Dolly Parton's donation was somewhere between Seed funding and Round A, so to speak, at a critical moment, and thus very worth calling out. From the article: "

Dolly Parton's donation was somewhere between Seed funding and Round A, so to speak, at a critical moment, and thus very worth calling out. From the article: "Parton’s $1 million donation went a long way toward funding the “critical” early stages of research and testing. Her money helped us develop the test that we used to first show that the Moderna vaccine was giving people a good immune response that might protect them,” [team leader] Denison said. “Her work made it possible to expedite the science behind the testing,” Abumrad [inventor], 76, said on Tuesday night. “Without a doubt in my mind, her funding made the research toward the vaccine go 10 times faster than it would be without it.” See also the actual research report in the New England Journal of Medicine, "An mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — Preliminary Report" where the credits are, in total, "Supported by the NIAID, National Institutes of Health (NIH)...; by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NIH...; and by the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund... Funding for the manufacture of mRNA-1273 phase 1 material was provided by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI)." So, it may have billions of dollars behind it now, but without her donation at a critical moment, it may not have gotten to that stage for a much longer time, if at all.