This Ice Bucket Challenge, One Year Later: Where'd All The Money Go?

On this day last year, Chris Kennedy dumped a bucket of ice water over his head, uploaded the clip to YouTube, and started a phenomenon.

More than 17 million people participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge, which saw participants fill up a bucket (or helicopter, pool, bathtub, anything really) full of ice and water, dump the contents over themselves, then nominate their family or friends to do the same. Celebrities, athletes, scientists, and more joined in. Everyone was dumping ice and water on themselves and posting it all over the Internet.

Once the dust had settled and the ice had melted, the Ice Bucket Challenge was a complete success. Instead of just dumping the water on your head and showing off to your friends, the original concept of the challenge was to raise money and awareness for ALS. Plenty of people found themselves dumping the ice and moving on, but even more people donated to the cause of finding a cure.

Two-and-a-half million Americans donated $115 million to the ALS Association alone. The association said it was the largest episode of giving outside of a disaster or emergency. The most interesting thing about all the donated money was how it was going to be divvied up between all the organizations striving to fight against ALS.

A year later, the ALS Association says it has spent or budgeted about 40 percent of the donations toward specific purposes. It has a goal, however, to divide the remaining $115 million into five buckets.