When fires swept through the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016, killing 14 and displacing thousands, a local legend answered the call to help. Dolly Parton, the country music luminary, who died this week at 80, offered $1,000 per month to families who had lost their homes in Sevier County. The money kept flowing for months, and the songwriter and star behind hits including “My Tennessee Mountain Home” ultimately sent $12.5 million back to the county where she was born.

Ms. Parton’s support for the fire victims was just one node in a constellation of charitable activities that distinguished her as one of pop culture’s most prolific philanthropists. With cash gifts, benefit concerts and telethons, Parton supported causes that included early childhood literacy, wildlife conservation and the development of the Covid-19 vaccine. She became so effective at distributing her own money that the ultrawealthy asked her to distribute theirs. In 2022, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his future wife, Lauren Sanchez, gave Ms. Parton $100 million to distribute to causes of her choosing.

Ms. Parton started her own charitable organization, the Dollywood Foundation, in 1988. The foundation was initially focused on reducing school dropout rates in Sevier County, in part by offering $500 gifts to graduates. High school dropout rates plummeted to just 6 percent, from 35 percent. In 1995, Ms. Parton started the Imagination Library, a program that sent one book per month to children. Last year, it had distributed some 305 million books.

“I just give from my heart,” Parton said in 2022. “I never know what I’m going to do or why I’m gonna do it. I just see a need and if I can fill it, then I will.”