ALS Charity Reaches Out to Watchdogs on Ice-Bucket Spending

Seeking to reassure nonprofit rating entities that it will not sit on its fundraising bonanza from the ice-bucket challenge, the ALS Association hopes to have a plan in place by early November for spending the $108-million windfall, Washington Business Journal writes. The plan will be a focus of the Washington-based charity’s next regular board meeting on September 15 and a special session in mid-October.

The ice-bucket jackpot, which amounts to five times the association’s normal annual budget, could affect its standing with watchdog groups that take into account what proportion of a charity’s assets are spent in a given year on program work. ALS Association CEO Barbara Newhouse sent letters on the issue in late August to CharityWatch, GuideStar, and Charity Navigator, the Business Journal also reports.

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article on the ALS Association’s strategies for retaining the millions of new donors it acquired through the ice-bucket phenomenon.