Rosie O’Donnell

Roseanna “Rosie” O’Donnell is a successful and popular comedian and television host. A versatile artist, Rosie O’Donnell is also an actress, singer, author, magazine editor, television producer, and an activist for LGBT rights.

Apart from being a popular comedian and an opinionated liberal who has her own mind, Rosie O’Donnell has earned a reputation in charitable philanthropy for her work with children. As a mother of three adopted children, she would attribute her persistent advocacy for children’s welfare to her difficult childhood, having lost both parents to cancer at an early age.

In 1996, she used $3 million of the advance for her memoir Find Me to fund the establishment of the For All Kids Foundation, a public charity. She also became vocal in calling for instituting national standards for daycare in the US. Since 1997, O’Donnell’s For All Kids Foundation has awarded more than $22 million in Early Childhood Care and Education program grants to over 1,400 child-related nonprofit organizations.

Rosie O’Donnell’s creativity and penchant for comedy has boosted her charitable work. She has often found a way to cultivate philanthropy out of her detractors. Her partnership with Listerine where the company donated $1,000 to charity for every kiss to O’Donnell was a way to counter her designation by a rival company as “unkissable.” She was able to raise more than $350,000.

Personal donations by O’Donnell have also supported various causes. In 2006, she donated $50 million in an irrevocable trust to charity as well as for the rehabilitation of war veterans whose limbs were ravaged by the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

In 2003, she helped establish Rosie’s Broadway Kids, a foundation that provides free instruction in music and dance to public schools and students. It has served more than 22 schools and more than 5,100 students, teachers and their family members. All of the net profits from her 2007 book Celebrity Detox were donated to the foundation, helping the foundation build the Maravel Center, a state-of-the-art school for performing arts.

In 2007, O’Donnell collaborated with various artists on the True Colors Tour, a cause-oriented concert to benefit the Human Rights Campaign, P-Flag and the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

For her exemplary work with children, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children recognized O’Donnell in 2006.