Welcome to Cause & Capital.

My goal: Inform your giving strategies.

Every month in Cause & Capital, I break down a brand’s corporate giving campaign or one of the world’s leading philanthropists, uncovering what worked, why it worked, and how you can apply those insights to your own cause investments, whether you’re giving as a brand or an individual.

Let’s get into it.

Most celebrity foundations start after the money arrives.

Selena Gomez built hers into the business before a single product sold.

Before Rare Beauty launched in 2020, she committed 1% of all sales to the Rare Impact Fund. The fund’s goal is to raise $100 million over ten years for youth mental health services, and they’ve already mobilized over $20 million supporting 30 organizations across five continents.

Today, we’re breaking down exactly how she structured it and what you can emulate from her approach.

Selena Gomez is a singer, actress, and founder of Rare Beauty, a cosmetics company now valued at over $2.7 billion with estimated annual revenue around $400 million.

Her credibility on mental health comes from lived experience. In 2018, she was hospitalized with psychosis. In 2020, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She has been to four treatment centers and still attends therapy multiple times a week. She talks about all of this publicly, to over 400 million social media followers.

Gomez commits 1% of all Rare Beauty sales to the Rare Impact Fund.

The more common approach in corporate philanthropy is pledging a percentage of profits. Profits are fungible. A company can reinvest, defer, restructure, or simply have a bad year. Profits can disappear on paper. Sales are harder to hide. When Rare Beauty commits 1% of sales, the giving happens before anyone takes a cut, overhead, or salaries.

Her implicit promise is if we build giving into the revenue model from the start, philanthropy scales automatically with success.

Cause Selection

Gomez focuses on youth mental health to address the crisis in access to services and education, particularly for underserved communities and young people facing stigma around seeking help.

Partnership Approach

Gomez operates through the Rare Impact Fund (a fiscally sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity) and partners with organizations like Mental Health America, The Trevor Project, and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Corporate partners like Sephora amplify the reach: every October for World Mental Health Day, Sephora donates 100% of Rare Beauty sales across 25+ countries to the fund.

Methods Used:

Scale, Spend, and Reach:

1. Structural commitment creates automatic scale

Tying giving to sales rather than profits means the philanthropy grows automatically with the business. Rare Beauty’s revenue has grown from around $100 million in 2022 to an estimated $400 million today. The fund grows with it.

2. Lived experience creates credibility

Gomez funds mental health because she almost didn’t survive her own mental health crisis. That’s a different kind of credibility than a celebrity who picks a cause that polls well. It attracts different partners and sustains attention in ways traditional corporate giving rarely does.

3. Cultural relevance multiplies reach

Hispanic and Latino communities face steep stigma around mental health. Only about 35% of Hispanic adults with mental illness receive treatment, compared to 46% nationally. A young Latina billionaire saying publicly that she was hospitalized and diagnosed shifts what feels possible for teenagers who think they have to suffer in silence.

4. Corporate partnerships extend the model

Sephora’s commitment to donate 100% of Rare Beauty sales on World Mental Health Day across 25+ countries creates a multiplier effect that a standalone foundation couldn’t achieve.

1. Commit before success

The structural decision to give 1% of sales was made before Rare Beauty knew it would become a billion-dollar brand. Building giving into the model from day one means you never have to retrofit it later.

2. Tie giving to revenue, not profit

Sales-based commitments are harder to defer or restructure than profit-based pledges. They signal seriousness to partners and customers.

3. Anchor the mission in lived experience

The most compelling philanthropic stories come from people who have been personally affected by the issue they’re funding. If your brand or family has a genuine connection to a cause, lead with that.

4. Use corporate partnerships to multiply reach

Sephora’s World Mental Health Day commitment extends the Rare Impact Fund’s reach across 25+ countries. Strategic partners can scale impact beyond what any single organization can achieve alone.

5. Build for cultural relevance

Gomez’s identity as a young Latina speaking openly about mental illness reaches communities where that conversation has historically been taboo. Consider how your giving strategy can address specific cultural barriers to the cause you’re funding.

Cheers,
​Christine​

If you’re exploring your giving strategy, I’m always open to a conversation.

I’m a nonprofit chief development officer with 30+ years in philanthropy, focused on helping donors and institutions make fewer, better, longer-term philanthropic bets.

Reply if you’d like to talk.