Dolly Parton: A Legacy of Giving

And while all the other shows or social media things you might see talk about her death, career from the aspect of her music deservedly so from her movies deservedly so the wigs the rhinestone a career that stretched generations awesome that is great but what we're going to talk about on this show briefly is not that aspect which deserves all the shine but also we're going to talk about what she gave away because dolly didn't just leave records she left books in the hands of children millions of children she left money in the hands of families who had lost everything she provided for scholarships medical research educational opportunities and so on and so forth i am talking about her philanthropic efforts and she left the institution behind we're going to talk about that was designed to step up and keep going well after she was gone This, my folks, this, my fam, my brothers and sisters in the philanthropic sector, this is philanthropy.

So today we're going to talk about.

mission celebrity philanthropy legacy you know i love the word legacy because some of these non-profits they they're not going to be around in five years some of them work their self into a frenzy and get nothing accomplished and then they're gone but you know that's a show for another time we're going to talk about miss pardon and all the great things she did just in case you didn't know and in the end a few lessons for us in the non-profit sector all right so We're going to start in the year that she first began her philanthropic efforts.

Since everybody's doing a retro something on my girl, let's start in the year of 1988.

Fresh for 88.

You suck.

Yeah.

Listen, listen, 1988 was the year when Miss Dolly Parton started a foundation called the Dollywood Foundation in her home county where she grew up.

That's very important.

Keep that in mind.

Nonprofits and founders and people who want to start a nonprofit.

She started where she lived.

She didn't try to save the world first.

The origins focused on helping children in her home county achieve educational success.

And listen, it was this program called the Buddy Program.

And what it was is that her foundation promised five hundred dollars to seventh and eighth graders who graduated from high school.

Five hundred dollars in today's economics is awesome.

Just over, I believe, a thousand dollars.

So they were offering in her home county in Tennessee, 500 or a thousand dollars or more today's money for every senior that graduated.

Here's the miraculous part.

According to the research, the dropout rate in that county fell from 35 percent to 6 percent.

Now, where they do that? Tell me where they do that at.

listen that right there again if there was a theme word for this whole show and podcast it's going to always be legacy because that impact was real that community had a need and she saw it but it wasn't just the need she saw let's get into this whole thing right here with miss miss dolly part since everybody's talking about the music and the wigs and the outfits So that was 1988.