While most details of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s July 3 wedding remain undisclosed, the pop star and Kansas City Chiefs tight end did publicly reveal one aspect of the celebration before their wedding: a $26 million donation to 20 different charity organizations. Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, confirmed the total donation to The Athletic.

In addition to supporting nine New York-based charities (a nod to the couple’s Manhattan wedding at Madison Square Garden), Swift and Kelce donated to organizations across the country focused on the arts, animal welfare, hunger, medical research and more. The newlyweds, whose combined net worth exceeds $2 billion, have each demonstrated a long history of charitable giving throughout their careers.

Swift and Kelce are far from the only couple to make charitable donations a part of their celebration. Many others are incorporating philanthropy into their weddings, both by donating to organizations on their own and by requesting charity contributions instead of traditional wedding gifts.

Shanna Hocking, a philanthropy expert and the CEO of Hocking Leadership in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, said it has become increasingly common for couples to “refocus the idea of giving to them by giving to others.” While the trend isn’t reserved for any specific age group or stage of life, “I do think it’s more common when people feel financially secure to be able to think about giving to others,” she said.

News of Swift and Kelce’s generosity has also spurred Swift fans to make their own charitable donations to honor the singer.

Since announcing Swift and Kelce’s support, 82% of the recent donations to New York Cares have been for $13, Swift’s favorite number, said Sapreet Saluja, the organization’s executive director. The nonprofit also updated its donation page to feature suggested amounts of $13, $26, $87 and $1,989, referencing numerology that Swift and Kelce fans will immediately recognize (87, for example, pays a nod to Kelce’s Chiefs jersey number). They “know we’re talking to them and that we love them,” Saluja said of the couple’s supporters.

For many Swifties, supporting charities is, to borrow the title of a 2021 track, “Nothing New.” Last year, fans mobilized to raise more than $2 million for the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California, after Swift was spotted wearing a vintage T-shirt bearing the nonprofit’s name.

The day before Swift and Kelce’s $26 million donation was announced, Christina Lawley, 60, created a post in the Facebook group “Taylor Swift’s Vault” — home to more than 700,000 members — asking whether there was a charity that Swifties could support “once we know they’re officially married.”

“We all knew we weren’t going to be invited to the wedding; she made that very clear, but this was our way of celebrating their love, their union, the happiness that I think that collectively the Swiftie community feels,” said Lawley, a sales implementation manager who lives in Pittsburgh.

Lawley donated $13 to both the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and Kelce’s foundation, 87 and Running, as well as $13.87 to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (the second track on Swift’s most recent album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” is named for the actress). “I just thought this would be our way of showing them that collectively so many people were rooting for them and cheering them on,” she said.

Heather Jorgensen, 54, is also a member of the Vault Facebook group and has long been a fan of the musician. “My license plate says ‘Swiftie,’ and I have a Taylor tattoo,” she said. “I feel like, as a woman, she puts things into words that we just can’t express sometimes.” Jorgensen, a sales manager for La-Z-Boy Furniture, made $13.87 donations to both the ASPCA and New York Cares. Swifties “just feel like she gives so much to us that we just want to give back,” said Jorgensen, who is from Clinton Township, Michigan. “We are making a difference, $13 at a time.”

These $13.87 donations are digestible for Swifties. “Just for you and a friend to go to Starbucks, it’s more than $13.87,” said Carrie Pickett, 56, of Warren, Michigan, who donated that amount to both the ASPCA and Turning Point Domestic Violence Services. But even more so, smaller amounts make a major impact from a nonprofit standpoint.

“We do not have a lot of seven-figure donors at all,” Matt Betshadker, ASPCA’s president and chief executive, said in reference to Swift and Kelce’s $1 million gift. “Our movement and the ASPCA — we’re really powered by smaller donations.” Gifts of $13, $13.87 and $87, he said, are “totally consistent with who our membership is, and again, who powers this movement.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Sarah Lyon
c. 2026 The New York Times Company