Ice Bucket Challenge

A person performing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, was a viral challenge in which people would dump a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or by themselves. This was done to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as motor neuron disease and in the US as Lou Gehrig's disease) and encourage donations to research.

It went viral on social media during July–August 2014.

The challenge made the most money for charity of any social media trend in history. Each time someone did the ice bucket challenge they then challenged a friend to do it. If the friend did not do the challenge within 24 hours, they were supposed to donate $100 USD towards ALS. However, most people gave money even if they did complete the challenge. The number of views the videos got meant that almost 28 million people gave money, with the average donation being around $5. People raised more than $115 million for ALS. Over 100 research projects were started around the world with the money and 22 new drugs were developed. Before the challenge, the ALS association received $6 million a year to spend on research but after the challenge their revenue has grown to 19 million a year.