Samueli Foundation Announces $6.2 Million in Grants from its Inaugural Build OC Fund to Eight Orange County-Serving Nonprofits

The first-of-its-kind grantmaking initiative 

CORONA DEL MAR, Calif. (September 29, 2025) — The Samueli Foundation today announced eight grant awardees from its inaugural Build OC Fund, designed to help Orange County nonprofits finish new construction, renovation, or land acquisition projects. 

Launched in May 2025, the Build OC Fund opened with a $5 million budget. Applicants could request grants ranging from $500,000 - $1,000,000, and were promised decisions by October 2025. By the end of June, the Foundation received 240 applications, totaling $170.5 million of requests. 70% of the applicants were new to the Samueli Foundation. 

“The nonprofit community told us how unequivocally difficult it is to garner philanthropic enthusiasm for keep-the-lights-on capital expenditures that address deferred maintenance, infrastructure overhauls, and physical space expansion. So, we launched the Build OC Fund specifically to address this hard-to-fund, unmet need. This project excites us because we see roofs as reach, doors as dignity, and plumbing as pipes toward increased community impact. No request was deemed too basic for us,” said Lindsey Spindle, president of the Samueli Family Philanthropies. 

The 2025 Build OC Awardees are: 

Beyond Blindness​	$655,000​	Serving children with visual impairments and other disabilities​	Renovate two inclusive playgrounds for children with disabilities as part of partnership with OC Head Start to expand access to developmental therapies ​
Human Options Inc.​	$1,000,000​	Serving survivors of domestic/relationship violence (adults and children)​	Renovate its emergency shelter and Family Healing Center, which have provided safe, trauma-informed housing and services to over 40,000 survivors of domestic violence since 1996​
John Henry Foundation​	$850,000​	Serving aging adults with Schizophrenia​	Expand its Residential Community Program with six new ADA-accessible units for aging adults living with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders (SSD)​
Kidworks Community Development Corporation​	$500,000​	Serving K-12 youth and families​	Update and replace infrastructure at central services headquarters to improve service coordination across neighborhood-based education centers​
Magnolia Educational & Research Foundation​	$995,000​	Serving K-8 youth​	Address infrastructure improvements to school building including replacing an aging roof, installing a new energy-efficient HVAC system, and creating a safe, modern playground for K–8 students​ focused on STEM learning
St Jeanne De Lestonnac Free Clinic​	$850,000	Serving uninsured and low-income individuals in Orange County​	Acquire surgical equipment for new surgery center that will enable access to essential orthopedic, gastroenterology, and gynecologic procedures at no cost to patients​
The Shea Center​	$530,000​	Serving clients with disabilities across Orange County including children, older adults, and veterans with PTSD​	Complete essential infrastructure improvements to their horse-riding facility, including replacing flooring, renovating energy inefficient lighting and barn roof, updating fire suppression system and adding solar power ​
Vanguard University​	$830,000​	Serving prelicensure nursing students across Orange County, 70% of whom are from minority backgrounds​	Update Nursing Simulation Labs with essential equipment to support increased enrollment in prelicensure BSN and MSN programs ​

The Build OC Fund was launched concomitantly with the Breakaway Fund, but had an extra two weeks of application time (eight weeks versus six weeks for Breakaway). During the eight-week open application process, the Samueli Foundation received 1,244 applications across Breakaway and Build OC Funds, requesting a total of $253.5 million dollars. Unique attributes of the Build OC Fund include: 

•    Each grant is between $500,000-$1,000,000
•    The grants will be paid in full within a month of notification
•    The application was designed to ask as little as possible for the Foundation to informed decisions 
•    All OC-based and OC-serving nonprofits were eligible to apply, including current Samueli Foundation grantees and those who had never received funding from the Samueli Foundation

“The Samueli Family has been a committed partner in building a vibrant Orange County, including its ownership of the Anaheim Ducks, its massive civic transformation of Anaheim through OC VIBE, and its longstanding philanthropic commitment to capital campaigns across the region. Through Build OC, we are ensuring that the less visible but equally important nonprofit sector isn’t left behind in the building boom. We need strong commercially oriented and community-serving spaces for everyone in OC to experience wellbeing,” said Spindle. 

The Samueli Foundation launched the Breakaway and Build OC Funds in response to its desire to more rapidly expand its local philanthropic commitment – which has grown by tens of millions of dollars over the last three years; create an accessible “front door” to the organization through an open-application process; expose itself to the full range of nonprofit organizations that serve Orange County beyond those it was already familiar with; and model trust-based, responsive giving for others philanthropists. 

Prioritizing speed, fairness, and ease of application in designing these new initiatives, the Samueli Foundation also cued off insight generated from the Orange County Nonprofit Needs Assessment, a novel research project it commissioned in 2024. Hundreds of participating nonprofit leaders made it clear they had several categories of hard-to-fund, unmet needs including unrestricted funding to pilot new innovations; upgrade essential infrastructure and technology; access external, niche expertise; strengthen leadership capacity; and retain key staff. The needs assessment exposed the financial fragility of the nonprofit sector, and highlighted opportunities where fast, flexible funding would be transformative. 

“The first-year cycle of running the Build OC and Breakaway Funds has been an eye-opening experience for the Samueli Foundation. We are committed to continuing these funds in 2026, using this pilot year to learn, test, and be responsive to the nonprofit community. We look forward to sharing more insight in the coming months,” said Spindle. The Foundation will continue to provide updates on future funding cycles on its website, https://www.samueli.org/for-grantseekers/

About Samueli Foundation   
The Samueli Foundation’s mission is to make Orange County, California a vibrant mosaic of community well-being. We support and unite catalytic forces whose innovations yield a high quality of life for everyone. The Samueli Foundation works closely with the constellation of Samueli Family-backed for-profit and non-for-profit organizations to ensure that giving back to the community is central to everything they do; these include the Anaheim Ducks Foundation, the San Diego Gulls Foundation, the Irvine Ice Foundation, The Rinks Foundation, and OC Sports & Entertainment which oversees the Family’s sports and entertainment assets including the Anaheim Ducks, the San Diego Gulls, and the Honda Center.  
 
Over the last 25 years the Samueli Family, through its various entities, has contributed over $1 billion in charitable grants.