Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival has raised $20million for organisations supporting women and girls after Melinda French Gates matched its original total.
Ahead of the event, which took place at Great Park in Irvine, California yesterday (August 29), Rodrigo announced that it had raised $10million for 10 non-profit partners.
French Gates then made a surprise appearance at the beginning of Rodrigo’s headline set and revealed that she would match the sum with a further $10million through her organisation Pivotal Ventures, taking the overall total to $20million.
The co-founder of the Gates Foundation called the 23-year-old singer “a force” and praised her for “showing a new generation how much their voices matter”.
Sharing photographs from the festival on Instagram, she later wrote: “What Daisy Chain Fields set in motion will last far beyond a single night.”
The money will benefit Baby2Baby, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, the Center For Reproductive Rights, FreeFrom, Jhpiego, Johns Hopkins Center For Indigenous Health, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Institute For Reproductive Health, the National Women’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood.
Rodrigo announced the initial $10million total at a press conference on Friday (August 28), where she spoke alongside representatives from some of the beneficiary organisations.
“Daisy Chain Fields was created to celebrate the power of what can happen when we come together to support one another,” she said. “The organisations we’ve partnered with are doing incredibly important work every single day in the US and globally. I’m so grateful to every person who bought a ticket, every artist who waived their fee, every sponsor for signing onto a brand new festival and every donation that helped get to $10million to support women and girls.”
All artists on the women-led line-up waived their performance fees, while 100 per cent of the festival’s net proceeds were also pledged to the partner organisations.
Inspired by Sarah McLachlan’s Lilith Fair festivals of the ’90s, Daisy Chain Fields brought together artists from multiple generations across two stages, with no overlapping performances. Alongside Rodrigo, the bill included Chappell Roan, Doechii, Mitski, Bikini Kill, The Breeders, Garbage, Santigold, Rachel Chinouriri, Die Spitz and others.
The site also featured a “philanthropy village”, where the non-profit partners provided information about their work, alongside community art projects and installations addressing reproductive rights, maternal health, economic empowerment, domestic violence prevention and gender equality.
Rodrigo closed the festival by bringing out Stevie Nicks, Alanis Morissette and McLachlan during her headline performance.
McLachlan joined her for ‘Building A Mystery’ and ‘Angel’, both of which were dedicated to Dolly Parton, while Morissette performed ‘Ironic’ and Nicks helped Rodrigo close the show with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Landslide’.
Rodrigo has repeatedly used her platform to advocate for reproductive rights. In 2024, she launched the Fund 4 Good initiative, with a portion of proceeds from her ‘Guts’ world tour supporting organisations working towards reproductive healthcare access.
Rodrigo released her third album ‘You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love’ in June and she will begin her extensive ‘Unraveled’ world tour next month, with the run scheduled to reach The O2 in London in May 2027.
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