The Ice Bucket Challenge

Goodbye Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, there is a new fundraising template in town and its name is the Ice Bucket Challenge.

If you're like me, you will be wiping away wistful tears at the thought of never seeing Jerry Lewis painfully crank out his version of My Way each time Ed McMahon announces more dollars on the tote-board every Labor Day - but whether it is education, business, or the fund-raising game - the old adage is still fresh, Adapt or Die. To be fair, I'm actually not sure if Jerry or Ed are still with us, but I digress.

The ALS Association (short for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gehrig's Disease) can adapt with the best of them. Raising awareness (and dollars) has never been simpler or more fun. Star in a one minute video, donate money to ALS, challenge friends to do the same, take a bucket of ice water for the team. Easy peazy. The Challenged becomes The Challenger. A brilliant and benevolent pyramid scheme that increases exponentially and financially. Donate, Challenge, Douse, Repeat. 

And it's largely thanks to - gulp - Facebook. Without the social media giant's infinite reach, The Ice Bucket Challenge would not have raised anything close to $62 million (and counting) as of 8/23 (link). This really is the power and possibility of the internet at work. For all of its shortcoming (pictures of restaurant food, references to feeling blessed, selfies at the gym, talk of besties, would-be writers' blog posts - scratch that last one), Facebook can also a force for good.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has proven something else as well. The American people can (still) accomplish big things when properly motivated. Fine, it's not the rationing of essential goods during World War II or the planting of Victory gardens, but $62 million is nothing to sneeze at (unless of course you caught a cold taking The Challenge - gesundheit), but it is cause for hope.

Naturally, the ALS Association's fund-raising success got me thinking. What other equally worthy causes could benefit from a little cold water?

1. The US federal budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office expects the year-end budget deficit to come in at approximately $500 billion (link). Yowza. On the bright side, that total is down from the all-time high of $1.4 trillion back in 2009. Nonetheless, I'd say Congress and the Presidency need to pitch in. I am proposing that the 537 elected members of these two braches of government each pledge $931,098,696.46 (500 billion divided by 537). Oh sure, it's not all their fault, but we can't track down every Representative, Senator, Vice-President, and President since the early 80's. Regardless, I doubt there is enough ice water in the world to douse them with. So instead, switching to hot tar might make taxpayers happier. A nice layer of feathers on that tar is optional but probably additionally satisfying.

2. The looming student loan crisis. Reality: young people don't vote. More reality: student loan debt is not sexy, therefore it is not an election issue. Further reality: heaping insane, ever-increasing tuition costs on students (who don't yet understand debt's lifelong impact) amounts to a criminal conspiracy between higher education and the federal government. Final reality: student loan default rates (not to mention young adults moving back in with mom and dad) have risen for six straight years, with no end in sight. Solution: I have none. What will make us all feel better: line up state and federally elected politicians (and university regents) so we can dump all of our loose change on them. No rolls of quarters. We're not barbarians after all. But it should hurt a little bit. No water, no ice. No amount of either can get those people clean.

3. The Dating Naked lawsuit. True story - Jessie Nizewitz appeared on a reality TV show called Dating Naked (nudity among strangers seems to be the final frontier of the reality genre). She is now suing Viacom (the show's distributor) for $10 million because she "has suffered and continues to suffer extreme emotional distress, mental anguish, humiliation and embarrassment. … Defendants knew or reasonably should have known that broadcasting an individual’s vagina and anus on national cable television would cause substantial and severe emotional distress." Apparently, her privates were inadvertently shown as she playfully wrestled in the mud with her date. Nizewitz was further upset because her grandmother was watching and "didn't have much to say to me. She's probably mad" (link).  Do you think Jessie? You agreed to be a contestant on a naked dating game show after all! Dating. Naked. Isn't the humiliation and embarrassment implied? Clearly, she is going to lose in court or get a nominal settlement to simply go away. But rather than take the Ice Bucket Challenge (which would certainly wash the mud off but reveal more than Jessie has already shown us), I propose that Jessie's family - at least the few she is on speaking terms with - fill buckets with scraps of paper rather than water. On each scrap of paper will be words like self-respect, self-esteem, intelligence, common sense, don't be a dumbshit, etc. With any luck, a few of these words may eventually sink into Jessie Nizewitz's nitwit brain.

A short list - one of buckets, budgets, bills, and boobs. None as worthy as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. But the ICB should humble and humiliate organizations and individuals who can't ever seem to get their collective and individual houses in order. The ALS Association got the model right. They tapped into our desire to connect with each other, and give of ourselves in the connecting.