The Samueli Foundation says donors to nonprofits should be just as informed as investors in the stock market.
Hence, the prominent nonprofit has created a report to help guide philanthropists and charities seeking to raise funds.
“We know that to be excellent investors, you need excellent data and evidence to really make sure that your money is going where the need is,” Lindsey Spindle, president of the Samueli Foundation, told the Business Journal.
The foundation, founded by Henry and Susan Samueli, among the wealthiest couples in Orange County, has gifted over $1 billion for STEM education, integrative health and Jewish culture in the past 26 years. The couple started the foundation in 1999, the year after Broadcom Corp., which was co-founded by Henry Samueli, went public.
The couple last year pledged to accelerate their giving in the coming decade.
Samueli on Dec. 18 adopted a trading plan to sell up to $500 million of Broadcom stock, $127.6 million of which will be gifted to the Samueli Foundation, as reported by Barron’s. Under the plan, the foundation will sell the donated shares from March 27 to Dec. 31.
The amount of grants the foundation has distributed went up more than fourfold from $18.9 million in 2022 to $80.6 million in 2024.
This year, the foundation’s grant budget is increasing up to $125 million, with 60% of that money being allocated to Orange County organizations. It includes a special $15 million pledge to help OC nonprofits improve their organizations.
“We care deeply about Orange County,” Spindle said. “Henry and Susan love it here and want to leave their community better than they found it.”
The Assessment Report
Its newest focus is identifying gaps in the OC nonprofit sector.
The Samueli Foundation, in partnership with Orange County Community Foundation (OCCF), commissioned what it describes as a first-of-its-kind needs assessment report highlighting systemic challenges nonprofits face to fundraising effectively and where donated money could make the most impact.
The report, which cost $275,000, also involved Charitable Ventures, UCI School of Social Ecology and The Bridgespan Group.
The data was compiled from 607 nonprofit leaders from more than 400 organizations in OC, who were surveyed over the course of two months, in addition to 13 focus groups and a town hall.
It identified four key obstacles for nonprofits: staffing, outdated technology, not enough collaboration and a lack of multi-year, unrestricted funding.
About 82% of surveyed nonprofits reported difficulty accessing multi-year funding, limiting their ability to invest in staff and infrastructure.
“That means they’re getting funding one year at a time,” Spindle said. “If you have no financial certainty beyond a year, it really holds people back.”
Spindle said that they chose to partner with OCCF, the second largest nonprofit in Orange County, because of its large network of philanthropists and nonprofits.
OCCF created OC Nonprofit Central, the only online database of nonprofits in the region. There are more than 500 nonprofits registered in the database, according to OCCF Chief Executive Shelley Hoss.
“Our role was making sure we had a broad reach, so we reached out to hundreds of nonprofits through that,” Hoss told the Business Journal.
Committing $15M to Finding Solutions
The Samueli Foundation is taking immediate steps to address some of the issues.
Its $15 million pledge will be split evenly across three new initiatives.
The first $5 million is going toward leadership training for 100 nonprofit executive teams through Bridgespan’s Leading for Impact (LFI) program. The first cohort of LFI participants is scheduled to start in September.
Another $5 million will be given to the annual Build OC Fund, which will provide grants of up to $1 million for nonprofit capital projects.
The Breakaway Fund, inspired by the hockey phrase of the same name, is getting $5 million to provide “easy to access, unrestricted” funds for nonprofits to take “more unimpeded shots” on traditionally underfunded areas.
Both funds are officially launching on May 1 on the Samueli Foundation’s website. Unlike in the past, the foundation said that it’s now offering an open application process.
Efforts to Stop Human Trafficking
Outside of the foundation, Susan Samueli is a known advocate of combatting human trafficking.
“It’s such a big problem,” she told the Business Journal in an exclusive interview.
For the last six years, Susan Samueli’s been working to bring more awareness to trafficking in Orange County through her Collaborative to End Human Trafficking, which she co-founded alongside Carey Clawson in 2019.
The collaborative is focused on bringing together experts and philanthropists at annual events to pinpoint where resources should be directed in the fight against human trafficking.
Samueli said that she first met Clawson through Orangewood Foundation, which provides assistance to foster and community youth and is where she started a group called 44 Women for Orangewood (WFO) to mentor and raise money for scholarships for foster youth.
Samueli and Clawson both chaired 44 WFO when they came across a program that teaches kids how to spot predators online. They held a fundraiser for the program, marking the beginning of their involvement in the human trafficking world, Samueli said.
“It was very fitting because of the unfortunate reality that foster kids are vulnerable to being trafficked,” Samueli said.
Samueli then came up with the idea to hold an event with 50 organizations to bring awareness to the issue and meet more people in the community. They formed a core group including Orange County United Way, Orangewood and The Salvation Army, Clawson said.
Last month, guests gathered for this year’s event at The Park Club in Costa Mesa.
Orange County organizations can now apply for funding to support their efforts against stopping human trafficking.
“It’s our first attempt to learn about new operators out there because we already know the ones we’ve been collaborating with,” Clawson said. “We’re very excited to see what happens and fund some really good NGOs.”
New Workforce Development Focus
Nearly a third of the Samueli Foundation’s giving last year went toward Jewish initiatives, going directly to Israel and combatting antisemitism.
“It’s very important to the Samuelis,” Spindle said.
Last September, it gave Chapman University $3 million to endow its annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest. Prior to the gift, the couple had sponsored the competition since its inception in 1999 and acted as judges in previous years.
Another big area of giving for the foundation is education.
It’s beginning to invest in workforce development at the community college level, a departure for the foundation that up until now has only donated to four-year universities such as UCI, UCLA and Chapman.
“That’s a super exciting new area for us,” Spindle said. “We’re supporting all sorts of efforts focused on trying to get more and more young Orange County aspiring professionals into well-paying jobs that allow them to stay here.”
These efforts come after the foundation learned that roughly 17,000 well-paying jobs went unfulfilled in the county last year. These middle-skill jobs often require certification but not a four-year degree, ranging from information technology to paralegals.
“If there are jobs available, why are they not being filled? What’s holding people back?” Spindle said.
They realized not enough pipelines were developed for these jobs and that most workforce training comes from community colleges.
To create more pipelines, the foundation is investing $8.2 million across Golden West College, Orange Coast College and Saddleback College over the next three years. The money will help expand existing programs to admit more students, as well as fund more paid internship opportunities.
Samueli Wins Engineering Medal of Honor
Henry Samueli last month was named the recipient of the 2025 Medal of Honor from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), its highest distinction.
Samueli, the first IEEE Medal of Honor laureate to receive the newly expanded prize of $2 million, was cited for pioneering research in communication systems.
“Henry Samueli’s vision and communications technology innovations spurred the development of products used by nearly every person around the world,” IEEE Chief Executive Kathleen Kramer said in a statement. “From the billions of consumer smart phones, set-top boxes and tablets, to laptops and IoT devices, Samueli created new and novel ways to power connections and unite humanity.”
Samueli and Henry Nicholas in 1991 co-founded Broadcom Corp. in Irvine; it was sold to Avago Technologies in 2016 for $37 billion. Samueli now holds an estimated 1.9% of the company currently worth an estimated $17.5 billion. The Business Journal last July ranked Samueli, who also owns the Anaheim Ducks hockey team, as the second wealthiest person in Orange County, behind only real estate magnate Donald Bren.
Samueli has retained the title of chairman of Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO), which is the largest chipmaker in Orange County with 1,300 local employees.
The company, which now has its headquarters in Palo Alto, on March 6 reported first quarter revenue jumped 25% to $14.9 billion, and a 41% increase in adjusted EBITDA to $10.1 billion.
Its market cap, currently at $920 billion, last year topped $1 trillion as investors cheered its chips designed to manage artificial intelligence.
—Yuika Yoshida
