page_title: Ariana Grande
section_title: Philanthropy and activism
hierarchical_section_title: Ariana Grande / Other ventures / Philanthropy and activism
caption_attribution_description: Grande performing at the Stand Up to Cancer event in 2014. English: 2agmjg
context_page_description: Ariana Grande-Butera is an American singer, songwriter, and actress known for her expansive four-octave vocal range and whistle register. Born in Boca Raton, Florida, she began her career in the 2008 Broadway musical 13. She rose to fame for her role as Cat Valentine in the Nickelodeon television series Victorious and Sam & Cat. She subsequently signed with Republic Records in 2011 after the label's executives discovered YouTube videos of her covering songs. Her 1950s doo-wop-influenced pop and R&B debut album, Yours Truly, topped the US Billboard 200 chart, while its lead single, "The Way", charted in the top ten of the US Billboard Hot 100.
  Grande's breakthrough second studio album, My Everything, incorporated pop, R&B and EDM sounds and produced the UK number-one singles "Problem" and "Bang Bang". She continued to explore the pop and R&B genres in Dangerous Woman, her third studio album and first of three consecutive number-one albums in the UK. Her trap-infused fourth and fifth studio albums, Sweetener and Thank U, Next, were both critical and commercial successes.
context_section_description: At the age of ten, Grande co-founded the South Florida youth singing group Kids Who Care, which performed at charitable fund-raising events and raised over $500,000 in 2007 alone. In 2009, as a member of the charitable organization Broadway in South Africa, Grande and her brother Frankie performed and taught music and dance to children in Gugulethu, South Africa.
  She was featured with Bridgit Mendler and Kat Graham in Seventeen magazine in a 2013 public campaign to end online bullying called "Delete Digital Drama". After watching the film Blackfish that year, she urged fans to stop supporting SeaWorld. In September 2014, Grande participated at the charitable Stand Up to Cancer television program, performing her song "My Everything" in memory of her grandfather, who had died of cancer that July. Grande has adopted several rescue dogs as pets and has promoted pet adoption at her concerts. In 2016, she launched a line of lip shades called "Ariana Grande's MAC Viva Glam" with MAC Cosmetics, the profits of which benefited people affected by HIV and AIDS.
  In 2015, Grande and Miley Cyrus performed a cover of Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" as part of Cyrus' "Backyard Sessions" to benefit her Happy Hippie Foundation, which helps homeless and LGBT youths. Later that year, Grande headlined the Dance On the Pier event, part of the LGBT Pride Week in New York City. As a feminist, Grande wrote a well-received, "empowering" essay on Twitter decrying the double standard and misogyny in the focus of the press on female musicians' relationships and sex lives instead of "their value as an individual". She noted that she has "more to talk about" concerning her music and accomplishments rather than her romantic relationships. In 2016, E! writer Kendall Fisher called her "a feminist hero". That year, Grande joined Madonna to raise funds for orphaned children in Malawi; she and Victoria Monét recorded "Better Days" in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. To aid the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, Grande organized the One Love Manchester concert and re-released "One Last Time" and her live performance of "Over the Rainbow" at the event as charity singles. The total amount raised was reportedly $23 million (more than £17 million), and she received praise for her "grace and strength" in leading the benefit concert. Madeline Roth of MTV wrote that the performance "bolstered courage among an audience that desperately needed it. ... Returning to the stage was a true act of bravery and resilience". In 2017, New York Magazine's Vulture section ranked the event as the No. 1 concert of the year, and Billboard's Mitchell Harrison called Grande a "gay icon" for her LGBT-friendly lyrics and performances and "support for the LGBTQ community".
  In September 2017, Grande performed in A Concert for Charlottesville which benefitted the victims of the August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In March 2018, she participated in March for Our Lives to support gun control reform. Grande donated the proceeds from the first show in Atlanta on her Sweetener World Tour to Planned Parenthood in a response to the passage of a number of anti-abortion laws in several states including Georgia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grande donated between $500 and $1,000 each to a number of fans as financial support. Grande also supported a COVID-19 fund named Project 100, which aimed to provide $1,000 digital payments to 100,000 families who have been greatly impacted by the pandemic. In May 2020, Grande announced that all net proceeds from her collaboration with singer Justin Bieber, "Stuck With U", would be donated to the First Responders Children's Foundation to fund grants and scholarships for children of frontline workers who are working during the global pandemic. That month, Grande joined a Los Angeles protest against the murder of George Floyd, demanding justice and asking fans to sign petitions condemning the act of police brutality. She highlighted white privilege and called for more activism outside social media.
caption: Grande performing at the Stand Up to Cancer event on September 2014
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