Special 20: The Great Philanthropists - Dolly Parton: Making a Difference Directly
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
What a great day for hopefully for you, but certainly for me. And on this edition of around with Randall, we deviate, as we tend to do every once in a while, to look at the great philanthropists in a series. This being number 20, I believe, trying to figure out what drives philanthropists in different ways to make decisions around how they engage and help and change their community.
In doing this one, and I've said this before, and I mean it sincerely in many ways, I want to apologize. And I think in maybe connection to many people, we all should apologize for not recognizing people when they're living, but unfortunately, when they pass. And then I would say, fortunately, to learn more about who they really are, stories come out.
We tend to tell the best sides, the best things, the impacts that were made post passing. And that is incredibly true of today's highlight to focus on. And that's Dolly Parton. What I have found interesting is certainly you knew the name Dolly Parton. You knew that she was engaged in the community and had an amazing heart. But some of the stories that have come out in the last several weeks since her passing have been incredible and I think, really begin to tell us a story of something that we can think about and look at our own donors and our own community, and even maybe ourselves, to figure out how we can be a part of
changing people's lives. So as we do, we'll give you a quick bio. And in this case, there's probably more known about this particular person than many of the other 19 people that we have covered and the Great Philanthropist series. But she was born in 1946, in the back hills of Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains, and was one of 12 children, grew up in impoverished and began to sing and do different what I would call performances very young and then moved to Nashville after graduating high school in 1964.
Her music career is legendary. What I have found interesting, and I did know a little bit about this just because of some of the artists that she had written for many of her biggest hits, if we use that term, weren't actually sung by her. She was an incredible songwriter, and from Whitney Houston to Frank Sinatra, there are multitude of people that that covers the wrong word, but used her talents to create their own musical careers, their own stardom.
And she relished in those moments, in those people's success, all the way down to Miley Cyrus, which is not someone I know a lot about. But I know the name, and it tells you the depth and the growth of her ability to touch people through music. She obviously had a stellar individual career with her own music and her own singing.
From Jolene to Code of Many Colors, my all time favorites 9 to 5. There's a rhythm and a kind of a beat and a message in that song that I think strikes with many of us who work for a living. And even if you don't work formally, I think about my wife who works, you know, harder than I do, ten times harder than I do every day of the week.
And twice on Sunday. She doesn't get paid for it. She's a mom and a wife. And frankly, it's a lot harder than what I do. You can resonate with this. I think the other thing is, is that she also had the ability to record with many other stars in ways that not only elevated her particular career, but also others, from Kenny Rogers to Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, there's just a litany of songs that have crossed not only country, but pop.
I think about maybe I was 12, 13, I'd have to look it up, but Islands in the stream with Kenny Rogers. I mean, it wasn't a country song, although I think it they classified it as that. It reached pop icon level quickly on the radio, the only part, and also without all the formal education that we think of for those that are incredibly successful in business, had an amazing business career.
She developed, as many people have been through Dollywood, as a way of opening the doors to entertainment and fun and family to countless generations of people. That was started, I think, in 1986. She's had her hands in entertainment, hospitality, publishing, merchandizing, tourism. It's amazing how much control she retained in her own intellectual property and in her songwriting, because she wanted them to be hers.
They were her voice, her projects, her way of engaging in the world. I'd be remiss if there wasn't a recognition of what you probably have heard more about than anything else, but maybe the least important, but the recognition of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Kennedy Center Honors, there's the lifetime Grammys.
She built a career, a life around excellence. I also would say that her husband of nearly 60 years, who passed a couple of years ago, was her companion and sidekick in all the adventures that they went through. So there's a bio, but I don't think all of that's really what we want to focus on today. It's all pretty incredibly interesting and I think uplifting.
Only in America could you go out and come from the back hills of the Smoky Mountains and rise to that kind of prominence. I think what's more important, though, are the stories that have come out recently about her, what I would call philanthropy. The reason I say it in that manner is, is when we get done, I want to reclassify.
Maybe some way we think about this. Dolly Parton had a way of seeing through the mist into the actual challenge that people had, and in doing so, affected lives that in the numbers, I don't think we'll really understand unless somebody really did a deep dive into the generational change she made for some people. A couple of examples. I'll give you 4 or 5, six, seven examples.
Number one, in the 1990s, she offered every seventh and eighth grader in Severe County, Tennessee, a $500 graduation gift if they graduated from high school and $500 we might think of today as what's the big deal? Well, first of all, it was 1990. Secondly, it was in the back hills of Tennessee. $500 is a lot of money that those two classes, that dropout rate fell in those classes from 35% to 6%.
We know education is one of the ways in which people can elevate themselves in life. She gave free school books to what she began as the Imagination Library in 19, began in 1995, where she'd mail free books directly to homes every month until they reached age five, the kids giving them a chance to learn to read in a time, and a place where maybe they didn't have that opportunity.
She gave through the Imagination Library, a individual scholarship college for $30,000 to an individual by the name of Evie Johns in Arkansas. And she did that because she saw such promise for her and really allowed an individual. I mean, think about, you know, think about scholarship funds. Those are incredible. She found one person, but she also did scholarship funds in her own hometown, in the backwoods of the greater Smoky Mountains in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, where she provided $15,000 worth of scholarships to graduating high school seniors with an emphasis on their own personal aspiration.
As much as it was the traditional kind of college selection or scholarship selection process, what is it they wanted to do when there were the fires, wildfires in kind of her area, Gatlinburg and Sevier County? Back in Tennessee, she gave every one of the primary residents $1,000 per month for six months so that they could begin to rebuild.
Cost her $12 million. I would say she might, if we were lucky enough to still have her leading the example of how to make the world a better place on earth today, she might say it didn't cost her anything. It was a gift which she felt like would change lives and was something easy for her to do. Really clear.
It didn't go through a nonprofit. She just gave way. She had tax deduction. She said, here's $1,000, six months. Let's get you back on your feet. She then gave additional money as other wildfire programs kind of ceased, maybe a little early. According to some, she gave them more money. She paid for the college opportunities for all of her Dollywood employees and their families say, hey, we need to make sure that you have.
And we're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of examples. You need to have an opportunity to grow and be what you can be. She helped job creation. She personally gave Vanderbilt University $1 million for Covid research, which led to some of the breakthroughs that helped us kind of fight through the pandemic. There is a myriad of examples of this incredible heart that lived for many years, not only here in the in Tennessee, where she always found her roots, but around the world because she was famous.
What is it we can learn from this? And this is the part of the Great Philanthropy series or philanthropists that I really enjoy is, is that we tend to think about philanthropy often as a profession or professionals. In grand terms, we think about people like Warren Buffett, who've given away hundreds of billions of dollars to different now, pretty much as kids charities.
We think about J.D. Rockefeller and certainly his family and the Rockefeller Center and his son, who really, John Jr, who really pushed a lot of things for philanthropically, Andrew Carnegie and the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that he gave for libraries. We see modern day people that have we think about even though there have been some personal issues, the Gates Foundation of what they've done worldwide in terms of finding solutions in Africa to education in America.
But Dolly Parton's examples of philanthropy weren't that grandiose in individual moments. But in totality, they speak to a philanthropy that we don't often give enough credit for. Many of the things that she really pushed in terms of making the world a better place in terms of helping people were direct. And if you think about the examples I gave, most of those did not work through a nonprofit.
They were gifts from her, which when she didn't get tax benefit. This speaks to two things. Number one, I think most philanthropy isn't or generosity has nothing to do with tax benefit, even though breaks my heart. Say that you know, train tax lawyer. But it has nothing to do with that. It's about wanting to make the world a better place, seeing pain and helping, and that we have a lot of people in this world who do this very directly, one on one or small groups, and one the one being the philanthropist.
Dolly Parton, I think is underestimated in terms of impact, because we don't have a large foundation to track it all. We don't have these moments where, you know, there's a $100 million that's given, and we all see it in the paper. Those are all wonderful things. I wish more people would do them. But at the end of the day, Dolly Parton's philanthropy is no less important.
It just was in smaller bites, when added up would be largesse that changed lives directly. Think about a family in the wildfires in 2016, where she gave six months worth of $1,000 to every family and said, let's get you back on your feet. That's generational saving change or the scholarships or cash or whatever she gave to high school students, primarily in the backwoods of Tennessee, to lower the idea of dropout rates and say, I will give you money or scholarships if you will buy into the idea of education.
That's direct impact. And that's hard to measure because technically it doesn't go through a nonprofit, so it's not measured. There's no tax, but it's no less impactful. Today, I want us to think about the people in our community who may be doing philanthropy like this, who are trying to make the world a better place, and in doing so, are doing so in a very direct one on one basis, not with their kids.
I'm not talking. I'm talking about looking out and seeing harm, hurt, sadness, travesty, obstacles, natural disasters, whatever it may be, and doing something personally about it. And almost all of these examples, there wasn't a press release. She did it because she felt like it was the right thing to do. And I think that's worth noting as well. There's more people out there that want to make a difference than we realize.
We just need to have our eyes open, looking around, paying attention to realize it. I think that's one of the great lessons that we can learn from the sadness of losing Dolly Parton. But the joy that she brought, not just through her music. I would be remiss if I didn't mention just I think it's one of my favorite movies, just not an Oscar winning.
But 9 to 5 is just funny. Dabney Coleman and Lily Tomlin and I mean just fabulous. She brought joy to people, and she did so on an individual basis as well. And we can learn from that in meaningful ways. We'll hop off here and go back into the normal Around With Randall series, talking about philanthropy, the 20 minute or so classroom, tactical, technical things that you can improve upon depending on your circumstances.
But we always enjoy the opportunity to think about the largesse and the generosity that comes from those who make all this possible and what we can learn from them. And that's the Great Philanthropy or Great Philanthropist series special today about Dolly Parton will be deeply missed. Even if you weren't a country music fan, good people are hard to find, and she certainly was that.
We'll see the next time right back here on the next edition of Around with Randall. And don't forget. Make it a great day.