--- title: TIME100 Philanthropy: Dolly Parton description: Find out why Dolly Parton is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2025 list. canonical: https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286075/dolly-parton/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-05-20T11:29:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-03T02:29:24.726Z og:title: TIME100 Philanthropy: Dolly Parton og:description: Find out why Dolly Parton is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2025 list. og:url: https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286075/dolly-parton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58838ddde35aa8b3/6998c6c547fe51747d55bba4/T100PHIL-Titans-Dolly-Parton.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME100 Philanthropy: Dolly Parton og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME100 Philanthropy: Dolly Parton twitter:description: Find out why Dolly Parton is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2025 list. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58838ddde35aa8b3/6998c6c547fe51747d55bba4/T100PHIL-Titans-Dolly-Parton.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- May 20, 2025 # Dolly Parton Longtime giver by [Alana Semuels](https://time.com/author/alana-semuels/) ## Alana Semuels Senior Correspondent  Jason Kempin—Getty Images Country music icon Dolly Parton has been giving almost as long as she has been singing. The musician created the Dollywood Foundation in 1988, to decrease the drop-out rate in her childhood home of Sevier County, Tenn. The foundation supports initiatives to keep kids in school and make sure they can read. Since inception, its signature Imagination Library, originally a local program, has sent more than [270 million](https://imaginationlibrary.com/over-270-million-free-books-gifted-as-of-february-2025/) free, age-appropriate books to children under five in thousands of locales across the U.S. as well as in Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Australia. Parton’s philanthropy, though often focused in her home state, is as eclectic as her music. She was a major donor to COVID-19 vaccine research, giving $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in an effort that led to the development of the Moderna vaccine. She also has funded pediatric infectious disease research at Vanderbilt. Parton also gave $1,000 per month for six months to families who lost their homes to fires in Sevier County in 2016; her relief donations ultimately hit $12.5 million. In recognition of her decades of generosity, Parton received the prestigious Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022, and she shows no signs of changing course: in Oct. 2024, she partnered with the Mountain Ways Foundation to give $1 million to flood victims affected by Hurricane Helene in East Tennessee. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286075/dolly-parton/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286075/dolly-parton/"},"headline":"Dolly Parton","datePublished":"2025-05-20T11:29:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T02:29:24.726Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286075/dolly-parton/","keywords":["list","franchise"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58838ddde35aa8b3/6998c6c547fe51747d55bba4/T100PHIL-Titans-Dolly-Parton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Semuels","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alana-semuels/"}],"creator":"Alana Semuels","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt58838ddde35aa8b3/6998c6c547fe51747d55bba4/T100PHIL-Titans-Dolly-Parton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286075/dolly-parton/","name":"Dolly Parton"}}]}] ```