (7x annual)
0
No votes
30% (10x)
1
50%
50% (17x)
0
No votes
80% (27x)
0
No votes
All of it!
1
50%
 
Total votes: 2

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Capn Jimbo
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Ice Bucket Dept: for champagne or the ALS Society?

Post by Capn Jimbo »

By now no humanoid can possibly be unaware...


...of the latest charity craze, ie to make a donation to the ALS, have bucket of ice water poured over your head and challenge others. For whatever reason this promotional gimmick has caught the public's fancy - big time!
The ALS (who'd normally collect about 2.6M in annual donations) has exceeded 88M (34 years worth), and still climbing. More than a new record, this is stupendous. Or is it?

Not necessarily. By collecting so very much money, so far, far, FAR over even their most optimistic goals - this actually creates some problems.
  • 1. It's hard to use that much money efficiently or quickly.

    2. If it's invested and held idle, it is not actively helping. It tempts new projects that will require future funding. Too rapid growth is risky.

    But what is surely a big, big issue - perhaps the most important is this...

    3. By soon collecting 40 years worth of money in a single year there is the very serious risk of the loss of regular or new contributors, maybe most of them. And if they keep the money, some will (correctly) perceive them as greedy.

What to do?

One excellent suggestion is this: keep a reasonable sum, but share the windfall with other related, but independent charities. By doing so it serves all their interests, and provides the best possible example of their own charity. If this notion is good, then the question is simple, or maybe not...

How much money is reasonable to keep? What do you think? Oh, and please do share your thinking (unless you choose to keep it to yourself, lol)...
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The Black Tot
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Post by The Black Tot »

They should keep it all and invest it.

They should invest it ethically - no shares in Diageo, Lockheed Martin, Philip Morris, etc.

Invested money is not idle, it is what provides capital for other areas of the economy.

If they can thereby increase what they can do for ALS sufferers without even the need for further donations, ever...they have done a wonderful thing - they have become a truly self-sustaining charity, leaving their former donors to find another charity to contribute to next year instead.

People can look to what they gave them and say "hey, we all gave to ALS and now they're sorted out forever! This charity stuff really CAN make a permanent difference". That's more motivating than "every year I give and nothing seems to change"

I had a ball donating to ALS this year - I bought 10 bottles of Parker's Heritage 2013. One of my favorite bourbons, EVER. It aslo added up to $100 of donations, handily getting me out of my internet challenges...
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