Community outreach
Where we give, and why.
We support three organizations. Here is what each one does, why we chose it, and how to support them yourself if you would like to.
Why these three
Different causes, chosen one at a time.
One works on animals, one on breast cancer, one on getting a Christmas gift to a child whose family came up short. There is no single theme running through them and we have not tried to invent one.
What the three do have in common is that each does something practical for somebody having a hard year, and each publishes what it does with the money. We give to them directly. We do not run donation drives, we do not ask clients to contribute, and none of it is connected to anything we sell.
Apex Estate Partners is a donor to these organizations and nothing more. We are not affiliated with them and they do not endorse us. What follows comes from each organization’s own published material.
Animal welfare
Friends of Animals
Friends of Animals was founded in 1957 and works out of Darien, Connecticut. Its mission, in its own words, is “to free animals from cruelty and institutionalized exploitation.”
It began as the country’s most comprehensive low-cost spay and neuter program and has facilitated more than 2.8 million procedures since. It now also runs a wildlife law program, and it operates sanctuaries, among them Primarily Primates in Texas, which cares for more than 300 animals, and the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project in The Gambia, home to 140 chimpanzees.
Why this one. The spay and neuter work. It is unglamorous, it prevents a problem rather than responding to one, and nobody ever counts the animals that never ended up in a shelter because of it. Nearly seventy years of that adds up.
Breast cancer
National Breast Cancer Foundation
Janelle Hail founded the National Breast Cancer Foundation in 1991, eleven years after her own diagnosis. She was 34 when she found a lump using self-examination techniques she had learned in junior high school. What she remembered from the hospital afterwards was how little information there was, and how many women were making decisions about their own treatment without knowing their options.
The foundation states its mission as “to provide help and inspire hope to those affected by breast cancer through early detection, education, and support services.” Its National Mammography Program pays for mammograms for women who are uninsured or cannot afford them. Its Patient Navigator Program assigns someone to walk a patient through the process, and it runs education, support groups and retreats for metastatic patients.
Why this one. The mammography program. Early detection changes the outcome in breast cancer more than almost anything that happens after it, and for a woman without insurance the cost of the scan is a real reason to put it off another year. Paying for one is small, specific and it works.
Children and families
Marine Toys for Tots Foundation
Toys for Tots started in 1947 as, in the program’s own words, “the brain child of Marine Corps Reserve Major Bill Hendricks.” He and the Marines in his Los Angeles reserve unit collected and distributed 5,000 toys that first year. The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation was created in 1991 at the behest of the Marine Corps and runs out of Triangle, Virginia.
Its stated mission is “to collect new, unwrapped toys during Christmas time each year and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community.”
Why this one. It is run by neighbors. Nearly 800 local coordinators and close to 40,000 volunteers, most of them Marines, veteran Marines and their families, working in the towns they live in. Nobody in an office somewhere decides which children get reached, and the people handing over the toys are the same people who will still be there in February.
If you want to help
Give to them directly.
We do not collect donations and we do not run a match. Every link on this page goes straight to the organization. If you have time rather than money, Toys for Tots needs volunteers in almost every county in the country, and Friends of Animals will point you to a low-cost clinic near you.
If you came here to work out what kind of firm this is, the rest of the answer is on the about page.