Orange County Grantmakers

Connect. Learn. Engage.

Overview

OCG provides a number of learning and networking opportunities for funder members, nonprofits and community leaders throughout the year.

Member Forums

All member Forums to learn about general issues in philanthropy 
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Issue
Table

Issue tables for deeper conversations around health equity, immigration, food security, early childhood, corporate philanthropy and more 
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Network Events

Networking events to provide a feeling of community and strengthen the network for funders and nonprofits in OC 
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Learning Groups

Learning groups, encouraging members to find commonality and alignment with each other
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Community Events

Community events like “Meet the Funder”, “Beyond Equity”, Leader to Leader, our Annual Summit and more!
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ORANGE COUNTY FUNDERS ROUNDTABLE ANNOUNCES NAME CHANGE AND 2018 ANNUAL SUMMIT
First Orange County Equity Report Highlights
OC Grantmakers 2023 Summit-33
OC Grantmakers 2023 Summit-43

Learning Groups

Learning groups, encouraging members to find commonality and alignment with each other

Become a Member

Network Events

Networking events to provide a feeling of community and strengthen the network for funders and nonprofits in OC 

Become a Member
Quarterly

Member Forums

Four times per year the full OCG membership comes together to learn and share around a variety of topics. These lunch-time meetings are an opportunity for funders to connect with one another, share best practices, and learn about issues impacting the Orange County community

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Community Events

Community events like “Meet the Funder”, “Beyond Equity”, Leader to Leader, our Annual Summit and more!

Become a Member
Social Networking Opportunities

Throughout the year OCG members are invited to join for happy hours, outdoor walk and talks, and volunteer opportunities, taking a break from agenda focused discussions and presentations and instead simply connecting with their peers.

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Best Practices

In addition to formal, planned meetings OCG members are often invited to share and connect around issues as they develop. Examples included our COVID-19 working group and upcoming training series around Trust Based Philanthropy.

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OCG MEMBER PROGRAMMING

At Orange County Grantmakers, membership gives you more than just access to programming. Joining our community provides you and your organization with deep connections to the broader philanthropic landscape — over 50 of the largest institutional, private, family and community foundations in the region.

We convene the right people around the right conversations, providing a space where funders learn directly from each other’s experience, strategies, and decisions. By keeping our programming centered on funder-focused conversations and facilitated networking, we can better understand funding gaps and opportunities across Orange County for creating partnership, alignment, and deeper impact.

Why Join OCG?

Stay informed about emerging issues and get actionable insights.

From immigration to healthcare and housing, our member-led programming and issue tables are nimble and responsive to the most urgent needs facing our

Better understand funding gaps and opportunities across Orange County.

OCG programming encourages peer-to-peer learning that opens the door for collaboration. We provide opportunities for funders to connect through facilitated

Get practical, actionable insights about best practices and strategies

Through our programming, OCG provides members with a better understanding of how other foundations operate, including funding models, data practices,

Receive curated resources, news, and trends from across the sector.

Members gain insights from OCG’s involvement in regional collaborations with communities of funders across Southern California. We provide

Stay informed about emerging issues and get actionable insights.

From immigration to healthcare and housing, our member-led programming and issue tables are nimble and responsive to the most urgent needs facing our community. It’s shaped by local interests and current events so we can direct conversations to address funding shifts that are impacting Orange County in real-time.

Better understand funding gaps and opportunities across Orange County.

OCG programming encourages peer-to-peer learning that opens the door for collaboration. We provide opportunities for funders to connect through facilitate convenings, member forums, and informal networking so they can build meaningful relationships and learn from one another about what works and doesn’t. It also initiates conversations about who’s working in similar spaces, how priorities are shifting, and who may be interested in partnering to align resources or help close gaps in need

Get practical, actionable insights about best practices and strategies.

Through our programming, OCG provides members with a better understanding of how other foundations operate, including funding models, data practices, and decision-making processes. It offers insights such as who members support and why, and best practices for evaluating nonprofits that they can immediately apply to their work.

Receive curated resources, news, and trends from across the sector.

Members gain insights from OCG’s involvement in regional collaborations with communities of funders across Southern California. We provide opportunities and resources that facilitate deeper learning of how other foundations operate outside our region, including funding models, data practices, and decision-making processes.
“OC Grantmakers helps bring together businesses, corporations, foundations, nonprofits and community leaders to identify shared priorities, align resources and create solutions that can drive greater collective impact — more than any one organization could achieve alone.”

— Denise Scott,
Vice President, Client and Community Relations Director at PNC

Become a Member

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.