ALS Charity Faces Challenge of Spending Ice-Bucket Windfall

With the ice-bucket challenge swelling the ALS Association’s coffers by millions of dollars a day, the organization risks lower rankings from the nonprofit watchdog groups if it does not spend the money quickly on mission-related work, Fortune writes. The charity raised $53.3-million from July 29 to August. 22—compared to $19.8-million all of last year—thanks to the viral phenomenon that encourages people to challenge friends to give to the organization or drench themselves with ice water.

The ALS Association has received good grades from evaluators such as Charity Navigator and CharityWatch, which base their ratings in part on nonprofits spending 60 percent or more of annual revenue on programming. Lance Slaughter, the association’s chief chapter relations and development officer, said it does not plan to hurry spending but will “work with these watchdog groups” with regard to rankings. “They understand that anomalies take place,” he said.