Dolly Parton’s philanthropic legacy
Millions loved her music, but her philanthropy, shaped by her own childhood struggles, reached millions, too.
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
August 26, 2026 | Read Time: 4 minutes
The much-beloved country music star, businesswoman, and philanthropist Dolly Parton died on Tuesday. She was 80 years old and was one of the top charitable donors in the music world. She founded the Dollywood Foundation in 1988 to help children and boost education in the region around Sevier County, Tenn., where she grew up, and later expanded its signature education program to reach children throughout the county and internationally.
Parton also gave millions of dollars to charity through personal donations. Among her more recent gifts was $1 million to the Boys & Girls Club of the Smoky Mountains, in Kodak, Tenn., in 2024; $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2022 to support pediatric infectious-disease research; and another $1 million to the medical center in 2020 to back COVID-19 research.
She also gave $1 million to Mountain Ways in 2024 to help residents of eastern Tennessee who lost their homes in the floods that followed Hurricane Helene. She directed her enterprises in East Tennessee, including the Dollywood Foundation, Dollywood Parks and Resorts, Dolly Parton’s Stampede, and Pirates Voyage Dinner and Show, to match her personal gift with an additional $1 million.
But it was through the Dollywood Foundation and its signature program, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, that the singer songwriter’s philanthropy had the farthest-reaching impact. Parton launched the program in 1995 to inspire a love of reading and prepare preschoolers in Sevier County for school by giving young children one book every month from the day they are born until age 5.
As the program’s popularity grew over time, Parton and her team expanded it first to other parts of Tennessee and later throughout the United States and then to Canada, Britain, Australia, and Ireland. To date, the program has given away nearly 305 million books.
“The idea goes back to my own childhood,” Parton told the Chronicle in 2006. “The only book I ever really remember at home was the Bible. I have wonderful memories of my Mama pulling out the Bible and reading me stories from it. Those stories took me to faraway places and really gave me the first opportunity to imagine a life outside of these mountains.”
Inspired to give by an impoverished childhood
Parton was born in the small mountain town of Pittman Center, in Sevier County, Tenn. Her father was an illiterate tenant farmer, and the family struggled to make ends meet. She and her 11 siblings were raised in a one-bedroom cabin with no running water or electricity on a small farm in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Those struggles informed many of Parton’s early songs and later shaped her philanthropy. She started performing in church, playing the guitar as a young child and eventually singing on local radio. She moved to Nashville as a teen and worked as a songwriter. Her singing career took off in the late 1960s and ’70s, and she became internationally known by the ’80s.
“Daddy told me that out of all the things I have done, he was most proud of the Imagination Library and that kids call me ‘the book lady,’” Parton told the Chronicle 20 years ago. “When your father tells you something like that, then you know you are on the right track.”
Parton’s wealth exceeded that of many of her peers in the music world. Forbes estimated her net worth at about $450 million last year when it included her in its annual list of America’s wealthiest self-made women. Her wealth came primarily from her 50 percent ownership stake in the Dollywood Company, a theme park she co-owned in Pigeon Forge, according to Forbes.
Parton set up the Dollywood Foundation as a charity rather than a grant maker. Its assets today stand about $42 million, according to its most recent tax filing, and along with personal donations Parton poured into the nonprofit during her lifetime, it also has received support from corporations and contributions from private donors.
And while its international reading program is its most prominent effort, the nonprofit has supported many local programs, including scholarships for Sevier County high schoolers. In 2016, Parton asked the charity to distribute thousands of dollars over six months to people who lost their homes to a wave of fires that swept through Sevier County that fall. The foundation also raised more than $12 million to help those families.
Parton served as chairwoman of the foundation until her death, and she was a visible presence and spokeswoman for its work. Yet other than several of the million-dollar gifts she publicized in recent years, Parton was quiet about most of her personal charitable giving.
When a Chronicle reporter asked her about her private donations in 2006, she said: “That’s a great question, but it’s none of your business. I have often said that I count my blessings a whole lot more than I count my money; the same is true for the contributions I make.”
