Apax Foundation
The Apax Foundation is the formal channel for Apax Partners’ charitable giving and receives a percentage of the firm’s profits and carried interest. The Trustees of the Foundation are Sir Ronald Cohen (Chairman), Peter Englander (Chief Executive), Martin Halusa, Khawar Mann, David Marks, John Megrue, Michael Phillips and Richard Wilson.
Apax Partners has a history of support for social enterprise and the firm is continuing this tradition with social enterprise chosen as the area on which the Apax Foundation will mainly focus. Social enterprise not only meshes well with the work of the firm but also enables us to draw on the expertise of several people within the firm who are personally active in this sphere.
Support for the personal charitable activities of Apax Partners employees and others in the firm's network
Apax Partners employs a large group of extremely talented people, many of whom have long been committed to their own personal charitable endeavours. One of the primary goals of the Foundation is to support the range and diversity of the personal charitable efforts of the Apax Partners team. The Apax Foundation supports their endeavours by making grants to all of the charitable organisations that benefit from the active involvement of a member of the Apax Partners team.
The Apax Foundation has also made several donations in support of causes close to the hearts of people in Apax Partners' network.
Projects supported by the Apax Foundation
Ashoka
Ashoka is a global organisation which identifies leading social entrepreneurs around the world and provides financial backing to enable them to develop their enterprises. The Apax Foundation wanted to support an Ashoka Fellow whose business matched our specific focus on enterprises which stimulate employment in deprived communities and selected Norbert Kunz.
Norbert’s project aims to establish self-employment as a viable option for disadvantaged, unemployed young people in deprived regions of Germany. He created a support system for young, small-business entrepreneurs offering advice, training, infrastructure, financing and mentoring in what he calls a ‘one-stop shop’. The project has so far enabled 1,000 formerly unemployed young entrepreneurs to set up their own small businesses and created 1,300 jobs. The Apax Foundation’s three year funding commitment to Norbert via Ashoka will enable him to continue his work and build on the existing success of the project.
For further information, see http://www.ashoka.org/
Bridges Community Ventures
Bridges Community Ventures is a venture capital company with a social mission: its funds are dedicated to investing in businesses that can deliver strong social benefits as well as generate financial returns for investors. Apax Partners was a founder of Bridges in 2002 and has maintained its support for the company since its inception, with Sir Ronald Cohen and Peter Englander continuing to serve as Chairman and Director respectively of Bridges.
Bridges’ latest initiative is the Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund, whose purpose is to provide development capital specifically to enable successful social enterprises to grow. In 2008 the Apax Foundation became one of the Founder Partners of the Social Entrepreneurs Fund with a three-year funding commitment to the Bridges Charitable Trust, which is establishing the new fund.
For further information, see http://www.bridgesventures.com/
Emmaus
Emmaus is an international movement which creates Communities for the homeless, offering a home, work and the chance to rebuild their lives in a supportive family environment. The Communities aim to be self-sustaining – the Emmaus model is that, alongside the living quarters and pastoral care, each Community runs a business operation providing work for the residents, and the revenue from this business goes to maintain the Community. Emmaus has created a virtuous circle where existing, successful Communities give from their profits to help Communities at the early stage of development to get up and running.
In 2008 the Apax Foundation agreed a three year grant to Emmaus which will go towards the development of Communities in the UK and overseas.
For further information, see http://www.emmaus-international.org/ and http://www.emmaus.org.uk/
INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Initiative
INSEAD’s Social Entrepreneurship Initiative was created in 2005 to bring the expertise of this top-ranked business school to the growing field of social entrepreneurship. It offers a flagship programme, ISEP (INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Programme), which is an executive training programme tailored to leading social entrepreneurs and designed to enable them to scale up, promote innovation and increase their impact. INSEAD also spearheads a programme of research with the goal of developing the conceptual framework and managerial tools that can mainstream the field of social enterprise. The research currently focuses on business model innovations, scaling up social innovations, and managing social enterprises.
In 2009, the Apax Foundation granted two years of funding to support ISEP scholarships and research on scaling social innovations. Two outstanding recipients, Veronica Colondam, CEO of Yayasan Cinta Anak Banesa (Indonesia), and Mark Joaquin Ruiz, Founder and Managing Director of MicroVentures/Hapinoy (Philippines), were provided with full scholarships through the Apax ISEP Award.
For further information, see http://www.insead.edu/se
Mosaic
Mosaic is an initiative of Business in the Community, of which Apax Partners is a member. It is a Muslim-led network which works in a variety of ways with young people from deprived backgrounds to help them maximise their potential and make a positive contribution to society.
The Apax Foundation has sponsored the creation of an online business game - the Apax-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge - to run in schools as part of the enterprise education curriculum. The game puts teams of students into a realistic business scenario where they develop and market a new product, giving them an insight into how key business issues such as finance, sales, marketing and production are affected by each other. The game is designed for in-class use and is fully in line with the National Strategy for Enterprise Education, providing young people with an accessible and engaging introduction to enterprise.
For further information, see http://www.mosaicnetwork.co.uk/
Prince’s Trust
The Prince’s Trust is one of the UK’s leading youth charities, dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged young people in the UK. The Trust’s support for young entrepreneurs complements Apax Partners’ core business and the firm has been a Patron of The Prince’s Trust Business Programme for several years.
To continue our support of The Trust, in 2007 the Apax Foundation made a two-year commitment to become the lead partner of The Prince’s Trust Business Programme 25th anniversary campaign.
For stories illustrating the work of The Prince’s Trust Business Programme, click here>>
For further information, see http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/
Private Equity Foundation
In addition to having its own charitable foundation, Apax Partners is a member of the Private Equity Foundation, which was founded in 2006 as the collective charity for the UK private equity community.
The Private Equity Foundation's mission is to help young people with poor life chances access skills and development to reach their full potential. The Private Equity Foundation focuses its support on charities working with young people not in education, employment or training, with the majority of funding going to organisations in the UK and Europe.
For further information, see http://www.privateequityfoundation.org/