More than 400 attendees came together to honor giving and philanthropy by Orange County companies at the third annual Civic 50 awards, presented by the Business Journal, local volunteer boosters OneOC in Santa Ana, and the Atlanta-based U.S. nonprofit Points of Light.
The event highlights 50 OC companies and their employees for community service locally.
Representatives from nearly 90% of the highlighted companies attended the event at Hotel Irvine last week.
OneOC provides volunteer, training, consulting and business services to nonprofits; Points of Light was founded by late former U.S. President George H.W. Bush to get more people and resources to solve social problems by the strength of volunteers.
Points of Light Board Chair Neil Bush, one of the former president’s sons, gave the keynote address.
A to Y
The Civic 50 list isn’t so much a Who’s Who as a Who’s Helping and runs the gamut from A to Y—power law firm Aitken Aitken Cohn in Santa Ana to Your Wealth Effect in Irvine in our roll call—the latter was one of five honorees called out for particular recognition (see story, page 44).
Company size varied even more widely than what’s allowed by the alphabet and ranged from firms reporting fewer than 15 OC employees—financial counselors Apriem Advisors in Irvine and market research mavens MacKenzie Corp. in Lake Forest, which won a Family-Owned Business honor earlier this year—to those with 4,000 or more—Edwards Lifesciences Corp. in Irvine (see story, page 1) and Bank of America.
Mid-packers, with local worker contingents numbering in the high hundreds to several thousands, include Orange-based reverse mortgage lender American Advisers Group; Cypress-based furniture dealer Exemplis LLC; Irvine-based technology distributor Ingram Micro (see story, page 38); and PIMCO and PacLife, both in Newport Beach.
Till It Helps
From who’s helping to who’s being helped, Civic 50 companies give aid and comfort to hundreds of organizations, groups and agencies—from Art4Kids and Habitat for Humanity to Meals on Wheels and OC Rescue Mission—helping thousands of people in OC and worldwide.
Collectively, the 50 civic members in the past year volunteered 175,000 hours and donated $19.2 million to social causes in Orange County.
Health of all kinds, education at every level, human welfare in a multiplicity of modes—for women, men, children, veterans and all comers in between—are foci of the 50.
And these are just the ones we know the most about—this year.
Here’s to 2020, and philanthropic vision.
