On August 11, 2014, Robin Williams passed away at 63 after a two-year battle with Lewy Body Dementia.
But his legacy extends far beyond his passing.
After skyrocketing to fame in the 1970s comedy scene, Williams leapt from stage to screen and captivated audiences with roles in “Hook” (1991), “Aladdin” (1992), “Good Will Hunting” (1997), and countless more.
However, his most vital role was off-screen, as a notable humanitarian and philanthropist.
As a comedian, actor, and beloved public figure, he proved just how much one person can touch millions of lives through laughter, warmth, and radical acts of kindness. Here are a few examples of Williams’s do-good efforts that remain an integral part of his legacy today.
He helped raise over $80 million for people experiencing homelessness.
Inspired by “Live Aid,” Comic Relief USA was created to combat the sharp rise of homelessness in America in the 1980’s.
With the guidance of comedian Bob Zmuda, Williams joined Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg in leading the effort.
“When we started [Comic Relief], we had to figure out what would be a suitable cause,” Zmuda told the Los Angeles Times. “Nobody was more adamant than Robin that it should help the homeless.”
On March 29, 1986, Williams, Crystal, and Goldberg hosted a three-hour television event on HBO for the inaugural Comic Relief — and the donations poured in.
Through stand-up acts, sketches, stunts, songs — and a historic lineup of comedians — Comic Relief continued on annually until its final HBO broadcast in 2010.
Across 24 years, the benefit raised and distributed over $80 million to people in crisis.
He was the face of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for a decade.
Of all of his charitable contributions, Williams is perhaps best known for his work with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Over the course of a decade, he filmed several commercials for the nonprofit — and never charged a dime for his appearances or time.
“Mr. Williams generously gave his time to raise awareness and funds for St. Jude and for our patients battling childhood cancer,” the hospital said in a statement in 2014.
“His humor brought bright smiles and laughter to our patients and families and his generosity deeply touched the hearts of all who knew him.
His daughter Zelda Williams also worked with the foundation to create the “St. Jude PLAY LIVE” charity program in 2014.
In a gaming livestream, Zelda raised over $9,000 for the organization — the same week that she lost her father.
After the outpouring of support, Zelda tweeted: “Thank you to all those donating to @StJude in memory of my father. I'm overwhelmed. The charity meant the world to him, as it does to me.”
Williams went above and beyond for military veterans.
Following in the footsteps of comedic legend Bob Hope, Williams worked prominently with the United Service Organizations.
According to TIME, Williams traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, and 11 more countries throughout the Middle East, and performed for 90,000 troops across six USO tours.
“From entertaining thousands of service men and women in war zones, to his philanthropy that helped veterans struggling with hidden wounds of war, he was a loyal and compassionate advocate for all who serve this nation in uniform,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a statement after Williams passed.
Lisa Jakub — who played Williams’ daughter Lydia in “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993) — discovered later in life that her on-screen dad often hired veterans to work on film productions.
“He always had production crews hire local veterans to be background actors or things like that on set, which is not something I ever knew about when I worked with him,” Jakub shared this year.
“Robin was everything you would hope Robin would be, and it’s so wonderful to think back on him now.”
He fought for human rights alongside Amnesty International.
When Williams passed in 2014, the team at Amnesty International made a post memorializing his work with the international human rights organization.
In the post, they quoted the W.B. Yeats poem “The Stolen Child” — the same poem Williams’ character Dr. Know recites in the 2001 film “AI.”
The poem reads: “Come away, O’ human child! / To the waters and the wild: / With a faery, hand in hand / For the world’s more full of weeping / than you can understand.”
The post went on to say that although “the world was indeed full of weeping,” Williams devoted his art and advocacy to making “the world a better place.”
Williams began working with Amnesty International by starring in several commercials and headlining the Chicago leg of their Conspiracy for Hope Concert in 1986. He continued to work with the organization for remainder of his life, helping to raise funds for people fleeing war, disaster, and tyranny.
“We mourn his passing but his art will live on and his contribution to our movement and the cause of human rights will not be forgotten,” the organization's staff wrote in 2014.
His job contracts quietly employed people who were unhoused.
Brian Lord, president of Premiere Speakers Bureau in Tennessee, never got to work directly with Williams.
But at one point he reportedly “got close enough” that the actor’s office sent over a contract rider, which outlined Williams’ stipulations for employment.
“When I got Robin Williams’ rider, I was very surprised by what I found,” Lord wrote in a blog post in 2014.
“He actually had a requirement that, for every single event or film he did, the company hiring him also had to hire a certain number of homeless people and put them to work.”
After Lord discovered this new facet of Williams’ character, he said he “never watched a Robin Williams movie the same way after that.”
“He was a great multiplier of his impact,” Lord added. “Let’s hope that impact lives on without him. Thanks, Robin Williams — not just for laughs, but also for a cool example.”
He did critical work for spinal cord injury research.
The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation has been instrumental in raising money for spinal cord injury research and improving the livelihood of thousands of people impacted by paralysis.
For Williams, his work with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation was personal. He was roommates with Reeve at Julliard, and his friendship with the actor-director continued on for a lifetime.
In 2004 — the same year that Reeve sadly passed — Williams joined the board of directors and went on to work with the foundation for four years.
Beyond his work directly on the board, Williams also hosted “two or three” galas and events for the organization each year.
Peter Wilderotter, who served as the president and CEO of the foundation for 18 years, said that Williams was incredibly generous — both with his time and his frequent donations.
“These weren't token gifts,” Wilderotter told CNN.
He supported 38 charities throughout his life.
In addition to his aforementioned charity work with St. Jude, Amnesty International, and more, Williams supported a total of 38 charitable organizations throughout his life.
The long list of charities and nonprofits include the American Foundation for AIDS Research, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Save The Children, Malaria No More, and so many more.
From health care and education to environmental action, Williams’s philanthropy touched so many different areas of the world in a wealth of ways.
At the heart of it all, Williams helped make the world brighter for everyone — regardless of race, gender, income, and situation.
And he did it not just with his time, his platform, and his money; he did it with his words.
As a comedian, an author, an actor and more, he showed how radically you can reshape people’s lives, simply with kindness and warmth.
“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world,” Williams says in “The Dead Poet’s Society” (1989).
“If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you.”
Header images via TSGT Vincent A. Parker (Public Domain), John William Smith / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
