Shailene Woodley

Best known for roles in “Divergent” and “Big Little Lies,” Woodley has been a tireless environmental and climate activist. In 2010, the actress and her mother, Lori, founded the nonprofit organization All It Takes, aimed at encouraging young people to act sustainably. Woodley, a vocal supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders, has also protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline. While protesting, she was arrested for criminal trespassing in October 2016 and was sentenced to a year of probation. Woodley took activist Calina Lawrence, whom she met at Standing Rock protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, to the 2018 Golden Globe Awards as her date.

Kate Middleton

Along with her husband, Prince William, and his brother, Prince Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge set up a gift fund with the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry to encourage those who wanted to give them wedding gifts to donate to a charity that they support instead. In 2018, she became a patron of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and launched Nursing Now, a three-year campaign to empower nurses worldwide. As the daughter and granddaughter of volunteer nurses, Middleton has said that the campaign has a special place in her heart. This year, Middleton also launched Mentally Healthy Schools, a website aimed at improving the discussion around mental health in schools.

Angelina Jolie

Jolie’s passion for philanthropy began in 2001 when she visited war-torn Cambodia to film “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.” Since then, the Oscar winner has been named a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ambassador for the dozens of field missions she went on to meet refugees in more than 30 countries, including Pakistan and Tanzania. Jolie is also a huge advocate for human rights and women’s rights, joining the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007. In addition to launching the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative in 2012, with Foreign Secretary William Hague, Jolie also co-chaired a global summit to end sexual violence in conflict zones. In 2013, she won a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her work.

Viola Davis

Having grown up in poverty, Davis is passionate about ending hunger worldwide. In 2014, she collaborated with Hunger Is, a campaign dedicated to eradicating hunger among children in the United States.  “Seventeen million kids in this country, so one in five kids in this country, go to bed hungry. I was one of those kids because I grew up in abject poverty; I did everything that you could possibly imagine to get food: I rummaged in the garbage cans, I stole from the local store constantly,” Davis said in a video for Hunger Is.

In 2016, The “How to Get Away with Murder” actress also partnered with Vaseline’s Healing Project campaign to provide dermatological care to people affected by poverty and emergencies around the world. 

Natalie Portman

After becoming a vegetarian at 8 years old and a vegan in 2009, Portman has been a huge advocate for animal rights, launching her own vegan footwear line, Te Casan, in 2017. In 2011, the Oscar winner became an ambassador for Free the Children (now known as We Charity), where she helped fund raise and met children from all-girls schools in Kenya. Portman is also a vocal antipoverty and environmental activist, traveling to countries including Uganda and Ecuador to help finance woman-owned businesses and call for environmental change.

Lady Gaga

In 2016, Lady Gaga joined Joe Biden on the former vice president’s It’s On Us campaign, a tour of more than 530 colleges encouraging students to sign a pledge of solidarity and activism against sexual assault on campuses. The campaign received more than 250,000 signatures. Gaga has also been a vocal LGBTQ advocate, speaking at the 2009 National Equality March and urging the United States Armed Forces to pull its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Leonardo DiCaprio

In 1998, when he was 24 years old, the Oscar winner established the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at raising environmental awareness, with a focus on global warming, preserving the earth’s biodiversity, and supporting renewable energy. DiCaprio has also been a vocal opponent of the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as of President Donald Trump’s inaction on climate change. In 2017, the actor attended People’s Climate March to voice his opinion against the president.

“Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating,” DiCaprio said during his 2016 Oscars speech. “We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.”