The Purpose of Dolly

What can the late and great Dolly Parton teach us about our purpose?

As it turns out, quite a lot. From behind the rhinestones, the country folk-disco crossovers and the magnificently constructed Dolly persona is a remarkably consistent story connecting where one person came from, what they believed, the choices they made.

Dolly spent a lifetime demonstrating what her purpose was through her actions. She had a deep connection to place that was complimented by a strong sense of humility. This sat comfortably alongside enormous ambition and a determination to use creativity to make a difference. She had faith, she loved all her tribes.

In a world of deepening tensions and trade offs, here is a story about someone who had precision focus on purpose with impact. To her, it was simple and because of this she became one of very few authentic figures in the public eye. She was someone who built up success from failure and was brilliant at storytelling. She sang to us about being a woman, love, loss, abortion, civil rights and calling out bad behaviour and another woman who stole her man.

Here to get you started are a few fun and positive life lessons from her story.

My Tennessee Mountain Home

Dolly grew up as one of twelve children in a one room house in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, USA, in circumstances a very long way from the wealth and fame that followed. What is striking is that success never required her to leave that identity behind. If anything, the further she travelled, the more important those Appalachian roots became.

Place continued to influence where she invested her commercial success as a savvy business woman, what she cared about and who benefited from her profit and success. Her relationship with East Tennessee is not simply a convenient origin story that became part of the Dolly mythology. It was her home and hub of all things Dolly Inc. It followed her through her musical and acting career.

Have you ever been to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where Dolly's 'Dollywood' theme park is based? It is her best example of exceptional business prowess. Dolly took her fame, capital and pulling power and invested them back into East Tennessee, helping to create employment and attract tourism and economic activity to the region that formed her. She did not simply make money somewhere else and then give some of it back, but made place part of the enterprise itself as a top level visitor destination.

A Coat Of Many Colours

Perhaps the clearest expression of Dolly’s purpose is the launch of the Imagination Library, which itself grew directly from her own life experience.

Dolly’s father could not read or write like many mountain folk of that era and she often describes him as one of the smartest people she knew, while recognising how his lack of literacy limited the opportunities available to him. In 1995 she decided to do something practical about that by creating a programme that would give books to children from birth until the age of five, regardless of their family’s income.

It began in her home county in Tennessee and went on distribute over 300 million books to children internationally. One of the first places it travelled outside North America was Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where in 2007 Dolly came personally to launch the UK’s first Imagination Library programme in a community which was struggling with it's own identity and educational outcomes.  

Her Foundation's work centred entirely on children, dignity and opportunity, without judgement about the circumstances into which a child had been born and without requiring a family to demonstrate that they were deserving.

Backwoods Barbie

When devastating wildfires struck the Smoky Mountains in 2016, Dolly established the My People Fund to provide direct financial support to families who had lost their homes. More than $12 million was ultimately raised and distributed, demonstrating again how her connection to place translated into practical action when her community needed it.

Then, when Covid arrived, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville for coronavirus research. Some of that funding supported research connected with the development of the Moderna vaccine, leading parts of the media to affectionately describe it as “Dolly’s vaccine”.  Her legacy technically lives on in residue in many of us.

Dolly put significant resources behind something that mattered, urgently, before she knew what the outcome would be, making a choice about where her money and influence could potentially have the greatest impact at a moment of enormous uncertainty. This is the epitome of good philanthropy: responding to a challenge and acting as the risk capital. Society needs this risk capital which creates momentum and builds trust in organisations and the communities they serve. More of this in the world please.

Dolly Parton was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022 for her achievements in this space. She lights up the room, of course, during her acceptance speech and exudes her typically warm Appalachian mountain charm.

Why'd You Come Here Lookin' Like That?

There is another contradiction in Dolly and her legacy which merits some attention. She was enormously ambitious and did not shy away from her trajectory. Key to this success was her ability to be unapologetic about who she was and would readily brush off comments and quips from her detractors and critics. She didn't over think here, she kept going. A lesson for us all of course.

Dolly spent much of her career being underestimated and caricatured as too country, too blonde, too artificial, too commercial or simply too much. She could have responded by sanding off the edges and becoming what other people thought she ought to be, but she chose not to. She was challenged and often mansplained through her career but she continued to hold her space. When people wanted to access her talent and success, she always held her nerve.   She famously turned Elvis Presley down following his request to use one of her most famous songs for his own records where he would take a writing credit so she said No and kept "I Will Always Love You" for herself and gifted it to a young singer called Whitney later on. 

Pour Yourself A Cup Of Ambition

In the 1980 film, 9 till 5, three working women, played by Dolly, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, are at the centre of a story about unequal treatment, harassment, inflexible working practices and a thoroughly unpleasant boss. On Dolly's request this story was delivered in a light hearted way that still raised serious questions about dignity, power and sexism in the workplace.

You know the story:  Dolly’s character, Doralee, is particularly interesting because she is judged before she is known. Her appearance becomes an invitation for colleagues to make assumptions about her intelligence, her character and her relationship with her boss. It is not difficult to see why the role might have resonated with a woman who had spent years being underestimated because of the way she looked, sounded and chose to present herself.

The soundtrack theme song itself became an anthem because underneath its infectious cheerfulness was a fairly uncompromising observation about the relationship between work and people. One that has always resonated across the generations and surfaces at work Christmas parties and leaving dos. People give a significant part of themselves to work and quite reasonably expect something in return beyond a pay cheque, including respect, agency, recognition and the possibility of making progress in their lives. Dolly might ask you if you are responsible for your purpose or are you "just a step on the boss man's ladder"?

Islands in the Stream

It is a deeply sad day when a good person leaves us. It is genuinely inspiring to see the clips and stories about her impact and reach across the world which have come out this week.

Dolly's enduring legacy will of course continue on in so many different ways for generations to come but she is probably one of the greatest case studies of someone who has done good in the world through her work. She achieved so much through clear purpose as a leader who knew her responsibilities and commitments. She probably would not acknowledge herself as a leader but she was of course one of the best (and most glamorous).

Perhaps the most useful Dolly lesson of all is that the strongest purpose is not the kind that produces division and partisanship but is the one which can unite the generations through an enduring appeal, charisma and authentic lived experience. Dolly knew how to bring people together from her church tribes to the LGBTQ+ community, from left to right. She avoided politics, but she believed strongly in public service and public awareness. These kinds of humans are indeed rare finds so we should cherish them when they cross our paths although many of us always knew this when we thought about Dolly Parton.