It’s time to talk about Taylor Swift.

How celebrities use influence to effect change.

For those of you who know me well, you know I’m an unashamed Swiftie. So much so that an article was written about my two-day fight to get tickets to her upcoming Eras Tour (spoiler, I got them). And my daughter, Willow, may or may not be named after one of her songs… (my husband wasn’t down with the name “Swift Reiter” 🙄). 

As you know, Rise Together Ventures is all about empowering entrepreneurs and companies to use their core capabilities to create impact in efficient ways. Celebrities have an extremely powerful ability to leverage their core asset - fame and influence - to effect change in areas they are passionate about. The wonderful GEANCO Foundation has several celebrity supporters who can drive tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations through a simple photo op or post-performance meet and greet - talk about an efficient means of fundraising. 

There are also venture firms that strategically focus on celebrity “social capital” as a way to add value and drive impact. PLUS Capital, a venture firm based in LA, uses this tactic to help portfolio companies with “free” celebrity endorsements when a celebrity co-invests - while enabling these celebrities to maximize their impact in large societal problem areas that these companies are trying to fix (for example, Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi invested in Shelf Engine, which automates a grocer’s ordering process, with the ultimate goal of solving the grocery retail industry’s 43 billion pound food waste crisis). 

As one of the PLUS Capital GPs puts it, “people who have a platform whereby they can effect more change in a day than many can in a lifetime is such an incredible asset”. That’s for sure.

So, I was naturally compelled to understand how Taylor Swift has used her influence to drive the change she wants to see. Here are three examples: 

Swift donated proceeds from her “Wildest Dreams” video to the African Parks Foundation of America (APFA), a nonprofit which focuses on the eradication of poaching and the preservation of national parklands in Africa.

Taylor Swift participated in UNICEF’s Tap Project Initiative, where celebrities bottle up tap water from their homes into a “Celebrity Tap Pack.”  UNICEF raises money by creating a lottery for people to win a variety of bottled water from celebrities, and then donates those funds to help the millions of people around the world who lack access to clean drinking water. (I find this to be equal parts hilarious and genius.)

Swift used her platform to be an advocate for sexual assault awareness through her lawsuit against Denver DJ David Mueller. 

Thanks for reading - and if you’ve made it this far - maybe you’re more of a Swiftie than you thought :)   

Kasey Lundquist