IP Briefing: What’s Going on with Philanthropy in Southern California?

In a sentence: Southern California is vast and complex — its philanthropic landscape is, too.

What’s going on

Southern California — including not only greater Los Angeles but also Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange, and several other counties as well as San Diego — is a large, complex and diverse region. It’s famously expensive and home to great fortunes, and it’s also home to ever-increasing income inequality, a homelessness crisis and formidable climate challenges.

Across the region, the issue receiving the most philanthropic dollars is health, followed by arts and culture, K-12 education, and community and economic development, we found in our State of American Philanthropy report.

The organizations receiving the most grant money in Southern California tend to be large institutions like the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Cedars-Sinai Medical Care Foundation, Children’s Hospital of LA, and LACMA. But the region’s core group of locally focused foundations tend to give to smaller nonprofits, notably including social-justice-minded, community-based groups like the Community Coalition of South LA and Homeboy Industries.

From its very geography to the issues it’s facing, Southern California is vast and varied. Its philanthropic landscape is as well.

By the numbers

Los Angeles receives the lion’s share of giving in the region — $11 billion from institutional grantmakers from 2014 to 2018, compared to $2.47 billion in grants to San Diego, the second-most-funded SoCal county, in that period.

Key funders

A stable core of foundations, often working together, are a dominant force in Southern California philanthropy and also have a significant voice in the civic sphere. These include the California Endowment and the Ahmanson Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Parsons Foundation, Weingart Foundation, and Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. Other grantmakers that are making an impact include the Herb Alpert and David Geffen foundations.

Some of the nation’s largest community foundations are key players in Southern California, including the California Community Foundation, San Diego Foundation, and the Orange County Community Foundation. The Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles is also a leading grantmaker in the region.

Among the region’s many high-capacity major donors, a few standout names include Will and Cary Singleton, Stewart and Lynda Resnick, Carolyn Powers, Ernest and Evelyn Rady in San Diego, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, [one of] the richest men in Los Angeles. L.A. County is one of three focus areas of Steve and Connie Ballmer, whose Ballmer Group is one of the top funders addressing poverty in the U.S. right now.

New and notable

Equity-focused initiatives in the region have attracted major funding. California Funders for Boys and Men of Color, for instance, is a group of 16 leading grantmakers including the California Endowment, the Weingart Foundation, the Liberty Hill Foundation and others. The California Black Freedom Fund launched in 2021 with initial funding provided by CalEndow and the Annenberg and Weingart foundations, among others.
Miguel A. Santana is the new leader of the LA–focused Weingart Foundation. He stepped up after longtime president and CEO Fred Ali retired last year.
The Latino Community Foundation has raised an initial $10 million for its new Latino Power Fund, which will support Latino-led grassroots organizations in California.
What started as a philanthropy-backed pilot project to provide legal services to people facing deportation has been adopted as a permanent L.A. County program: the Los Angeles Justice Fund.

Food for thought

Surprisingly to some, entertainment money is not a dominating force in the region’s philanthropic community — though it is present. However, fortunes made in real estate, land development, healthcare, tech, finance, and energy have more substantially shaped Southern California philanthropy to date.

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