Orange County Register
by Destiny Torres
Two local foundations took stock of what challenges may have been keeping Orange County nonprofits from being more successful, and with that information in hand, the Samueli Foundation is investing $15 million to address some of the gaps.
The Samueli Foundation and the Orange County Community Foundation surveyed more than 600 nonprofits, which said leadership development, being able to finance projects and addressing harder-to-fund essential needs could support the sustainability of social services in the county. The foundations presented the assessment findings to nonprofit leaders on Tuesday, March 18, at UC Irvine.
“Thanks to the nonprofit leaders who engaged with the research team, this report provides an unvarnished look at the current needs of the nonprofit sector. It challenges our assumptions as a philanthropic funder,” said Lindsey Spindle, president of Samueli Family Philanthropies. “We intend to use the data-driven insights from this report to further transform our annual and longer-term giving – and we hope other philanthropists find the report useful in examining their giving practices.”
Staffing was one of the biggest concerns reported among nonprofits, especially because of the financial challenges around recruiting and retaining workers. For example, 70% of leaders with nonprofits surveyed said their staff were often asked to do work outside the scope of their roles, and nearly half of respondents said they couldn’t afford to pay competitive salaries to keep employees.
“If I could fix one thing as a foundational principle of the funding paradigm of public and private, it would be that staffing would not be considered overhead,” Shelley Hoss, CEO at the Orange County Community Foundation, said.
