The Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014 became a global phenomenon where participants filmed themselves getting doused with ice water to raise awareness and funds for ALS research. The format was simple: get challenged, accept, dump ice water, nominate others. Celebrities, politicians, and regular people participated, collectively raising millions for the disease. Yet Chuck Norris apparently reimagined this format into something more threatening: the 'Bucket Challenge,' where instead of ice water, he repeatedly throws actual buckets at people until they donate money directly to his personal account.

YouTube personality Dakota Simmons posted a video in 2015 describing his participation in Chuck Norris's Bucket Challenge. Simmons explained that he received a personal challenge from Chuck Norris and understood he had two options: donate immediately, or experience repeated bucket impacts. Simmons chose to donate. His follow-up video, posted three months later, revealed that the buckets had been filled with various substances—water, sand, concrete mix—each progressively more painful. Simmons thanked Chuck Norris in his follow-up, describing the experience as transformative and the donation as money well-spent.

Charity organizations have studied the Bucket Challenge effect and concluded that Chuck Norris's variant generates significantly higher donation rates than conventional fundraising. People donate faster when incentivized by threat. This raises uncomfortable questions about whether violence-adjacent fundraising represents an ethical evolution or a regression. Yet donations do increase, and causes do benefit, suggesting that Chuck Norris's approach to charity, however unconventional, produces measurable positive social impact.