What the Ice Bucket Challenge Still Teaches Us About Nonprofit Fundraising, Marketing and Storytelling

If you’ve been feeling a sense of déjà vu, you are not wrong. The Ice Bucket Challenge has returned! This viral phenomenon during the summer of 2014 earned a top spot in the annals of fundraising history for raising more than $115 million for the ALS Association in eight weeks.

Now, it has been reimagined by some industrious students at University of South Carolina to tackle a new issue: mental health awareness. As part of their #SpeakYourMIND campaign, they are raising awareness and funds for a local nonprofit – this time with a twist: you get doused with ice water and open doors to conversations about the importance of mental health. Similar to the OG challenge, it has raised money and caught the attention of celebrities, such as Jenna Bush Hager and Peyton Manning.

To their credit, the ALS Association has blessed this new version of what we like to call “leapfrog innovation.” It also underscores their recent win – the development of a new drug, AMX0035, which slows the progression of ALS. In a powerful follow-up, the ALS Association recently provided an update to their donors, showing that their support led to real, measurable impact. In light of these developments, we thought we would revisit what made the original campaign so groundbreaking:

A Viral Campaign Built to Stick

First, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a great example of how the sharing economy had evolved from individual fundraising to a peer-to-peer model. Millions of people passed the “challenge” along to others, and it wasn’t just millennials.

Secondly, it was smart marketing. In our storytelling trainings, we urge social sector organizations to make their messages “sticky,” borrowing from our friends Dan and Chip Heath’s classic book, Made to Stick. They developed the SUCCESs Model (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories), which we encourage all our nonprofit friends to keep handy as they develop, improve and launch their own marketing pushes. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a prime example of a “sticky” campaign. Here’s why it was destined to be such a success (or SUCCESs):

Simple

People are inundated by many messages, so yours has to be simple to ensure it sticks. What could be simpler than someone dumping ice water over their head? The challenge also made it easy to communicate by using social media. Clicking “share” allowed the 17 million people who made ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos to distribute them to their followers in an instant.

Unexpected

People love surprises and the expressions after being doused alone were priceless. We loved seeing it and sharing it with our network. In fact, it just made us want more. When developing your messages, think about how they can be simple, but also add an unexpected twist to capture attention.

Concrete

Messages have to be direct and concrete. The challenge was to either pour ice water over your head or give money within 24 hours. And the money was going toward something concrete – finding a cure. We loved that the ALS Association has stayed accountable to those donors, even sending a status report as recently as last week.

Credible

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge also got a push from celebrity participants – from Bill Gates to George W. Bush. Messages can benefit from credible individuals – celebrities, experts or the media – endorsing them.

Emotional

Most charities use the emotions of sadness or happiness to motivate awareness and giving, but we encourage people to think “outside the emotional box.” The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge used surprise as its main emotional driver, but it also subtly appealed to our innate competitive drive to motivate people to contribute.

Stories

Research shows that our mind responds powerfully to stories. We need to leverage the stories of our cause – how our clients change their lives and how our volunteers make a difference. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge created a funny story line, which starred our favorite people and was grounded in a good cause. How could we not pay attention?

 

 

 

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, intentionally or not, used this formula to generate one of the most “SUCCESsful” viral fundraising campaigns in history. Of course, the real challenge became how the ALS Association used the Ice Bucket Challenge to continue the conversation, cultivated its more than 3 million donors and activated support for its cause long-term. As the graphic above shows, there is no doubt that it made a tremendous impact on ALS research and gave hope to individuals with ALS around the world. As Pete Frates said about his role as an advocate for ALS research: “Being part of something bigger than yourself is one of the best things you can do.” We would love to hear your thoughts on the ALS or USC “Speak Your Mind” Ice Bucket Challenge – or any other successful viral fundraising campaigns.