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ALS ice bucket challenge: Over half of Brits polled did not donate to charity afterwards

A third did not know what the ice bucket challenge was in aid of

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The Independent Online
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Over half of Brits polled admitted they did not donate to an ALS charity after taking part in an ice bucket challenge. Instagram/Neymar

Over half of Brits polled said they did not donate to an ALS charity after taking part in an ice bucket challenge.

Additionally, 53 per cent of people who did complete the challenge did not know what cause it was supporting, a new survey has revealed.

Read more: The ALS Association doesn't yet know what to do with all this ice bucket challenge money
Is it really about awareness for ALS or self-promotion?

The trend, led by high profile names including Bill Gates, Sir Patrick Stewart, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and George Bush, prompted thousands of people across the UK to publish videos online of ice cold water being poured over their heads.

A survey conducted by VoucherCodesPro looking at social media trends found that almost half of the 1, 528 adults it polled had undertaken an ice bucket challenge of their own.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the American name for the condition usually referred to as motor neurone disease (MND) in the UK, where the leading organisation is the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

ALS affects the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons degenerate and die which makes it increasingly difficult to move muscles. There is currently no cure.

In pictures: The famous do the ice bucket challenge

In pictures: The famous do the ice bucket challenge

  • 1/16 Lady Gaga

    Lady Gaga managed to keep an admirably straight face as she poured what looked like a solid silver bowl of cold water over herself

    HipHopForever/Youtube

  • 2/16 Homer Simpson

    Fans were overjoyed when their favourite yellow cartoon character got involved in the campaign to raise money to help those suffering from ALS. As per usual with Homer Simpson, things escalated quickly

    YouTube/Fox

  • 3/16 Reece Witherspoon

    One of those who have arrived slightly late on the scene, actress Reece Witherspoon looks nervous but resolute as she has a bucket of ice-cold water chucked over her head

    Instagram/Reece Witherspoon

  • 4/16 Lily Allen

    Lily wore a bikini as she self-administered her bucket of icy water. She thanked Jess Glynne for the nomination, and passed the challenge onto Mark Ronson, Millie Mackintosh and rapper Giggs

    Instagram/lilyallen

  • 5/16 Daisy Lowe

    Celebrity ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos seem to be coming in faster than we can watch them - model Daisy Lowe is one of the most recent to get involved. She was nominated by Sun journalist Dan Wooton, and passed it on to radio presenter Nick Grimshaw and Abbey Clancy

    YouTube

  • 6/16 Bill Gates

    One of the first to go viral on YouTube, Bill Gates had freezing water tipped over him in a bid to raise millions of dollars to fight the illness ALS

    thegatesnotes/YouTube

  • 7/16 George W. Bush

    It felt like quite an important moment when the former President of the United States accepted nominations from his daughter Jenna Bush Hager, golfing champion Rory McIlroy, Woody Johnson, and Jim Harbaugh. He nominated 'my friend Bill Clinton'

    George W.Bush/Facebook

  • 8/16 Jimmy Fallon

    In an official letter this week, the ALS Association said: 'Never before have been in a better position to fuel our fight against this disease.'

    NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

  • 9/16 Tom Hiddleston

    Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis affects the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons degenerate and die which makes it increasingly difficult to move muscles

    YouTube

  • 10/16 Rita Ora

    There is no known cause of ALS, though there is a proven hereditary factor in some cases

    REX/Broadimage

  • 11/16 Taylor Swift

    There is also no known cure, though the millions being raised by the ALS association will go towards researching these great unknowns

    TUBEBREAKINGNEWS/YouTube

  • 12/16 Oprah Winfrey

    The illness is also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, named after the all-time great baseball player from the early 20th Century whose time at the top ended when he was stricken with the illness in 1939

  • 13/16 Mark Zuckerberg

    The Facebook founder is unarguably the master of the challenge, who – following his drenching – saunters off

    TV iGosu/YouTube

  • 14/16 Justin Bieber

    Bieber's first attempt was pretty naff: he didn’t quite get it and decided not to use ice or a bucket to complete the challenge. Obviously, the internet moaned at him and he was brilliantly peer pressured into having another go

    Swaggy Bieber/Youtube

  • 15/16 Justin Timberlake

    Celebrities have been nominating one another to do the challenge

  • 16/16 Christiano Ronaldo and Marcelo

    The challenge is now making its way over to this side of the Atlantic, former Manchester United players Paul Scholes and Gary Neville both doused themselves in cold water for a terminally ill fan

    MaximumFootballHD/YouTube

The challenge aims to raise awareness for ALS and money for the ALS Association. Fifty-six per cent of those who did participate said they did not donate afterwards, while over a third of respondents said they did the challenge just to gain attention on social media.

A further one in ten claimed to have done an ice bucket challenge because they felt pressured into doing so after receiving a nomination.

Only sixteen per cent said they donated between £1 and £3 to an ALS charity after completing the challenge, while three per cent said they donated £10 or more.

Video: The ALS ice bucket craze

Despite the less than encouraging responses, the ALS Association has received a record $94.3 million (£57 million) in donations since 29 July.

The group received $2.7 million (£1.6 million) during the same time period in 2013, highlighting the success of this year's challenge.

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