It’s Taco Tuesday in Santa Monica, three weeks after the Palisades Fire erupted. A man at the restaurant bar says his house of 43 years was destroyed in the flames. “Do you want to see the before and after photos?” he asks me.
The before: a white, California-style ranch separated from the sidewalk by a low concrete curb wall, the sparkling Pacific Ocean visible out back.
The after: a low pile of charred rubble, the concrete curb wall with the brilliant blue Pacific Ocean visible beyond.
The man had that wide-eyed look of shock I’ve seen on pretty much everyone I’ve met and know who recently saw all their earthly possessions go up in smoke. “But we have found an amazing community here in Santa Monica,” he continued. The night before, a waiter at a new Santa Monica restaurant had comped his meal, he told me, saying, “Come as often as you want. Don’t even think about paying.”
I tell this story as an illustration of the widespread philanthropic impulse sweeping L.A., encompassing everyone from waiters to billionaires, charitable foundations and corporations to people whose entire neighborhoods have disappeared. While X has been aflame with screeds against rich fire victims, those who have actually lost their homes seem philosophical — shaken and shocked, yet often expressing gratitude for what they had before the fires. (And, of course, most fire victims were not rich celebrities. This is true both about the Palisades and the many artists of Altadena.)
It isn’t only Angelenos who are giving, but the view from here is of a community-driven, democratized, active form of philanthropy. It is encouraging to see, particularly in a moment otherwise marked by the widespread slashing of federal support for critical institutions and individuals relying on them. Philanthropy is not only top-down giving by gazillionaires, though there is plenty of that, but also the efforts of everyday people to support those around them and far afield.
My compatriot at the taco place thought the feeling of generosity said something about L.A.: “People make fun of L.A. because they’re jealous. But living with all this natural beauty is fortifying. I’m filled up. I can move forward.”
The Change Reaction, Ballmer Group and other big foundations give to fire victims
Earlier that same Tuesday, I’d received a call from Wade Trimmer, president of The Change Reaction (TCR), the foundation started by L.A. housing developer Greg Perlman and his wife Jodi. TCR has been piloting its own form of vetted direct giving, helping Perlman meet his goal of giving away $25 million a year of his own money to working-class Angelenos. As soon as the fires started, TCR established a Wildfire Direct Giving Fund, seeding it with an initial gift of $10 million and soliciting donations. Trimmer was calling to tell me about TCR’s second post-fire, large-scale giving gathering happening that night, this one at Pasadena City College. “We really want it to be a hope and healing event,” said Trimmer. “There will be rabbis, preachers speaking. It’s about more than money.”
Brooke Perlman, communications manager of TCR, said the foundation wound up handing out more than 1,000 checks that night totaling $2.1 million. “In total, we’ve printed out over 2,300 checks, distributing $5.2 million since we launched our wildfire relief fund,” Perlman said. “We are starting to build the relief fund into our portal system so we can focus on beginning to stabilize individuals and families.”
Every day, it seems, another billionaire, group or foundation (or restaurant) announces a new giving program. It’s impossible to write a comprehensive list because the participants keep coming. Last week, The California Community Foundation (CCF) announced that it has raised some $60 million from more than 36,000 donors and has deployed about $30 million of that to provide immediate relief.
Earlier this month, Miguel Santana, chief executive of CCF, joined Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snapchat, and others to announce another giving initiative, this one called the Department of Angels. CCF and others have seeded it with more than $10 million. The Department of Angels is a “grass-roots, community-driven network designed to ensure that the communities impacted by the Eaton and Palisades megafires steward their own recovery effort,” its new website explains. The Department of Angels is “grassroots” in a super-deep-taproot-boosted-with-high-performance-fertilizer way: Miguel Santana has been an L.A. mover and shaker for years.
Tides, a nonprofit and philanthropic organization committed to advancing social justice, just announced $592,500 in grants to support marginalized groups impacted by the fires, particularly in Altadena and Pasadena. Tides has so far disbursed $80,000 through its Tides Crisis Response Fund and $512,500 through partner organizations focusing on wildfire response work. Grantees include Black LA Relief and Recovery Fund (California Community Foundation), 805 UndocuFund, Open Air Worker Emergency Fund (Inclusive Action), The Sidewalk Project, Comunidades Indigenas En Liderazgo Corp (CIELO), Fuerza Fund (Alliance for a Better Community), ProjectQ and Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM). Tides said it will make a second round of grants later this year.
Another community giving initiative, LA Rises, is designed to bring business leaders together with city, county and state officials to support rebuilding. California Gov.Gavin Newsom named Magic Johnson, Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter and 2028 Olympics organizer Casey Wasserman as leads of this project. Walter, the Mark Walter Family Foundation and the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation are providing up to $100 million to jump-start fundraising. Magic Johnson has said he intends to focus on Altadena, “because those people may be left behind and I want to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
Centibillionaire former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie’s Ballmer Group, dedicated an initial $15 million in emergency funding for people impacted by the fires, particularly in Altadena. Its website lists its various wildfire funds. Ballmer Group also hosted the mega-star-studded FireAid benefit concert at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum on January 31, in partnership with the Azoff Family, Live Nation and AEG Presents. FireAid raised more than $100 million, inclusive of dollar-for-dollar matching support from the Ballmers, half of which began being deployed on Tuesday to numerous grantees. The Annenberg Foundation advised FireAid’s board on community-based nonprofits.
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Support for community colleges and those who study and work there
Santa Monica College (SMC) Foundation received $250,000 from Ballmer Group in the wake of the fires, as well as donations from Albertsons Companies Foundation, Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and some 350 individuals. “We could see the fires from our office on the second floor as clear as day. The way the winds were blowing, and being born and raised here, I knew we were in trouble,” said Lizzy Moore, president of SMC Foundation. “Within 24 hours of the fire starting, we started fundraising. We had a $250,000 goal at first. When I got the call from the Ballmer Group, on Wednesday the 15th, we’d raised around $116,000.”
SMC Foundation had raised $742,000 by the end of the first full week in February, when I spoke to Moore, and had begun distributing emergency funds that week. “We’ve received 125 to 150 applications for support so far. Students who have applied and are receiving funding will start seeing funding directly in their account. We are starting with $5,000 and doing the same amount for everyone right now,” she said, noting that more requests will likely come when school resumes February 18. “Because we’re awarding as we go, we’re starting conservatively, but if we don’t receive more applicants, we’ll award more funding to those individuals.”
SMC Foundation also spent two weeks gathering supplies, which it gave away over four days in a department-store-like setup at the campus. “We had over 3,800 volunteers, and during the four days of distribution, we had over 4,000 community members come through from across L.A. County to collect both new and gently used clothing and a hot meal. It was pretty spectacular what we were able to do,” said Moore. Volunteers flew in from places including Brooklyn and Chicago; one volunteer she met had lost her own home, but showed up to help others gather new supplies.
Moore said some 600 to 700 students and a couple dozen staff members were impacted by the fires, whether through displacement, losing a home or losing a job. “A huge percentage of our donors lost their homes, too,” said Moore. “Santa Monica College is home to three nonprofits: SMC Foundation, BroadStage and KCRW. My colleague at the BroadStage estimates that 30% of their donor base lost their homes.”
The SMC Foundation also received money from the Houston-based Jay Pritzker Foundation, which donated $1 million to the California Community Colleges Wildfire and Disaster Relief Fund (administered by the Foundation for California Community Colleges). According to the foundation, 13 community colleges had to close, at least temporarily, due to the fires.
From street- and coffee-shop-level giving to multinational corporate philanthropy
The fires have brought out a noticeable philanthropic spirit among individuals and small businesses that are not usually associated with disaster-focused fund-raising efforts. (As my editor at IP quipped, “It feels like 50% of yoga classes are raising money for fire victims.”)
Take, for example, the PTSA of Santa Monica High School, which is located in the flats below Pacific Palisades and has 13 students and two staff who lost homes in the Palisades fire. It voted to dip into its reserves to donate $5,000 to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica and $5,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of Malibu to help them support people who lost homes and jobs. Zibby Owens, the billionaire book publisher/podcaster/bookstore owner and founder of Zibby Media, took retail space next to her bookstore in Santa Monica for a pop-up shop of new clothing by hot brands available for free for Palisades residents.
A small nonprofit that uses even smaller pieces in its healing arts program, Piece by Piece, started hosting morning volunteer days to make art-in-a-box mosaic kits to send to people who requested them after losing their homes in the recent fires. It is also selling large mosaic art works and donating the proceeds to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the One Voice LA.
Even the independent coffee shop/wine bar, Bodega, where I bring my laptop to work, is hosting a wine and DJ benefit on February 18, this one for furry wildfire victims; all proceeds go to Healthcare for Homeless Animals.
How fire funding proves that philanthropy is bigger than big-time donors
Yes, big-time celebrities and multinational corporate foundations are contributing money and goods; the Home Depot foundation, for example, has given $3 million to support immediate disaster relief and long-term recovery needs. But so have many small donors: Donations on GoFundMe for L.A. fire relief have already exceeded donations on the platform for all natural disasters around the world last year, raising more than $250 million to date, the New York Times reported. On GoFundMe, you can scroll fundraising efforts set up for individuals, couples and families, complete with photos of individuals who lost homes. The page goes on and on and on.
In this moment when doom scrolling can leave a person anxious and shaken and reading the newspaper can feel like a full-body assault, this continuing generosity is a welcome reminder of another set of human impulses. It is the spirit of philanthropy our country has been known for, still active in dark times. And it speaks to the growing movement to include these sorts of smaller gifts, as well as mutual aid and other person-to-person giving and in-kind giving, in the full accounting of American philanthropy.
It also makes me think of the concept of “antifragile” — the way things get stronger when under stress — like communities. And at least in L.A., in this scary, stressful time, there has been cohesion. “It’s such positive energy,” said SMC Foundation’s Lizzy Moore. “Everybody has been so kind.”
If California is still a bellwether state, I am hoping that the impulse to treat your neighbors as you’d like them to treat you becomes the next national trend, and one that spreads like wildfire.
Update (2/20/25): This piece has been updated to include information on Tides’ funding and on the distribution of donations from the FireAid concert.
