List of famous female philanthropists, listed by their level of prominence with photos when available. This greatest female philanthropists list contains the most prominent and top females known for being philanthropists. There are thousand of females working as philanthropists in the world, but this list highlights only the most notable ones. Historic philanthropists have worked hard to become the best that they can be, so if you're a female aspiring to be a philanthropist then the people below should give you inspiration.
List features people like CeCe Winans and Drue Heinz.
While this isn't a list of all female philanthropists, it does answer the questions "Who are the most famous female philanthropists?" and "Who are the best female philanthropists?"
Madonna Louise Ciccone (born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop" since the 1980s, Madonna is known for pushing the boundaries of songwriting in mainstream popular music and for the imagery she uses onstage and in music videos. She has frequently reinvented her music and image while maintaining autonomy within the recording industry. Although having sparked controversy, her works have been praised by music critics. Madonna is often cited as an influence by other artists.
Born and raised in Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City in 1978 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing as a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist in the rock bands Breakfast Club and Emmy, Madonna signed with Sire Records in 1982 and released her eponymous debut album the next year. She followed it with a series of successful albums, including global bestsellers Like a Virgin (1984) and True Blue (1986) as well as Grammy Award winners Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). Many of her songs have reached the top of record charts worldwide, including "Like a Virgin", "La Isla Bonita", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Take a Bow", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes".
Madonna's popularity was further enhanced by her roles in films such as Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Dick Tracy (1990), A League of Their Own (1992), and Evita (1996). While Evita earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, many of her other films received poor reviews. As a businesswoman, Madonna founded an entertainment company called Maverick (including the label Maverick Records) in 1992. Her other ventures include fashion design, children's books, health clubs, and filmmaking. She contributes to various charities, having founded Ray of Light Foundation in 1998 and Raising Malawi in 2006.
Having sold more than 300 million records worldwide, Madonna is noted as the best-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed her as the second highest-certified female artist in the U.S., with 64.5 million album units. According to Billboard, Madonna is the most successful solo artist in its Hot 100 chart history. She is also the highest-grossing solo touring artist of all time, accumulating U.S. $1.4 billion from her concert tickets. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility, Madonna topped VH1's countdown of 100 Greatest Women in Music. Additionally, Rolling Stone listed her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey, January 29, 1954) is an American media executive, actress, talk show host, television producer and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African American of the 20th century and North America's first black multi-billionaire, and has been ranked the greatest black philanthropist in American history. She has also been sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school. By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news. Winfrey's often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.
Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue. Through this medium, Winfrey broke 20th-century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream through television appearances. In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness and spirituality. Though she was criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas, and having an emotion-centered approach, she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Winfrey had also emerged as a political force in the 2008 presidential race, delivering about one million votes to Barack Obama in the razor close 2008 Democratic primary. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
Kylie Ann Minogue, (; born 28 May 1968), also known mononymously as Kylie, is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. Throughout her career, Minogue has been known for reinventing herself in fashion and music. She is described as a style icon and has been recognised with several honorific nicknames, most notably the "Princess of Pop". Minogue achieved recognition starring in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, where she played tomboy mechanic Charlene Robinson. She came to prominence as a recording artist in the late 1980s and released four bubblegum and dance-pop-influenced studio albums produced by Stock Aitken Waterman and released by PWL. By the time she released her fourth album in the early 1990s, she had amassed several top ten singles in the UK and Australia, including "I Should Be So Lucky", "The Loco-Motion", "Hand on Your Heart", "Better the Devil You Know" and "Step Back in Time". Minogue, however, felt alienated and dissatisfied with the little creative control she had over her music.
In 1992, she left PWL and signed with Deconstruction Records where she released Kylie Minogue (1994) and Impossible Princess (1997), both of which received positive reviews from critics, with the latter being often described as her most personal and best work. Returning to more mainstream dance-oriented music, Minogue signed to Parlophone and released her disco-influenced seventh studio album Light Years (2000), which was preceded by lead single "Spinning Around". The follow-up, Fever (2001) became her best-selling album to date and was a breakthrough for Minogue in markets where she had little recognition previously. Its lead single, "Can't Get You Out of My Head" became one of the most successful singles of the 2000s, selling over five million units. She continued reinventing her image and experimenting with a range of genres on her next albums, which produced successful singles such as "Slow", "2 Hearts" and "All the Lovers".
Minogue made her film debut in The Delinquents (1989) and portrayed Cammy in Street Fighter (1994). Minogue has also appeared in the films Moulin Rouge! (2001), Jack & Diane, and Holy Motors (2012). In 2014, she appeared as a judge on the third series of The Voice UK and The Voice Australia. Her other ventures include product endorsements, children's books and fashion.
Minogue has sold 70 million records worldwide and has earned numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, three Brit Awards, 17 ARIA Music Awards, two MTV Europe Music Award and two MTV Video Music Award. She has mounted several successful and critically acclaimed concert tours for which she received a Mo Award for Australian Performer of the Year in 2001 and 2003. Minogue was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to Music. She was appointed by the French government as a Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her contribution to the enrichment of French culture. In 2005, while Minogue was on her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After treatment, she resumed the tour under the title Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour, which critics viewed as a "triumph". Minogue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Health Science (D.H.Sc.) degree by Anglia Ruskin University for her work in raising awareness for breast cancer. On the 25th anniversary of the ARIA Music Awards in 2011, she was inducted by the Australian Recording Industry Association into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Kelendria Trene "Kelly" Rowland (born February 11, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, television personality and producer. Rowland rose to fame in the late 1990s as a member of Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. During the group's two year hiatus, Rowland released her debut solo album Simply Deep (2002), which sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and included the number-one single "Dilemma" with Nelly, as well as the UK top-ten singles "Stole" and "Can't Nobody". Rowland also ventured into acting, with guest appearances in television shows, Empire (2015) and American Soul (2019), and starring roles in successful films, Freddy vs. Jason (2003) and The Seat Filler (2005). Since 2017 she is a coach on The Voice Australia.
Following the disbandment of Destiny's Child in 2006, she released her second album Ms. Kelly (2007), which produced the international hits "Like This" and "Work". In 2009, Rowland hosted the first season of The Fashion Show, and was featured on David Guetta's number-one dance hit "When Love Takes Over". The song's global success influenced Rowland to explore dance music on her third album Here I Am (2011), which spawned the international top-ten hit "Commander" and the US R&B/Hip-Hop number-one "Motivation". In 2011, she returned to television as a judge on the eighth season of The X Factor UK, and in 2013, became a judge on the third and final season of The X Factor USA. Following the release of Rowland's fourth album Talk a Good Game (2013), she married her manager, Tim Weatherspoon, and gave birth to their son, Titan Jewell Weatherspoon, in 2014. Since then, Rowland has continued her television career by hosting Chasing Destiny in 2016 and starring as a coach on The Voice Australia since 2017.
Throughout her career, Rowland has sold over 30 million records as a solo artist, and a further 60 million records with Destiny's Child. Her work has earned her several awards and nominations, including four Grammy Awards, one Billboard Music Award, and two Soul Train Music Awards. Rowland has also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as part of Destiny's Child, and as a solo artist she has been honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Essence for her contributions to music. In 2014, Fuse ranked Rowland in their "100 Most Award-Winning Artists" list at number 20.
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actress, author, businesswoman, and humanitarian, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album debut in 1967 with Hello, I'm Dolly. With steady success during the remainder of the 1960s (both as a solo artist and with a series of duet albums with Porter Wagoner), her sales and chart peak came during the 1970s and continued into the 1980s. Parton's albums in the 1990s sold less well, but she achieved commercial success again in the new millennium and has released albums on various independent labels since 2000, including her own label, Dolly Records.
Parton's music includes 25 Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. She has had 25 songs reach No. 1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist (tied with Reba McEntire). She has 41 career top-10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years. She has garnered nine Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, ten Country Music Association Awards, seven Academy of Country Music Awards, three American Music Awards, and is one of only seven female artists to win the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award. Parton has received 47 Grammy nominations.
In 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has composed over 3,000 songs, including "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper, as well as an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", and "9 to 5". She is also one of the few to have received at least one nomination from the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, and Emmy Awards. As an actress, she has starred in films such as 9 to 5 (1980) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), for which she earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress, as well as Rhinestone (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992) and Joyful Noise (2012).
Geraldine Estelle Horner (née Halliwell; born 6 August 1972) is an English singer, songwriter, author, actress, fashion designer, model and television personality. Halliwell came to international prominence in the 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member of the successful girl group the Spice Girls,one of the the best-selling girl group of all time with over 85 million records sold, of which more than 75 million copies sold with the quintet lineup with Halliwell. In 1998, Halliwell left the Spice Girls to pursue a solo career but later returned to the group when they reunited in 2007. Halliwell reportedly amassed a $40 million fortune during her last two years in the group.In 1999 Halliwell launched her solo career and released her debut album Schizophonic, which spawned three number ones at the UK Singles Chart, "Mi Chico Latino", "Lift Me Up", and "Bag It Up", while the lead single "Look at Me" peaked at number two. In 2001 Halliwell released her second album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster; the first single, "It's Raining Men", was also used on the Bridget Jones's Diary film soundtrack, peaked at number one in the UK and went on to become the biggest hit of her career. The singles that followed, "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster" and "Calling", are successful, reached number eight and number seven in the United Kingdom, respectively. She released her third studio album Passion in 2005, including the worldwide hit "Ride It", which was commercially successful in the rest of Europe. It peaked at number two in Russia, number four in UK, reaching number three on the Belgium, Spain and the Scottish charts.After a few years of relative obscurity, in April 2010, Halliwell announced that she had started working on new music. In April 2013 the Nine Network announced that she would become the fourth judge on Australia's Got Talent. On 12 September 2013, it was announced that Halliwell would return to the music industry in Australia with the release of her first solo single in nearly eight years, "Half of Me". In 2017, she release a successful charity single, "Angels in Chains", in tribute to George Michael and for helping the association Childline.Since 1996, Halliwell has sold more than 90 million records, of which 15 million were as a solo artist (5 million albums and 10 million singles), and a further 75 million during her tenure with the Spice Girls.
