Angelina Jolie has been working on refugee missions around the world since 2001. She also made the Jolie-Pitt Foundation with Brad Pitt, which has helped establish a center for children effected with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Ethiopia, and more. (Photo: Archive)
Nicki Minaj helped her fans pay for college. She recently announced she is opening a charity to help people pay for school, shortly after helping an entire village in India get clean water, free education, and a computer center. (Photo: Archive)
Gisele Bundchen donated $1.5 million to the Haiti earthquake relief in 2010. She has also donated $150,000 to Brazil’s Zero Hunger program, and she is active with the I Am African HIV/AIDS awareness campaign and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. (Photo: Archive)
Matt Damon co-founded water.org, which works to provide safe and easy access to clean drinking water. Matt Damon even started a campaign called “buy a girl a drink” which focused on delivering water to women in disadvantaged countries. (Photo: Archive)
Scarlett Johansson has been an Oxfam Ambassador since 2004. She also supported USA Harvest by handing out food to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and in 2008, she volunteered in AIDS clinics in Rwanda. (Photo: Archive)
Miley Cyrus has volunteered and donated to various charities including the Red Cross, City of Hope, Blessings in a Backpack, and the Starkey Hearing Foundation. She has her own foundation, the Happy Hippie Foundation, which helps homeless teenagers. (Photo: Archive)
South African born actress Charlize Theron founded the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. She is also active with Oxfam and the Red Cross. (Photo: Archive)
Justin Timberlake regularly works with and donates to Habitat For Humanity, Shriners Hospitals for Children, and Kids Wish Network. He also created a single with R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe that raised money for Hurricane Katrina victims. (Photo: Archive)
Beyoncé has been mixing social justice messages into her work, and she has also been setting aside some of her profits for charity. She announced that she is partnering up with charities for her Formation World Tour to help improve the poisoned water crisis in Flint, Michigan. (Photo: Archive)
George Clooney co-founded Not On Our Watch, which provides aid to grief-stricken places in Burma, Darfur and Zimbabwe. He also does a few celebrity endorsements, and all the money that he makes from those endorsements, he puts toward his charities. (Photo: Archive)
Kristen Stewart has worked closely with Shoe Revolt to help sex trafficking in the United States. She also works with Oxfam and the Red Cross. (Photo: Archive)
Sandra Bullock supports the Warren Easton Charter Foundation and she works with the American Foundation for AIDS Research, Red Cross, and Partners in Health. (Photo: Archive)
Orlando Bloom is a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and took a four-day trip to Liberia. He was the first high profile person to visit the country since the Ebola outbreak. (Photo: Archive)
Alicia Keys is the ambassador for Keep A Child Alive and she travels to Africa to help children who have lost their parents to AIDS. She also supports UNICEF, Shriners Hospitals for Children, and Oxfam. (Photo: Archive)
Matthew McConaughey founded the Just Keep Livin Foundation to help educate children in life, fitness, and spirituality. He is also active with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Children’s Defense Fund, and the Mississippi Animal Rescue League. (Photo: Archive)
Emma Watson is a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for Women, and she created the HeforShe movement to work toward pay equality among men and women. She is also a proud supporter of UNICEF, asking that her fans who wish to send her gifts send them to UNICEF instead. (Photo: Archive)
John Cena has done a lot of work with Kids Wish Network, and he has helped grant the most wishes for the Make-a-Wish Foundation out of any celebrity who has ever worked with the organization. (Photo: Archive)
Ben Affleck works closely with Feeding America, Sundance Institute, and Paralyzed Veterans of America. (Photo: Archive)
50 Cent founded the G-Unity Foundation to provide grants to non-profit organizations in low-income communities. He also has appeared in “Feeding America” PSAs and he raised money for charity by making phone calls on Wall Street for BGC Partners’ Charity Day 2013. (Photo: Archive)
Meryl Streep is the spokesperson for the National Women’s History Museum, and she has donated and raised money for the organization. She also works with Actors Fund of America, Healthy Child Healthy World, and Women in the World Foundation. (Photo: Archive)
Alec Baldwin has worked closely with PeTA and he narrated their film “Meet Your Meat.” He also works with the Wounded Warrior Project, Creative Coalition, and the Carol M. Baldwin Cancer Research Fund. (Photo: Archive)
George Lucas founded the Edutopia – The George Lucas Educational Foundation to encourage innovation in schools. He also joined some of the richest people in the world, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, in a pledge to donate his fortune to charity. (Photo: Archive)
LeBron James donated $2.5 million to the Boys and Girls Club of America, a charity he works with regularly. He also founded the LeBron James Family Foundation. (Photo: Archive)
Channing Tatum works closely with The Rainforest Foundation, which was founded by Sting. (Photo: Archive)
Ian Somerhalder founded the IS Foundation to encourage people to protect the environment. He also supports the It Gets Better Project, and he spoke in front of Congress in support of the Multinational Species Conservation Funds Reauthorization Act. (Photo: Archive)
Millions of dollars go into celebrities’ pockets every time they shoot a movie, walk down the runway, or perform in a concert. And if we add the money they make on their own (clothing brands, fragrances, and exclusive interviews), they’ll often end up with 7+ figures bank accounts.
What to do with all that money when you’ve already bought everything you ever wanted? Sure, you could star spending it carelessly in gold toilets and private islands—just ask Johnny Depp and his former business managers.
Or, just like a few celebrities in Hollywood, you could take that money and do something with it for the greater good. Despite their fame, wealth, and hectic schedules, some famous names in the entertainment industry do a lot of charity work to help causes that are close to them.
Do you know who we are talking about? These are 25 celebrities who give back and do good, and the causes they support.
