Charity biography

“We want women to feel strong and feel strong enough that they can remember to protect themselves. To have this lipstick as a reminder in your purse, that when your man is laying naked in bed, you go into the bathroom, you put your lipstick on, and you bring a condom out with you…There are no exceptions.” – Lady Gaga, VIVA Glam campaign against AIDS and HIV

Two-time Grammy winner, songwriter, musician, and fashion artist, Lady Gaga is a creative “win-win” philanthropist, who throws the weight of her popularity behind donation projects.

Gaga partnered with Virgin Mobile on her Monster Ball national tour offering premium VIP tickets to fans who volunteer their time to homeless youth organizations, which raised more than $80,000 in proceeds to support homeless youth, and generated 30,000 hours of community service for hundreds of charities across the country.

One of the recipients, The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), is a nonprofit, non-partisan, organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. NAEH is partnered with the Re*Generation homeless youth organization and Gaga supports and joined Re*Generation at a pre-concert visit to Eva’s Phoenix, a Toronto youth shelter, wearing her full stage out fit to the shelter. While there she took a tour of the facilities and hung out with the kids, posing for photos and signing autographs.

Re*Generation partners include Green Chimneys, a non-profit organization restoring possibilities and creates futures for children with emotional, social, behavioral, and learning challenges, including runaway and homeless youth, with specific programming for LGBTQ youth.

Other Re*Generation partners are STANDUP FOR KIDS, a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to reaching out to counsel and guide homeless teens on America’s streets and Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group tackling tough social and environmental problems in an entrepreneurial way.

Gaga is keen to harness entrepreneurial energy as evidenced by the substantial sum her concert raised for Haiti. In the wake of the Haiti earthquake, she dug deep and donated all of her proceeds from the January 24 show of her current tour, the Monster Ball (ticket sales, merchandise, etc.), and from her online store; the total amount donated was over $500,000.

“We’ve raised over half a million dollars for Haiti already and we like to work specifically with charities that are based in Haiti itself. I donated all of the proceeds from one show worth of ticket sales as well as all the of the merchandise from that show and for 24 hours we had a ‘Gaga for Haiti’ day where everything that was bought on the Web site… every dollar went to Haiti,” Gaga said. “We’re continuing to work on more projects and we’re supposed to go to Haiti later this year for a show, which is very exciting.”

She has also been very proactive with raising awareness with young women about the risk of HIV/AIDS. Along with recording artist Cyndi Lauper, Gaga teamed up with M·A·C AIDS Fund's VIVA Glam campaign, which raised over $160 million to fight against AIDS and HIV, and bring awareness about the diseases to women around the world. By purchasing VIVA Glam lipgloss and/or lipstick, all of the proceeds go directly towards the fund to aid those infected with the disease.