冰桶挑战超两亿善款该怎么花

    除了将捐款用于一些有价值的前途无量的研究以外，纽约大学教授卡拉布里亚，和印第安纳大学（Indiana University）礼来家族慈善学院（Lilly Family School of Philanthropy）学术事务与研究副院长帕特里克•鲁尼均提出，ALS协会可以用“冰桶挑战”募集的捐款成立一支类似于捐赠基金，这样一来，协会不仅可以将一次性的捐款现象转变为可靠的未来收入来源，而且一旦未来有重大的医疗技术进步需要大量资金时，还可以动用该笔基金。

    ALS协会的斯劳特表示，协会之前没有任何捐赠基金，然而，虽然“我们不排除任何可能”，但将“冰桶挑战”的捐款存起来以备不时之需并不符合组织的使命，主要是因为“这种疾病刻不容缓”。ALS患者的平均预期寿命为两至五年，而且ALS协会并未看到患者死亡率有任何改善，因此现在没有时间可供浪费。

    如何使用“冰桶挑战”的捐款还有另外一个挑战，因为这项活动并非由ALS协会发起，结果，活动也没有明确的使命。因此，协会很难确定个人捐赠者希望自己的捐款用于怎样的目的。而让捐赠者失望是要不得的。

    不妨汲取一下红十字会（Red Cross）的教训。

    911恐怖袭击之后，该救济组织募得的资金达到创纪录的5.64亿美元。捐款者认为，这笔资金应该用于帮助袭击受害者及其家人，但红十字会却决定将超过一半的捐款用于机构运营和作为未来资金储备。长期以来，红十字会一直都采取这种做法，但这一次却引发了捐款者的众怒，最终红十字会被迫道歉并重新确定了捐款用途。

    红十字会公共关系副总裁劳拉•霍伊对《财富》表示：“当捐款者告诉我们，他们的捐款应该用于特定目的时，我们必须尊重他们的意愿，这非常重要。这也是我们得到的一条重要教训。”

    斯劳特表示，除了带来捐款以外，冰桶挑战也提高了人们对ALS的认识，几年前ALS协会进行的一项调查中，美国知道这种疾病的人还不到半数。斯劳特说：“他们开始了解到这种疾病是一种退化性疾病，并且会致命。我不知道人们是否会关心ALS如何使用这笔捐款；现在他们已明确认识到这是一种难以忍受的疾病。如果他们花时间浏览了网站并捐款——那是因为他们认为这项事业值得投资。”

    ALS协会必需做出大量的支出决策，但对于该组织和它努力拯救的那些人来说，这种挑战真是幸事。

    斯劳特表示：“现在的问题是：‘到底多少钱才算太多？’除非我们找到有效的长期治疗方法， 否则我们的捐款永远处于不足状态。”（财富中文网）

    Aside from spending the money on promising, worthwhile research, both Calabrese from NYU and Patrick Rooney, associate dean for academic affairs and research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, floated the idea of ALSA starting an endowment-like fund with the ice bucket money since it would turn what’s likely to be a one-time donation phenomenon into a reliable source of future revenue, and it could be tapped if some major medical advancement needs significant funding in the future.

    ALSA’s Slaughter says the organization has never had an endowment, and while “nothing’s off the table,” saving the ice bucket money for a rainy day doesn’t necessarily fit with the organization’s mission, mainly because “this is a disease that requires urgency,” Slaughter says. When the average life span of an ALS patient is between two and five years and ALSA has seen no improvement in mortality rates, there’s no time to waste.

    There’s an added challenge to spending the ice bucket money that stems from the fact that the ALS Association did not start the campaign, and as a result, never stated a specific mission behind it. That makes it difficult to pinpoint what individuals want to come from their donations. And disappointing donors isn’t a chance you want to take.

    Just ask the Red Cross.

    In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the relief organizations raised a record $564 million. Donors believed that their money would go to help victims of the attacks and their families, but the organization decided to set aside more than half of the funds for operations and future reserves. The Red Cross had a long-standing practice of taking such an approach, but it nonetheless sparked outrage among donors and prompted an apology from the Red Cross as well as the redirection of funds.

    “When donors tell us that their money should be used for a specific purpose, it’s important for us to honor that intent,” Laura Howe, vice president of public relations for the Red Cross told Fortune. “It’s a lesson that we’ve learned over the years.”

    Slaughter says that in addition to generating donations, the ice bucket campaign has raised awareness of ALS, a disease that less than half of the country could identify when the association conducted a survey a few years ago. “They’ve learned that it’s degenerative and deadly. I don’t know that people are concerned about how we spend the money; they’re determined now that this is an unacceptable disease. If they took time to go to the website and donate…they feel that ours is a cause worth investing in,” Slaughter says.

    ALSA certainly has a lot of spending decisions to make, but for the organization and the people it’s trying to save, there could not be a better challenge to face.

    “The question that’s showing up out in the universe now is, ‘How much is too much?'” Slaughter says. “Until we have effective long-term treatment, we’ll never have enough.”