Much of Vanessa Getty’s philanthropy is rooted in San Francisco, but several of her longest commitments reach well beyond the city. The San Francisco Examiner’s look at her career describes a record of involvement in public health and wildlife conservation alongside her local work.
Getty has long supported amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, co-chairing fundraising events alongside Liza Minnelli. Her Pacific Heights home has hosted amfAR initiatives, including a charity poker tournament co-hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Hamm. In recognition of her sustained involvement, amfAR presented her with its Award of Courage.
Her conservation work extends to Southeast Asia. For more than a decade, she has served on the board of Orangutan Foundation International, an uncompensated role supporting field research in Central Kalimantan. The organization was founded by primatologist Biruté Mary Galdikas.
Closer to home, her animal welfare efforts have also widened. Through transfer partnerships with Bay Area organizations, she has helped relieve shelter overcrowding in California’s Central Valley, recently moving roughly 100 animals north. She is also developing a large-animal sanctuary in Half Moon Bay with the Peninsula Humane Society for animals that require specialized care. Together, these efforts extend her shelter work beyond San Francisco.
Those projects build on the mobile spay-and-neuter clinic she launched in 2005 through San Francisco Bay Humane Friends, which has since performed more than 9,500 free surgeries. The clinic has been funded by the PURR Sale, a luxury resale event she created in 2008.
Getty’s commitment to service began early. She volunteered with Animal Rescue Volunteers in Simi Valley while earning a history degree at UCLA, and her mother’s advice to “go volunteer somewhere, then call back” became a family tradition.
Whether the cause is HIV/AIDS research, orangutan conservation, or shelter animals, the profile describes the same approach: identify a systemic gap, build a solution, and maintain a long-term commitment. That consistency has defined two decades of Vanessa Getty’s philanthropy.