Submitted by: Orange County United Way
Written by: Heidi Pallares
“I can’t afford groceries this month.”
“I need to find emergency shelter for my daughter.”
“If I can’t get help with childcare, I won’t be able to take this new job.”
“I have nowhere to go.”
Have you ever uttered these words? Has someone you love been faced with the impossible choice of paying for rent or life-saving medication when there is not enough money for both?
These are some of the challenges facing friends and neighbors every day.
Orange County is full of opportunity, yet too many families are just one unexpected expense, missed paycheck, or family emergency away from crisis. Rising housing costs and financial pressures are making it harder for people to get ahead.
For over a century, Orange County United Way has been dedicated to understanding and solving the critical issues within our local communities. But the needs continue to compound. As of 2025, one in three people in Orange County are struggling to make ends meet, even with full-time employment. And sometimes people searching for help fall through the cracks due to red tape, bureaucracy and the siloing of agencies.
In response to growing need and acknowledging the complicated patchwork of services and support countywide, Orange County United Way launched The OC Way Campaign in June 2026, an $18M fundraising initiative designed to transform how social services are delivered in Orange County by building a connected nonprofit network that improves access to support and ensures no one falls through the cracks.
Orange County United Way President and CEO Sue Parks is passionate about the team’s work to improve lives and strengthen the community. The OC Way is the latest step in a pursuit to innovate and collaborate with nonprofit partners and community agencies.
“The challenges facing our community are too complex for any one organization to solve alone,” Parks said. “The OC Way is about coming together to ensure every person and family has the support, opportunity, and hope they need to build a brighter future.”
The backbone of The OC Way Campaign is 2-1-1 Orange County (211OC), a key service of Orange County United Way, which connects residents with thousands of local health and human service resources including housing, food assistance and others offered by local nonprofits and government agencies.
211OC acts as a virtual front door to an interconnected network of vital services. Calls to 211OC’s secure, 24/7 helpline are answered by compassionate operators who share resources for housing, food assistance, employment, childcare, healthcare, and more.
In 2025, 211OC responded to 500,000 requests for help. Over a three-year period from November 2022 to October 2025, the team has witnessed community needs deepen and accelerate. Total referrals increased 62%, driven by an increase in referrals per request from 3 to 5, suggesting more comprehensive needs assessment and more complex client situations.
Text contacts to 211OC increased 63%, while calls increased 8%. The largest referral increases span community support services, including case management and street outreach (+142%); food assistance (+82%), and utility assistance (+82%). In addition, housing referrals increased 54%, behavioral health referrals increased 38%, and senior referrals more than doubled.
To meet the growing demand for assistance, Orange County United Way and 211OC, through The OC Way, are continuing to build a connected network of nonprofits and public agencies, ensuring residents are matched with the right services the first time through the GetHelpOC closed-loop referral network.
The network includes over 150 cross-disciplinary community partners comprising local nonprofit organizations, government entities, and physical and behavioral health providers coordinated through 211OC to share data and streamline client care.
Building a connected system across independent organizations is not simple. Each partner has different technology, workflows, capacity, privacy considerations, and organizational priorities. The work requires more than technology. It requires trust, shared practices, staff capacity, and sustained investment to help organizations participate effectively.
The undertaking is formidable yet worthwhile for every stakeholder. Working together, the network strengthens coordination among service providers and makes it easier for residents to access critical support. Through real-time data sharing, partners can identify emerging needs, address service gaps, and intervene before crises arise. With one entry point and data exchange across the network, providers can maximize their time and focus more on case management and supporting clients rather than duplicating intake and administrative work.
One example of GetHelpOC’s impact on Orange County involves the fruitful connection of network partners Mercado El Sol and Homeless Intervention Services of OC (HIS-OC). Mercado El Sol is a food pantry ‘mini market’ in Santa Ana that is restocked daily with meat, dairy, fresh produce, canned goods, toiletries and paper goods. HIS-OC provides support and assistance to the underprivileged and unhoused to improve their quality of life, and to help them regain stability and hope.
Through their participation in the network, the two organizations were enabled to work more closely together - referring families to each other for housing and food assistance, helping to expand their collective impact. Using GetHelpOC also reduced the administrative intake process by about 20% for each group, allowing staff to spend less time on duplicate intake and more time serving families. For the individuals and families served, this streamlined and improved their experience in getting connected to multiple services without having to start over each time. Eliminating roadblocks is a valuable outcome created by the network.
Elizabeth Andrade, Executive Director of 211OC, leans on her nearly two decades in the social services field to envision the future of 211OC with The OC Way campaign what the ideal support system should be.
“When people don’t get help, their problems get worse,” Andrade notes. “With systems like GetHelpOC in place, nonprofits can better understand trends happening in real time, identify unmet needs, and demonstrate measurable outcomes to funders and partners. Our community is only as strong as the arms around it. We need to do more than just refer people to help; we need to support them until they are stable.”
With the resources secured through The OC Way campaign, 211OC is evolving from a helpline to a countywide lifeline, ensuring residents are connected to services faster and followed through the system effectively.
Through July 2026, the campaign has raised $14.2 million toward its goal of $18 million.
One of the campaign’s key goals is to continue building the network and add more service providers, creating a stronger and more connected community care system. This growth also enables enhanced innovation and technological advancements.
The long-term vision is an Orange County where residents do not need to understand the complexity of our social service system in order to get help, and where community data allows us to identify gaps and respond earlier, before a difficult situation becomes a crisis. With more providers in the network contributing more data, predictive analytics tools can help to identify emerging needs and move the needle from responding to crises to preventing them.
True to its founding spirit, whenever there is a need in the community, Orange County United Way is there. Through The OC Way, the focus is bringing people and organizations together so that when someone needs help, it can be quickly found.
