2026 Orange County Funders Summit

Inaugural convening For Funders Invested in Orange County
A half-day gathering of funders from across California who invest in Orange County’s nonprofit community.

Event Overview:

On behalf of Orange County Grantmakers and our Steering Committee, we are excited to invite you to the inaugural Orange County Funders Summit, a half-day convening of funders from across the state who invest in the Orange County community. 
Join us as we to explore how funders can deepen collaboration, align resources, and better understand the landscape of need in Orange County. As OCG kicks off 20 years of philanthropic leadership, we’ll highlight stories of impact and envision the future of philanthropy in our region.
Grab your tickets here!
  • February 26, 2026
  • 9:00 am - 01:00 pm
  • The Cove @ UCI Beall Applied Innovation 5270 California Avenue, Suite 100 Irvine, CA 92617

Speakers

Marcus Walton

CEO, GEO

Joanna S. Jackson

President & CEO of the Weingart Foundation
Bio

Julián Castro

CEO of the Latino Community Foundation
Bio

Cathy Cha

President and CEO of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund
Bio

Ben Chou

Democracy & Governance Program Officer of the Packard Foundation
Bio

Vicente Sarmiento

Orange County Supervisor, Second District
Bio

Sponsorship Opportunities Available

Inaugural Sponsors

Presenting: $6000 

Logo on all communications · Plenary speaker intro · 8 tickets

Gold: $4000

Logo on all communications · Speaker intro · 6 tickets

Silver: $2500

Logo on all communications · 4 tickets

Bronze: $1000

Logo on all communications · 1 ticket

Become a Sponsor

Joanna S. Jackson

President & CEO of the Weingart Foundation.
Driven by her commitment to racial and social justice, Joanna has over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit, philanthropic and public sectors. Joanna joined Weingart Foundation in 2008 and after five years on the leadership team, Joanna was appointed President & CEO as of June 7, 2024.

Prior to joining Weingart Foundation, Joanna held roles at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, The California Endowment, the City of San Jose and several other nonprofit organizations. Joanna currently serves on the boards of Southern California Grantmakers and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO).

Joanna earned a master’s degree in public administration from Baruch College, The City University of New York, where she was a National Urban Fellow. She is also a proud HBCU graduate having received her bachelor’s degree from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally from New York, Joanna lives in Mid City Los Angeles with her husband and children, who are the joy of her life.

Julián Castro

CEO of the Latino Community Foundation

Julián Castro serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Latino Community Foundation, the nation’s largest Latino-serving foundation.

Julián’s deep commitment to the future of this nation is woven into his DNA. Raised by his mother Rosie Castro, a civil rights and Chicana activist, and his grandmother, Victoria Castro, on the westside of San Antonio, Texas, Julian grew up with a profound understanding of what it meant to love and serve community. Inspired by a legacy of leaders working to safeguard our democracy and strengthen community, Julian has dedicated his life to public service.

Julián was elected to the San Antonio City Council in 2001 at age 26, then was elected Mayor of San Antonio in 2009. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Julián U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, where he served until the end of the Obama administration, and in 2020, Julián ran for the Democratic nomination for President.

Julián earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Cathy Cha

President and CEO of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund

Cathy Cha is president and CEO of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, a foundation with a track record of transformative social change. Haas Jr. has developed new approaches to improve the lives of low-income children and youth, was instrumental in advancing marriage equality, and helped to make California a leader in welcoming immigrants. Guided by a mission to advance equality and justice, Cathy has played a central role in shaping the foundation’s work to strengthen democracy, protect immigrant rights, and expand college access and success.

Cathy is a leader known for bringing people and sectors together to solve community problems. She has developed new models for philanthropic impact to support undocumented students at California’s public colleges and universities, strengthen Black nonprofits, and mobilize young Asian American and Pacific Islanders to become civically engaged. A daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy is driven by a career-long commitment to improving the lives of aspiring communities facing poverty and injustice. Cathy has a master’s degree in city and regional planning from UC Berkeley.

Ben Chou

Democracy & Governance Program Officer of the Packard Foundation

Ben is a Democracy, Rights, and Governance Program Officer at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. In this role, he helps lead the organization’s emerging grantmaking in support of a thriving, pro-equity democracy in the United States.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ben was a Program Officer for Civic Engagement at the Houston Endowment, where he helped oversee a $20 million portfolio to increase nonpartisan voter turnout, improve elections administration, and support pro-voting policies.

Previously, Ben directed policy and innovation efforts at the Harris County Elections Department as the Senior Advisor for Policy and Innovation. There, he helped lead the effort to create drive thru voting, a first-in-Texas service that nearly 130,000 residents used to vote during the November 2020 election. He has significant public policy experience, having worked for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. He has also managed and worked on a number of political campaigns ranging from school board to President of the United States in Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and Texas.

Ben holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science, Asian studies, energy policy studies from Rice University as well as an MBA and J.D. from Northwestern University. He is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, Harry S. Truman Scholar, and Morris K. Udall Scholar.

Vicente Sarmiento

Orange County Supervisor, Second District

Elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2022, Supervisor Sarmiento proudly represents the Second District, which includes the City of Santa Ana and portions of Orange, Anaheim, Tustin, and Garden Grove. He is only the third Latino in 134 years to serve on the Board and the first County Supervisor from Santa Ana since 1948.

Supervisor Sarmiento and his family arrived in Orange County in 1965 and settled in Santa Ana. A product of local public schools, he earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from UC Berkeley and received his Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law.

He was appointed to the Santa Ana City Council in 2007 and won election in 2008. He served on the Council until 2020, when he was elected Mayor of Santa Ana. During his tenure, he prioritized accessibility and transparency in local government. He demonstrated bold and progressive leadership in support of affordable housing, youth programs, immigrant rights, and cultural heritage initiatives, delivering compassionate and fiscally responsible results. When he concluded his service as Mayor, Santa Ana had a $44 million surplus, an AA credit rating, and was recognized as one of the best managed cities in California.

As Supervisor, he continues advancing these priorities, with a focus on issues impacting residents of the Second District. His work includes expanding affordable housing, increasing access to high quality healthcare, ensuring residents are connected to critical social services, supporting initiatives that create safer communities, and developing long term solutions to homelessness.

Supervisor Sarmiento currently serves as Chair of the CalOptima Health Board and as a Director on the Orange County Transportation Authority. He also serves on the Behavioral Health Advisory Board and the Commission to Address Homelessness.

Supervisor Sarmiento and his wife reside in the Saddleback View neighborhood of Santa Ana.

How do we build a compassionate and inclusive America in an age of distrust? WAJAHAT ALI knows from personal experience that when we come together to be the superheroes of our own stories, we can create honest social change. The beloved TED speaker has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic about our urgent issues—immigration, politics, parenthood—with boldness, hope, and humor. His memoir Go Back to Where You Came From, one of Amazon’s Best Books of the Year, follows his life as a Muslim Pakistani-American on a surprising, emotional, and challenging quest for the good life. Iconic journalist Katie Couric says that “we are all so fortunate to be on the receiving end of his intellect, his humanity, and his heart.”

Wajahat Ali

“With wit and charm, Ali delivers a masterful meditation on growing up brown in America...he gives us a clear-eyed affirmation of the country America could be.” — Mara Gay, New York Times

Mara Gay, New York Times

Wajahat Ali uses his platform to fight tirelessly for the social change we need in our country—and he isn’t afraid to get personal while doing it. The Daily Beast columnist and former New York Times writer, TED speaker, award-winning playwright, and Peabody-nominated producer of the documentary series The Secret Life of Muslims offers us his experiences of triumph over hardship as a beacon of hope and resilience in the face of life’s impossible situations. From his experiences of Islamophobia growing up as a Muslim Pakistani-American to his two-year-old daughter’s liver cancer diagnosis, Wajahat is living proof that when we share our authentic stories, we build the America we wish to live in.”

In his memoir Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American, Wajahat teaches us how to create our own superhero origin story, invest in hope for the future of America, and enact real social change. The book was called “biting and funny and full of heart” by NPR. Representative Ilhan Omar called Wajahat’s work “hilarious” and “deeply moving”, and legendary writer Dave Eggers said it was the book he’d “been hoping Wajahat Ali would write for ten years—hilarious, stylistically fearless, deeply humane.”

Wajahat is also the author of The Domestic Crusaders—the first major play about Muslim-Americans in a post-9/11 world. He was the lead researcher and author for the Center for American Progress’s seminal report “Fear Inc., Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” and served as a national correspondent for Al Jazeera America, where he told stories about communities and individuals often marginalized or under-reported in mainstream media.

As Creative Director of Affinis Wajahat Labs, he worked to create social entrepreneurship initiatives to support and uplift marginalized communities. He also worked with the US State Department to design and implement the “Generation Change” leadership program to empower young social entrepreneurs. Wajahat initiated chapters in eight countries, including Pakistan and Singapore. For his work, he was honored as a “Generation Change Leader” by Sec. of State Clinton and recognized as an “Emerging Muslim American Artist” by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. 

He has given keynote speeches around the world such as TED, The Aspen Ideas Festival, Google, the United Nations, and The New Yorker Festival. His writing appears regularly in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and The Guardian. He’s a Senior Fellow at The Western States Center and Auburn Seminary and co-host of Al Jazeera’s The Stream.