Andrew Sabin Family Foundation

The Andrew Sabin Family Foundation is a small-asset but high-payout family foundation ($9.68M in total assets as of FY2024) established in 2008 by Andrew Sabin, Chairman of Sabin Metal Corporation, and based in East Hampton, NY. Every governance record in its filings lists Andrew E. Sabin as the sole director, and the foundation carries a database flag of "preselected_only" grantmaking with no application instructions on file — consistent with what web research confirms: there is no public LOI process, application form, deadline, or grants portal anywhere in the foundation's footprint. This is a relationship-first funder, not an open-application one.

Its giving is bifurcated into two distinct tracks. The first is a small number of large, multi-year institutional commitments to flagship partners: a $30 million endowment establishing the Andrew Sabin Family Fellows program at MD Anderson Cancer Center (marking its 10th cohort in 2025), a newer cancer-prevention endowment at Memorial Sloan Kettering (est. 2021, second fellowship class named February 2026), decade-long support for Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (since 2014), UCLA's Emmett Institute, and an annual $25,000 Sabin Sustainable Venture Prize at Yale. The foundation's own top-grantee data confirms this concentration: MD Anderson ($4.1M) and Columbia ($2M) are its two largest cumulative recipients. The second track is a long tail of smaller grants ($20,000-$150,000) to East Hampton and Hamptons-area community, conservation, and human-services organizations — South Fork Natural History Society, Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreation Center, and the Jewish Center of the Hamptons all appear as recurring, multi-year grantees.

For first-time applicants without an existing relationship, a cold approach is unlikely to succeed. The realistic entry points are: (1) geographic and civic proximity to East Hampton/the Hamptons, (2) institutional standing in cancer genetics/prevention research that could plug into the MD Anderson or MSK fellowship model via a university development office, or (3) a direct personal or business introduction to Andrew Sabin through Sabin Metal Corporation's East Hampton network. Organizations should not expect a formal review cycle, published deadline, or acknowledgment of unsolicited submissions.

Giving has scaled substantially over the past decade. FY2019 total giving was $3.55M, FY2020 dipped to $2.84M, then FY2021 rose to $4.58M and FY2022 reached $6.84M ($6.70M in grants paid) against total assets of $14.15M that year — a payout ratio near 47%, far above the 5% minimum distribution requirement, indicating the foundation spends down annual contributions rather than living off endowment growth alone (it received $2.40M in contributions and earned $2.60M in net investment income in FY2022 alone). External sources corroborate continued high-volume giving: $6.79M distributed in 2024 across roughly 167 awards, and $7.35M across 189 awards in 2023.

Grant size is extremely bimodal. The foundation's own typical-grant-size data (184 grants sampled) shows a median of just $3,000 against an average of $23,994 and a range from $100 to $1,250,000 — a handful of large checks pull the average far above the median. Cumulative grantee data (530 grants, $13.4M total, average $25,278) reinforces this: the top two recipients alone, MD Anderson ($4.1M) and Columbia University ($2M), account for roughly 46% of total cumulative dollars tracked, while the bottom of the distribution consists of dozens of $20,000-$50,000 community and conservation grants (Oceana $90,000, IFAW $82,000, Teens for Food Justice $80,000, Peconic Land Trust $26,000, Ecoflight $20,000).

By program area, health/cancer research captures the largest single share of dollars (MD Anderson, Memorial Sloan-Kettering $1.01M, Mayo Clinic $55,000), followed by environment and conservation (Panthera $356,000, Wildlife Conservation Society $190,850, South Fork Natural History Society $151,600, Property and Environment Research Center $60,000, Earth X $50,000), with East Hampton/Hamptons community and human-services grants forming a steady recurring layer. Geography is understated by the foundation's own "NY" focus-area tag: while community grants concentrate in East Hampton/Long Island, flagship science and policy grants reach Texas, California, and Massachusetts, and a smaller set of international grants appear (Rotary Club Kosice, Slovakia, $242,238; Mistra Dobra Orphanage $804,400), reflecting Andrew Sabin's personal philanthropic interests more than a formal geographic mandate.

These five peers are asset-matched (all within roughly $9.68M of Andrew Sabin's asset base) but the database carries no giving totals, focus-area detail, or website for any of them beyond a generic "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE classification — a common pattern for small, closely-held family foundations that file minimal public information. What sets Andrew Sabin apart from this peer set is transparency of activity: despite having no public application process, it generates substantial press coverage through its named institutional fellowship programs (MD Anderson, MSK) and distributes 4-7x its peers' presumed typical payout relative to asset size, funded by ongoing annual contributions from its founder rather than passive endowment draw alone.

The most concrete recent activity is on the institutional-partnership side. In February 2026, Memorial Sloan Kettering announced its 2025-2026 Andrew Sabin Family Foundation Fellows — Dr. Lauren Banaszak and Dr. Shiv Prakash Verma — under the Andrew Sabin Family Endowment and Initiative in Cancer Prevention established at MSK in 2021, with both researchers focused on cancer genetics and inherited-risk factors. In July 2025, MD Anderson Cancer Center welcomed its 10th cohort of Andrew Sabin Family Fellows (10 early-career researchers), marking the 10-year anniversary of the foundation's original 2015 commitment of a $30 million endowment — the single largest and longest-running commitment the foundation has made.

Looking slightly further back, the foundation made a $5 million gift to Wake Forest University in September 2023 to advance environment and sustainability programming, showing it is still willing to open new large institutional relationships outside its two flagship cancer partners, albeit infrequently. No leadership changes were found — Andrew E. Sabin has been the sole listed director across all available filings, with officer compensation recorded at $0 in most years (rising to $48,461 in 2021 and $72,692 in 2020). No new grant programs, RFPs, or shifts toward a public application process were identified for 2025-2026; the foundation's activity pattern is one of steady continuation of existing named programs plus its recurring small-grant support for East Hampton-area organizations, rather than new initiative launches.

There is no public application process to optimize for — no LOI form, portal, deadline, or published contact email were found across the foundation's own listed website (which in fact resolves to an unrelated artist's personal site), nor across GuideStar, Cause IQ, Instrumentl, or Candid. The foundation's own data flags its grantmaking as preselected/invitation-only, and this should be taken at face value: unsolicited proposals mailed to its PO Box 5026, East Hampton address (care of accounting firm Buchbinder Tunick) are unlikely to receive a response, since there is no visible intake or review infrastructure for cold submissions.

The highest-leverage strategies instead depend on which of the foundation's three demonstrated pillars an organization fits. Environmental and marine conservation groups, and East Hampton/Hamptons-based community organizations, should look for board-level or community connections to Andrew Sabin or Sabin Metal Corporation — nearly every small grant ($20,000-$150,000) in the record went to an organization with a clear local or personal tie (South Fork Natural History Museum, which Sabin himself founded in 1988; Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons; Jewish Center of the Hamptons; Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreation Center). Cancer research institutions should approach through their own development or major-gifts office rather than the foundation directly, positioning any ask as a complement to the existing named-fellowship model at MD Anderson and MSK rather than a competing new program. Environmental law and policy schools should recognize that the foundation's academic partnerships (Columbia, UCLA, Yale) are a decade or more old and unlikely to expand without a direct introduction.

Common mistakes to avoid: treating this like a typical open-application foundation, submitting generic cold LOIs, or expecting a formal decline notice. Given the single-director structure and near-zero officer compensation, funding decisions appear to be made personally by Andrew Sabin — a warm introduction through his business, civic, or philanthropic network in East Hampton is the single most realistic path to consideration, and framing any outreach around environmental protection, cancer prevention research, or Hamptons community strengthening (the foundation's own stated pillars) will resonate far more than generic mission language.