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Credits to http://www.alsa.org

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen tons of examples of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Love it or hate on it, there are many lessons to be learned from the viral success of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

The ALS Association has declared that they’ve received $115 million in donations since July 29, 2014compared to $2.1 million during the same period last year, plus they’ve made it from 700,000 new donors. That’s an amazing increase in numbers.

But how did this all start?

The origins of the idea of dumping cold water on one’s head to raise money for charity are unclear and have been attributed to multiple sources. According to the ALSA.org the Ice Bucket Challenge formerly existed in the sporting world and has been used for other causes in the past, but it was the people impacted by the disease who really made things go viral for ALS in mid-July.

What is the main idea of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?

The challenge with a bucket of ice water is intended to support the Association to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease with various causes. It is characterized by muscle spasticity, rapidly progressive weakness due to muscle atrophy, difficulty in speaking (dysarthria), swallowing (dysphagia), and breathing (dyspnea). ALS is the most common of the five motor neuron diseases. It’s wider-spread attention started in the USA and in particular in Boston after the emergence of an Internet video made by former athlete, diagnosed with ALS Pete Frates.

What are the rules?

In August 2014, the challenge went viral online and became commonly known as the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge”. The participant has to fill a bucket full of ice and water, then state who summoned him to do the challenge and summon three other individuals of his choice to take part in it. He then dumps the bucket of ice and water onto himself.

According to conventional rules whoever receives such a challenge has 24 hours to join the campaign to capture and upload video a to the Internet. In addition to that he should donate $ 10 to the Association to fight ALS. Those who refuse the challenge, must make a donation of $ 100.

Who took the challenge?

Many celebrities, athletes and business moguls have taken part in the challenge, including Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, James Franco, Ben Affleck, Oprah Winfrey among many other well-known personalities and members of the general public. George Bush who was flooded with a bucket of cold water by his wife, nominated Bill Clinton. Hundreds of celebrities joined this refreshing procedure and nominated who will be next.

After the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media, public awareness and charitable donations for ALS soared. On August 18, 2014, the ALS Association announced that it had received $15.6 million in donations compared to $1.8 million during the same time period (July 29 to August 18) in the previous year. These donations came from both existing donors and 307,598 new donors to the Association

WebHostFace got challenged, how about you?

On August 22, our very own CEO Valentin Sharlanov and the office crew joined the challenge to raise awareness and help spread the word about the ALS Desease.

Hi, my name is Valentin Sharlanov, the CEO of WebHostFace and these are some of our tech guys. I nominate for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge my ex employer Tenko Nikolov from SiteGround, Arvand Sabetian from Arvixe, Zak Boca and Dan Ushman from SingleHop. Few years ago when WebHostFace was established, I was inspired and challenged by your knowledge, professionalism and huge success. Now I would like to challenge you back for a noble cause. Guys you have 24 hours and don’t forget to donate as well.

The funny part is that we actually had to do it twice, since I personally failed to shoot the first try. 🙂

Is there any end date for the challenge?

Absolutely not. The Ice Bucket Challenge started organically by individuals with the disease. So as long as people all over the worlds keep participating, the challenge will continue.

At the end, I would like to make a note: a lot of people take on this challenge from their friends and forget to remind others who participate to donate. Some of them might not even know why they’re doing it at all – except that their friends did it, probably just for fun and then tagged them in their videos on Facebook .

And while that is still beneficial to the cause, please try to remind others to either read these true stories or go to ALSA.org to donate. Or do both, just like we did. Even if you dump ice on your head and post the video over the Internet!

You can help by donating here: http://www.alsa.org/fight-als/ice-bucket-challenge.html

Leave a comment below to let us know about your experience with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. So, how about you? Have you been challenged? Did you donate, do the bucket, or both?