Samueli Foundation commits $15 million to new O.C. nonprofit initiatives following needs report

Lindsey Spindle is entering her fourth year as president of the Samueli Family Philanthropies, but she drew on her early experience working on Capitol Hill at a Tuesday event highlighting the release of the Orange County Nonprofit Needs Assessment Report.

She remembered attending a meeting when a congressional appropriations committee was discussing healthcare funding. Hospitals, insurers and physicians all had lobbyists there. Patients weren’t in the room.

“Outside of this testimony, this hearing, there was a group of cancer patients holding signs saying, ‘Nothing about me without me,’” Spindle told the group of philanthropists and nonprofit leaders gathered at UC Irvine. “That is why we did this report the way we did it. It has to be about you as told by you, instead of people looking outside in.”

In partnership with Charitable Ventures and UCI, the Samueli Foundation and Orange County Community Foundation surveyed more than 600 county nonprofit leaders from about 400 organizations to issue the needs assessment report, which revealed obstacles that nonprofits typically encounter in their field. Thirteen focus groups and a town hall meeting also provided insight.

Read the full article at the Daily Pilot