requests the pleasure of your company at the
10th AnniversaryAppreciation Breakfast
Tuesday, November 17, 2026 · 8:30 in the morning
Newport Beach Country Club
Ten years of research and public dialogue
We gather to thank the donors, partners, and friends whose generosity has carried the Center through its first decade, and to invite you into the next one.
A leisurely breakfast in good company, a look back at the work you made possible, and a candid conversation about the questions that will shape California and the nation.
Newport Beach Country Club
One Clubhouse Drive
Newport Beach, California 92660
Demographic change is the slow force shaping nearly every question of policy and prosperity. Understanding it well is how a region plans well, and how it secures a long and prosperous future.
Who can afford a home. Where families choose to live. Which regions grow, and which fall behind.
These questions decide whether California and the nation stay competitive, and whether the quality of life and opportunity behind American success remain within reach. Housed in Chapman University’s Argyros College of Business and Economics, the Center answers them with nonpartisan evidence, written for decision makers as much as for scholars, and carried out alongside Chapman students.
An investment in this work is an investment in economic opportunity, and in research that keeps the promise of American success alive for the next generation.
From reports, to research, to policy in action
It began with the reports
Joel Kotkin founded the Center in 2016 with a small team and a clear purpose: to follow the demographic forces reshaping California and the nation, and to publish what the evidence showed. Its early reports on millennials, Orange County, and the squeeze on the middle class put Chapman into the statewide conversation.
The work deepened into a research program
As Marshall Toplansky joined the work, the reports grew into a sustained program of research and the convenings that carry it to decision makers, from the Housing Solutions and American Success Summit to sold-out think tanks with Chapman's School of Real Estate. Throughout, Associate Director Mahnaz Asghari has been the Center's administrative backbone, keeping it growing to include new scholars, an advisory board, and a widening circle of supporters.
Now, policy in action
Policy has always been the point. With Senior Fellow Karla López del Río on the team, the Center is carrying its research into communities at every level, local, national, and global. From its home in Orange County, it aims to make Chapman a center of dialogue and ideas that create solutions for American success.
Partners in the work
The Center’s supporters come from many fields. What they share is a conviction that sound decisions about housing, growth, and opportunity begin with an honest reading of the evidence.
Builders of communities
Developers, lenders, and housing leaders who want a clearer view of where people are moving, what they can afford, and how to widen the path to homeownership.
Stewards of civic life
Philanthropists who value independent scholarship and a more informed public conversation about the middle class, family, and opportunity.
Investors in the region
Institutions whose customers, workforce, and communities are being reshaped by demographic change, and who want to understand it early and well.
Champions of inquiry
Members of the Chapman community who believe a university should bring rigorous evidence into the public square, and prepare students to do the same.
Speak With Us
Every partnership begins with a conversation. Tell us what matters to you, and we will listen first and suggest a fit.
Contact Mahnaz Asghari
Prefer to give online?Gifts to the Center are received and stewarded by Chapman University through its secure giving site, once or on a recurring basis.
Make a GiftOur donors
Their generosity made the Center’s first decade possible.
- Roger C. Hobbs
- Howard Ahmanson
- Irving M. Chase
- Ron Spogli
- Andrew Segal
- Joel Farkas
- Steve Hilton
- Jennifer Hernandez
- Dan and Linda Weisberg
- Northgate Gonzalez LLC
- Southern California Gas Company
- Shokooh Foundation
- NIPOC
The Center’s research is nonpartisan and guided by its scholars.
It takes less than a minute to reserve your place at the table.
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