Ice Bucket Challenge a gimmick best not repeated

You would think the merits of something — eradicating a disease, educating the impoverished, or cleaning up the environment — would be enough to move people to be altruistic. But that’s rarely the case. Every charity somehow needs to break through the clutter of competing pleas. For big donors, that means one-on-one appeals. For smaller donors, group activities seem to work.

— Miami Herald columnist Tom Keane, writing for the paper’s editorial blog (Ice Bucket Challenge a gimmick best not repeated)