Where is All That Ice Bucket Challenge Money Going?

The fad of the summer of 2014 was the Ice Bucket Challenge.  The Challenge was a masterstroke of charitable fundraising for ALS research.

Everyone wanted to do have ice-cold water dumped over their heads and show you video proving they helped the cause.

The Ice Bucket Challenge brought the ALS Association $115 million in donations. The group has started dividing how they are going to spend the money, including tripling the annual amount they spend on research.

According to a Newser blog, "We are tripling the amount annually that we spend on research," says ALS Association president Barbara Newhouse. That means distributing cash to a number of projects, and choosing them can be daunting: "It’s been amazing how many people have come out of the woodwork to say, 'I have the answer,'" Newhouse says. “We’re trying to sort through what’s fact and what’s fiction."

About $20 million has been handed out to the New York Genome Center, Los Angeles hospital Cedars-Sinai and the University of California San Francisco.

Some of the money is being used to improve drugs fighting the disease and increase care for current patients.

It's not too late to help in the fight against ALS.

The ALS Association is the only national non-profit organization fighting Lou Gehrig’s Disease on every front.  By leading the way in global research, providing assistance for people with ALS through a nationwide network of chapters, coordinating multidisciplinary care through certified clinical care centers, and fostering government partnerships, The Association builds hope and enhances quality of life while aggressively searching for new treatments and a cure.  For more information about The ALS Association, visit alsa.org.