Rapper Macklemore's pledge to donate $1 million to Palestinian relief causes is delivering more than money to the nonprofit organizations named as recipients, according to their leaders, who say the gift has revived public attention to the humanitarian conditions confronting the people they serve.

Macklemore committed to contribute his net earnings from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour after he was dropped from the bill for making pro-Palestinian comments onstage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. In a Wednesday post on social media, the Grammy winner said his aim was to "bring the conversation back to where it belongs" — the Palestinian people — after a 48-hour stretch in which four supporting acts quit in solidarity amid confusion over who was responsible for the decision.

The six donation recipients included Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Beyond the funding windfall, the organizations' leaders welcomed the renewed awareness of the perilous living conditions faced by the Palestinian people they treat regularly.

"Even if you don't see bombs falling every night, the rubble is still there," said Alicia Phillips Mandaville, acting CEO of Anera, another beneficiary. "And the traumatized children are still traumatized."

Tareq Hailat, director of strategic engagement at the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, said his phone rings "all the time" with calls from people in Gaza "bleeding and asking for help."

"There's this notion that there's a ceasefire. But it's not true. There are children dying every single day. There's our team that is constantly in danger on the ground every single. There's people we have to feed," he said. "So to have this attention on it is incredible."

Israeli operations have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since a fragile ceasefire took effect last October. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggle to obtain healthcare in the West Bank, and Palestinians say water shortages persist. The world's leading authority on food insecurity warned in July that most Gaza families still were not getting nearly enough to eat, even as Israel allowed more aid in. It is against that backdrop that the new wave of donations arrives.

The Palestine Children's Relief Fund medically evacuates children who cannot get the care they need because of crumbling healthcare infrastructure, and it flies outside physicians into the territory to treat others inside Gaza. Hailat said the nonprofit will place its share of Macklemore's gift into an unrestricted fund, giving leaders the flexibility to direct money based on evolving circumstances inside Gaza.

Anera, a humanitarian aid group working in Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, said its donation likewise came with no requirements on how the money must be used. Mandaville said that flexibility matters when "the way people live" and "the rules we work inside" change on a monthly basis.

"If there's flooding again this year like there was last year, we can deal with that. If there is an acute hunger crisis again, like there has been in the past, we can meet that," she said. "We can buy more blankets because people want their grandparents to be warm at night."

This week's gift was not the first time Macklemore had donated to some of the recipients. The rapper has long advocated for the plight of Palestinians and previously pledged the proceeds and streaming royalties from his protest anthems "Hind's Hall" and "Hind's Hall 2" to UNRWA, extending a pattern in which he has routed income from his music to relief organizations.

More than $509,000 in support has come through those royalties, according to Mara Kronenfeld, CEO of UNRWA USA.

"He has been contributing to saving probably hundreds of thousands of lives in Gaza through his contributions already," she said.

The latest donation is already catalyzing more gifts. Ms. Rachel, a YouTube star and music teacher, announced Thursday that she would donate $1 million to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and called on others to match the gift. Alongside Robert Kraft's matching pledge, the back-to-back announcements turned a single tour dispute into a chain of seven-figure commitments within a matter of days.

Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots — whose Kraft Group also owns Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran is scheduled to perform later this month — said in a Wednesday Instagram post that he would match Sheeran's own $2 million donation for aid "in the region." The post did not specify the gift's.

Macklemore has said his removal was the result of an effort led by Kraft. Kraft said in a statement Monday that the decision to cancel Macklemore stemmed from the rapper's recent comments "and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery." Macklemore has asserted that criticism of the Israeli government should not be conflated with antisemitism.

Everyday donors also appear to be joining efforts like Ms. Rachel's. Online progressive influencers have helped raise more than $72,000 in additional funds for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

Anera reported that donations it received Wednesday through social media platforms were more than triple the organization's daily average for this month. The nonprofit has also gained more than 8,000 followers since Macklemore tagged its account in his post. Mandaville hopes the exposure will introduce new, younger audiences to the group's work.

"I would guess that our traditional donor does not know the lyrics to 'Thrift Shop,'" she said, referencing Macklemore's breakout 2012 hit.

Kronenfeld, of UNRWA USA, said the spike reflects an existing trend. Her organization has gained 203,000 donors since October 2023, she said, allowing it to send more than $117 million.

"The contributions keep coming in because Americans care," she said. "It will increase that much more with Macklemore's extremely humane gesture."

With Sheeran scheduled to perform at Gillette Stadium later this month, and Ms. Rachel's appeal for matching gifts now public, the coming weeks will offer a measure of whether this surge of attention hardens into the kind of durable donor relationships that UNRWA USA has built since October 2023.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.