As you stuff your dollars into the red kettle this holiday season, know this: Orange County nonprofits reported a whopping $24.8 billion in income since 2020 — some 10% of O.C.’s gross domestic product, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service and the St. Louis Fed.
And that doesn’t even count the gazillions folks donate to churches and the like, which aren’t reported to Uncle Sam.
Which is to say, charities are an important segment of our local economy. Every city is home to nonprofits that generated millions in income, and several county islands weren’t far behind.
The big gorillas here host nonprofit hospitals (St. Joseph in Irvine, $1.2 billion; Memorial Health Services in Fountain Valley, $2.6 billion; Hoag in Newport Beach, $1.7 billion; Children’s Hospital Orange County in Orange, $1.1 billion; Providence Medical in Anaheim, $1.1 billion), but even little Rossmoor had a couple nonprofits of the religious variety, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It stunned us a bit to learn there are more than 9,000 IRS-recognized, tax-exempt nonprofits in Orange County. That means they don’t have to pay taxes on the money they bring in. They’re an eclectic and sometimes strange lot, including quilting and surfing and meditation clubs, fraternities and Christian fiction writers’ groups and labor unions, parent-teacher organizations and poker clubs and addiction treatment centers. (A searchable spreadsheet is at the bottom of…
