KIMBERLEY SCHARF AND SARAH SMITH OPINION The bucket brigade


Why has the ice bucket challenge proved so popular but also provoked strong negative reactions? By Kimberley Scharf and Sarah Smith (pictured)


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HE ICE BUCKET challenge was the latest charity fundraising campaign to go viral in the US and UK. For anyone not connected to the internet in July/ August


2014, the challenge was to have a bucket of iced water dumped over you, to post the video online and then to nominate three others who had 24 hours to comply. It was all in the name of charity – if you accepted the challenge you donated to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) charities; if you dodged the challenge, you donated more. The response was huge – 1.2 million video


shares on Facebook between June and the middle of August. The challenge has succeeded in raising awareness (Wikipedia recorded more than 430,000 hits on its ALS page in a single day in August, compared to 8,000 pre-ice bucket challenge) as well as tremendous sums of money – $100 million for the US ALS Society and £6 million for the UK Motor Neurone Disease Society (MNDS).


because of its sheer scale. Recent research from the US has suggested that spreading donations through social networks can be hard work. Simply asking your friends to donate to a wonderful charity has little effect. It takes a bucket of cold water – and an opportunity for self-promotion – to make giving go viral. But when it succeeds, such a campaign can shift huge sums of money in a very short space


“ The challenge has also provoked strong


reactions – many of them negative. Some critics have focused on people’s motivations for participating and donating. The challenge has been described as ‘narcissism masked as altruism’ – although, since selfies are here to stay, it might be better if they are for a good cause than only for self-promotion. But the underlying assumption seems to be that you can only do good if you do it for the ‘right’ reasons. In fact much of giving has little to do with the cause and is socially motivated. People care about who else is donating – and how much. Giving is often a very personal response to the person who is asking for donations. Our ESRC-funded research shows that individual fundraising, for example, is more about the relationship between the donor and the fundraiser than it is about the relationship between the donor and the charity. The ice bucket challenge has probably attracted more criticism than individual fundraising


The challenge has been


described as narcissism masked as altruism


of time. The second set of criticisms has focused on whether this money comes at the expense of other – and perhaps ‘better’ – charities. In theory it is possible that other charities lose – the money has to come from somewhere. But while there isn’t much direct evidence, what there is (which relates to disaster appeal giving) suggests probably not. Would the money have been better going


”


to other charities? Economist and journalist Tim Harford gave most of his donation to the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative charity because, compared to MNDS, it could demonstrate a bigger improvement in quality of life years per £1 spent. Focusing on effectiveness is important, but whether it can be reduced to a single easy-to- compare metric is unclear. Ultimately, it is also a matter of personal preference. A final important issue is that the money is


well spent. For most people, however, good charity spending seems to be interpreted as spending everything on the programme. Other ESRC-funded research shows that donors are reluctant to give to charities that spend money on core costs – even where these are essential for growth (fundraising and marketing investment) and dynamic efficiency (R&D). Social entrepreneur Dan Pallotta put it well when he said: “Imagine if Tim Cook had to get people to dump ice on their heads in order to bring revenue into Apple – and had to figure out a new idea like that every six months – with an R&D budget for hatching it of precisely zero, to boot.” This is no way to change the world. n


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Contact Kimberley Scharf, Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy and University of Warwick, Sarah Smith, Centre for Market and Public Organisation and University of Bristol Email k.scharf at warwick.ac.uk, sarah.smith@bristol.ac.uk Web www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/people/researchers/smith www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/kascharf/


AUTUMN 2014 SOCIETY NOW 15


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