A fire alarm blared through the Anaheim Marriott Suites in Garden Grove last Thursday, right in the middle of comedian Cristela Alonzo's keynote speech. Nobody flinched. An announcement quickly clarified there was no fire and the alarm was only a test, and Alonzo turned the interruption into an instant teaching moment for the 525 philanthropic, nonprofit and business leaders gathered for the Orange County Grantmakers Summit.
“I love that it rang and none of us ran,” Alonzo told the crowd, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Oct. 1 gathering marked a milestone for Orange County Grantmakers, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, per the same account. The Times also said the summit started in 2010. The daylong event, scheduled from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., was built around what organizers called action, impact and joy, according to OC Grantmakers.
A Summit Planned Down to the Minute
Taryn Palumbo, executive director of Orange County Grantmakers, said she planned the event down to the minute, and that the choice of theme was deliberate. She told the Times the summit intentionally moved away from issue-specific topics in order to bring people together, and said the day's conversations would help shape the organization's priorities heading into 2027.
The program featured 25 speakers from around Orange County, touching on subjects as varied as using artificial intelligence well in the nonprofit world and maintaining joy in difficult conversations, a session covered by Lightning Labs. Renata Simril spoke about joy and sports, and the event wrapped with a happy hour designed to encourage more networking among attendees.
Comedian's Message: Don't Wait to Enjoy Life
Alonzo, a comedian, actress and writer who was raised in Texas by a single mother as the youngest of four children, became the first Mexican American woman to create, produce and star in her own American primetime comedy. Her show, “Cristela,” aired for one season starting in 2014. She told attendees that at 47, she had recently started swimming lessons, and she encouraged summit leaders not to wait until they were older to seek joy — pointing to the family trips to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon she now plans regularly as proof that life shouldn't be put off.
Rising Need Looms Over the Celebration
Behind the networking and keynote applause sat a sobering backdrop for Orange County's nonprofit sector. Elizabeth Andrade, executive director of 2-1-1 Orange County — the hotline run by Orange County United Way that connects residents to housing, food and financial resources — said collaboration among funders and nonprofits has become critical in the wake of H.R. 1, the federal law also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which Andrade said affected nonprofits through new restrictions on charitable donations and cuts to programs including Medi-Cal and SNAP. She said more people in the community will need help.
That warning tracks with county data. A February report from the Orange County Register found that 211OC, which has 25 operators, fields about 12,000 calls and 7,000 texts each month. Housing remains the most persistent and central need for county residents, accounting for roughly half of all referrals, and referrals for affordable and senior housing and rental assistance have climbed 54% since 2022. Referrals to food pantries and other emergency food programs jumped 82% over the same stretch, while service referrals for people age 65 and older have more than doubled in the past three years, the Register reported.
A separate needs assessment released last year by the Samueli Foundation, drawing on insights from 607 Orange County nonprofit leaders, found that more than 70% of surveyed organizations rely on staff taking on multiple roles just to keep operating. Eighty-six percent said collaboration enhances their impact, yet 82% described accessing multi-year funding as very to moderately difficult — a tension that mirrors the summit's own push for funders and nonprofits to work more closely together.
From Nonprofit Meetup to Community Celebration
The Grantmakers Summit has grown well beyond its original nonprofit-only audience. A 2023 Daily Pilot report on the event's evolution noted it has become much more of a community celebration, drawing in local leaders, businesses, philanthropists and elected officials alongside traditional nonprofit staff. Orange County Grantmakers has also expanded its programming this year with a separate funders summit.
For Palumbo, the day's real test wasn't the fire alarm but whether the conversations outlast the happy hour. She said the discussions from Oct. 1 will directly shape Orange County Grantmakers' focus for 2027, a sign that even a lighthearted keynote about swimming lessons and joy was meant to point toward serious work ahead for a county where demand for basic services keeps climbing.
