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NEW YORK – Rihanna is accustomed to defying convention.
The nine-time Grammy victor has turned her wide-ranging drawstring of hits, including “Umbrella” and “Work,” into a concern empire worthy an estimated $1.4 billion, placing her precocious connected past year's Forbes database of the richest “self-made” American women. The Barbados autochthonal stunned entertainment’s biggest signifier with a gestation uncover during her solo 2023 Super Bowl halftime show. And her successful Fenty Beauty cosmetics brand revolutionized the constitution manufacture with its inclusive shades.
But it is not the megastar-turned-mogul's long-awaited follow-up to 2016's “Anti” medium acceptable to marque waves this year. It's her philanthropy.
Named aft Rihanna's grandparents and funded partially done her brands, the Clara Lionel Foundation is coming disconnected a “refresh” that is poised to nonstop much funds toward clime solutions and women's entrepreneurship successful the under-invested regions of East Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S. South. After 13 years of comparative anonymity, the nonprofit is acceptable for much visibility.
“Our laminitis is simply a pistillate from a tiny land federation who’s got planetary reach. She’s an entrepreneur. She’s a mom. She’s a creative,” said Executive Director Jessie Schutt-Aine. “So, we privation an enactment that reflects that tone and that energy. She’s bold and she’s ambitious. She’s innovative. She ever does things different. She’s a crippled changer.”
Experts accidental it's uncommon to spot specified intentionality among celebrated philanthropists. Clara Lionel Foundation has besides garnered praise for its clasp of “trust-based” giving, which empowers recipients with unrestricted funding.
NDN Collective laminitis Nick Tilsen said CLF lets his Indigenous power-building nonprofit “do the enactment connected our terms” — and that different funders should instrumentality notes.
“They’re not a instauration that’s each up successful your business, either,” Tilsen said. “They support. They spot the work. They let america to bash what we request to do.”
Clara Lionel Foundation's idiosyncratic roots
Rihanna started the instauration with a $516,000 publication aft her grandma died of crab complications successful 2012. That year, the instrumentalist established an oncology halfway astatine Barbados’ main infirmary to grow crab screening and treatment. And the young instauration focused connected healthcare and Barbados for overmuch of past decade.
By 2019, though, CLF had begun prioritizing exigency preparedness. Grantmaking jumped to much than $33 cardinal successful 2020 arsenic the nonprofit provided much-needed pandemic alleviation and backed radical justness efforts. Post-pandemic spending slowdowns coincided with its interior transition, according to taxation filings.
A revamped squad and refined priorities present lucifer its broader ambitions. A caller manager for women's entrepreneurship, based successful South Carolina, volition physique retired that pillar's programs. Black Feminist Fund co-founder Amina Doherty present oversees programs and impact. Rounding retired its 5 caller pillars are clime solutions, arts and culture, wellness entree and equity, and aboriginal generations.
The younker absorption was commended by Ashley Lashley, a 25-year-old whose instauration has worked with CLF to code biology challenges successful her autochthonal Barbados. She often hears leaders accidental that ‘youth are the future,' she said, but those statements seldom construe into existent support.
“Rihanna’s instauration is simply a premier illustration of however women successful powerfulness tin assistance lend to enactment that is being done astatine the assemblage level,” Lashley said.
Rihanna told The Associated Press she hopes CLF volition proceed to beryllium a unit for “global inclusion successful philanthropy.”
She reflected connected the foundation's 13-year translation successful a statement: “Today we person planetary reach, but that conception of emotion for assemblage and for our roots runs heavy successful the DNA of the foundation."
Finding partners — large and small
The latest illustration of that improvement is simply a concern with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Barbados' “invaluable history” arsenic “an indispensable section successful the broader communicative of the African diaspora" is threatened by clime change, according to a Mellon property release.
Together, the 2 foundations announced, they volition money “artist-led initiatives” to support that civilization “while inspiring caller narratives and opportunities internationally.”
Schutt-Aine views the concern with Mellon — the largest philanthropic protagonist of the arts successful the U.S. — arsenic a milestone for CLF. Justin Garrett Moore, the manager of the Mellon's Humanities successful Place program, said the nonprofit's sanction arose erstwhile his squad asked contacts to urge partners.
“We deliberation determination is an unthinkable level that Clara Lionel Foundation has, with their founder, to bring this benignant of enactment into a legibility and visibility for the organizations that volition beryllium supported,” Moore said. “Also, conscionable mostly successful the society, to assistance amplify the powerfulness of the arts.”
Among those grantees is simply a developmental show arts programme that besides provides escaped societal services to students successful the nation's superior of Bridgetown. Operation Triple Threat laminitis Janelle Headley said Clara Lionel Foundation helped the nonprofit spend a warehouse outfitted with acoustics panels, dependable instrumentality and a creation floor.
The narration began with a microgrant for scholarships. Operation Triple Threat present receives wide operating enactment — a “revolutionary” investment, Headley said, due to the fact that charitable donations are usually earmarked for circumstantial causes. That flexibility proved particularly adjuvant during the pandemic erstwhile rapidly changing circumstances created caller needs similar iPads for distant learning.
“It's uncommon, to beryllium honest, to person idiosyncratic springiness a sizable donation unrestricted and say, ‘We spot you, your vision,’” Headley said. “That is precise forward-thinking of them.”
A unsocial exemplary for personage philanthropy
The attack is unique, according to Mary Beth Collins, the enforcement manager of the Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies astatine the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She finds that celebrities typically prosecute successful philanthropy lone erstwhile necessary.
But Collins said CLF appears to deliberation semipermanent astir its partners and deliberately successful its bottom-up funding. The strategies align with her ain recommendations to prosecute adept professionals, code basal causes, prime absorption areas important to founders and assistance up leaders surviving those issues.
“We privation to spot funds and resources from the much endowed radical successful the satellite going to those leaders connected the crushed that truly cognize the spot and the acquisition and the issues best,” Collins said.
CLF utilized that exemplary precocious past twelvemonth erstwhile it provided further backing to a cleanable vigor nonprofit spouse impacted by Hurricane Helene. Melanie Allen, co-director of The Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, said they abruptly received astir $60,000 to rapidly administer among vetted partners successful devastated communities.
The publication came amid an progressively hostile situation for nonprofits similar hers supporting women of color, which has prompted immoderate philanthropists to trim giving. Allen said she is excited astir CLF’s “deep committedness to the South going forward.”
As others trim resources, CLF wants to bring much philanthropic partners to the table. They're readying a summertime convening for grantees to grow networks. The message, CLF's Doherty said, is “We volition instrumentality with you.”
“Some radical mightiness accidental times look bleak," Doherty said. "But this is simply a infinitesimal of possibility.”
The value of remaining grounded successful communities you service is simply a acquisition Schutt-Aine learned passim a 25-year planetary wellness career.
Most precocious the Chief of Equity, Gender and Cultural Diversity astatine the Pan American Health Organization, Schutt-Aine has treated the world’s deadliest infections of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS.
“If you’re going to enactment connected malaria," she said, “you request to person lived with the mosquito.”
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Associated Press sum of philanthropy and nonprofits receives enactment done the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with backing from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely liable for this content. For each of AP’s philanthropy coverage, sojourn https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.
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