American singer-songwriter Madonna (1958) has been known for her philanthropic endeavors, advocacy and political commentaries. She began as one of the first mainstream musicians to advocate in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. She has supported and spoken about a range of causes, including gender equality and LGBT rights, and has used her social media platforms, concerts, and her work to promote them.
Madonna has donated time and money to various charitable organizations and was sometimes a quiet donor. Her endeavors also include performing at various benefit concerts and participating in different charity releases. Madonna founded her own non-profit organizations in 1998 (Ray of Light Foundation) and 2006 (Raising Malawi). The first serves areas all over the world, while the second focuses its efforts on Malawi.
Known for her outspoken views, Madonna's advocacy and political commentary have attracted significant criticism, particularly over her provocative remarks and support for liberal causes. Her work in Malawi received a polarized reception. Madonna received awards from the AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) and American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) for her work related to AIDS.
Charitable activities In Women Icons of Popular Music (2009), Carrie Havranek wrote that Madonna "downplays much of [...] her philanthropic efforts, despite the fact that she is a regular donor to AIDS charities and a quiet donor to a charity for breast cancer". With the advent of social media, Sarah Ezzy from Global Philanthropy Group (2015), commented "she's not shy about using her social media to highlight her giving and encourage others to give directly to those efforts". Mel Ottenberg from Interview (2021) said "Madonna does so much charitable work".
LGBT and AIDS-related causes
Biographer Carol Gnojewski (Madonna: Fighting for Self-Expression, 2017) stated that Madonna has "donated millions" to AIDS organizations. Writing for Billboard in 2001, Wayne Hoffman commented that her AIDS charity involves "money and time". She is considered to be one of the first musicians to advocate for the AIDS crisis, or one of the first "notable names" from the entertainment industry for the cause, according to publications such as Hollywood Reporter. Madonna offered moral and financial support to her HIV/AIDS-affected friends, including artist Keith Haring, and remembered the World AIDS Days multiple times. During the 2015 Rebel Heart Tour, she dedicated a performance and speech honoring survivors and victims.
Throughout the 1980s, Madonna had attended a fashion fundraiser event in November 1986. Madonna raised $400,000 for amfAR with a Madison Square Garden concert during her Who's That Girl World Tour (1987), becoming one of the first AIDS benefit concerts given by a celebrity according to Out. Rolling Stone labeled Madonna as the "first major American pop star" to stage such a large-scale AIDS fund-raiser. She also donated to the French Association of Artists Against AIDS from her Paris concert of the same tour. In 1989, Madonna attended a benefit dance marathon, with Christopher Flynn, her friend and dance mentor also diagnosed with the disease.
Throughout the 1990s, she frequently purchased back pages of Billboard magazine to enlist financial assistance for various AIDS relief and research organizations, and continued donating to AIDS causes with the profits of the Blond Ambition World Tour (1990), and the premiere of Truth or Dare (1991). She took part in Elizabeth Taylor's 65th birthday in 1997, and lent her name to the 1999 AIDS Walk in Detroit.
From the 2000s onwards, Madonna became a patron of Crusaid in 2002, donating signed items to raise money. She donated to Mobilization Against AIDS in 2007, and auctioned the following year a private concert for amfAR at the 61st Cannes Film Festival's Cinema Against AIDS, raising more than $560,000. She bestowed Jeremy Scott with the Award of Courage at the amfAR Gala in Los Angeles in November 2021, contributing also to the fundraising efforts. Madonna helped raise $100,000 for LGBTQ+ organizations during a Pride party at the Standard Hotels of New York, during the same year.
Education and child welfare The Ray of Light Foundation, established in 1998, has supported the education of girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries, and in Malawi through Raising Malawi which started in 2006.
Madonna attended Sport Aid's Race Against Time in 1988, designed for children's charities. According to Vegetarian Times in 1987, Madonna donated money from the profits of her first international tour, Who's That Girl? (1987) to different causes, including to a Chicago-based charity that refurbishes playgrounds with new equipment and soft ground surfaces. By February 1987, the Make-A-Wish Foundation had arranged a meeting between Madonna and a young leukemia patient, then 9 years old. A week prior, a spokesman for Warner Records stated she had "done similar things in the past", but without publicity. In early 2003, Madonna kept in touch with a 17-year-old girl with liver cancer through her final days via the Children's Wish Foundation of Canada. She has made visits to orphanages, and through the years, Madonna has been reported to have taken all her children on trips to do charitable work, particularly in Malawi, according to the author of Celebrity Philanthropy and Activism (2018). After her stop on the 2016 Rebel Heart Tour in Philippines, she visited the Bahay Tuluyan Foundation, a center that provides shelter for orphans and street children and also the Hospicio de San Jose.
During the 2000s, motivated by her interest in Kabbalah, Madonna reportedly donated millions of dollars to educational initiatives associated with the Kabbalah Centre, including Spirituality for Kids (Los Angeles) and the Kabbalist Grammar School for Children (New York City), with a reported number between $20 to $22 million. She also became patron of the UK-based charity Children of Peace, and served on the organizing committee for a 2009 Raisa Gorbachev Foundation charity gala. She supported children's causes by donating personal items for Romanian Gypsy's children education in 2009, and made a donation to a playground initiative in Russia in 2007.
Responses to humanitarian crises Madonna made monetary donations to a number of crises and disasters. According to media reports, she became one of the first recording artists to make a donation to charities helping the victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks in September 2001. She gave $1 million from the proceeds of three Los Angeles concerts of her Drowned World Tour to children orphaned by the disaster. Helen Studd, a correspondent for the Irish Independent reported about her immediate response: "Her generosity has started a wave of contributions from designers and pop bands".
Madonna donated $500,000 to earthquake relief efforts in Pacentro, Italy, following the 2009 earthquake, and $250,000 to Partners in Health following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. As part of her fundraising efforts for Hurricane Sandy victims in 2012, Madonna exposed her buttocks during a MDNA Tour concert to encourage the audience to throw money at the stage. She visited victims of the Hurricane in Queens, New York, and by 2013 it was announced she would donate clothing used from that tour to raise money. The following year, in 2014, she responded to the Flint water crisis with a monetary donation granted to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. According to some reports, Madonna helped raise $5.5 million to support people affected by the 2015 Malawi flood crisis.
Madonna had donated $10,000 to GoFundMe as part of a goal to raise $100,000 for the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand in 2019. It was reported that she donated about $1.1 million toward the development of a COVID-19 vaccine in 2020 to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She also donated, in association with the Reform Alliance, 100,000 masks to prisons and jails across the country.
Benefit concerts and events
Madonna joined various benefit concerts, including Live Aid (1985), Live 8 (2005) and Live Earth (2007). She headlined the London concert of the lattermost event, and wrote "Hey You" in support of their campaign. Initially released as a free downloadable track, within these terms the song was available on MSN.com, and for each of the first one million free downloads, it was announced that 25 cents would be donated to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
Madonna participated in the 1998 concert for the Rainforest Foundation Fund to support indigenous people and rainforests. According to the Guinness World Records, it was the largest environmental fundraising event held. Madonna's song "Freedom" had previously appeared on their charity album Carnival! The Rainforest Foundation in 1997.
Madonna participated in Tsunami Aid, to raise money for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami by performing a cover of "Imagine". She invited her audience through her official website to donate to the Red Cross. The next year, Madonna joined the BBC telethon, Children in Need 2005. In 2010, she joined Hope for Haiti Now in which she performed "Like a Prayer". In 2013, she gave a speech at the Chime for Change concert to benefit education, health and justice.
Madonna has participated in charity records and other visual media projects. In 1987, she contributed a cover of "Santa Baby" to the series' first charity album, A Very Special Christmas to benefit the Special Olympics. Madonna allowed her B-side song "Supernatural" to appear on the AIDS charity album Red Hot + Dance (1992), with a remix provided by Sly and Robbie, and recorded the alt-country song "Guilty By Association" with her brother-in-law Joe Henry, featured on the charity album, Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation (1997). In 2004, Madonna introduced the Band Aid 20 video of the charity supergroup, Band Aid. In 2007, Madonna participated in "Sing" by Annie Lennox, a song released during the World AIDS Day in 2007. Madonna also joined the 2011 soundtrack Every Mother Counts from the documentary No Woman, No Cry.
In 1993, Madonna appeared on the The Arsenio Hall Show to benefit the Magic Johnson Foundation. In 1995, she presented a plaque to Muhammed Ali for the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, and assisted on a fund-raising gala honoring Gianni Versace in 1997. In 2017, Madonna made a surprise performance at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation's annual charity auction, helping raise money for the cause as well.
Music and arts Madonna donated items to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund in 1999. She joined the Music Rising initiative in raising funds to replace musical instruments and equipment destroyed during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2006. In 2002, she joined the first EU Copyright Directive campaign in raising-awareness about the value of copyright. In 2005, Madonna joined the National Association of Broadcasters' campaign "Radio: You Hear It Here First" to promote terrestrial radio. During this time period, she also joined a campaign against music piracy. Madonna was part of a group of artists that were influential in the shutting down of Napster. Madonna has used the arts to support other artists or as a charitable activity. In 2022, Daniel Neira from celebrity magazine ¡Hola! said that "Madonna is known for being a supportive friend" and is "constantly showing support". According to Billboard in 2021, she joined the #FreeBritney movement.
Views and other causes