Apollo gives 28 nonprofits the same help it gives its companies

Apollo, the investment firm, is giving 28 nonprofits more than money. Through the Apollo Opportunity Foundation, each group gets a team of Apollo or Athene employees who work on its problems for free. The firm says this is the same kind of help it gives the more than 190 companies it owns, which include Yahoo Inc. and Shutterfly.

What the foundation offers

The foundation launched in 2022. So far it has given grantees over $13 million and has committed $100 million over the next decade. Funding depends on factors such as a group's budget size and impact metrics.

Scott Kleinman, co-president of Apollo Asset Management and chair of the foundation board, said the real value is the deal team, not just the capital. Each nonprofit is paired with five to 10 employees from Apollo or Athene. Athene merged with Apollo and provides retirement services.

• Free projects done by Apollo and Athene staff
• Help finding board members and advisers
• Strategic advice from people who know the firm's methods
• Monthly online training on AI, fundraising, succession planning and more

Start with the board

Lauren Coape-Arnold runs the foundation as executive director. She said the work starts with reorganizing boards so governance is strong, because success comes down to leadership. That can mean finding candidates for the board of directors or an advisory board. Her test is simple: is there a leader the team believes in?

What it looks like in practice

Jane Veron, cofounder and CEO of Acceleration Project, a nonprofit that helps small business owners, said Apollo helped her group identify 35 processes it could drop or change. They cover onboarding, technology and how client data is captured. She called many of the fixes very micro and tactical.

One example: staff used to read through notes about each client's business challenges. Apollo is helping build an AI tool to do that reading instead. It is also building training tools that consultants can use on their own schedule, which should make onboarding easier.

The Marcy Lab School, a one-year alternative to four-year college, took a different path. Cofounder Reuben Ogbonna II said the deal team helped the school see that software engineers now need to work more closely with business leaders. The school added business and industry context to its curriculum, plus more on cloud basics and DevOps.

What is not clear

The article does not say how nonprofits were chosen or how much each one receives. It also gives no results yet from the projects. Kleinman said the goal is a two-way street with Apollo employees, not checks and photo ops.