Our mission is to support the development of powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism. Our vision — a racially just Oakland — where young people of color have the support systems they need to thrive in schools and communities.
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OUR VALUES RACIAL JUSTICE We support powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society. ACCOUNTABILITY We uphold our mission and are responsive to our grant and funding partners, one another, and communities of color in Oakland. GROUNDING OUR WORK IN A GENDER LENS We lift up, support, and honor women, trans people, and others along the gender spectrum who, in the context of racial justice, are also affected by power imbalances along gender lines. SUPPORTING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS We believe it is critical to support movements led by people of color who are invested in power-building, organizing, litigation, cultural expression, and strategic narrative change efforts to achieve racial justice. We invest in and support community power to redesign systems to be just and equitable for all. PROXIMITY We recognize that efforts to achieve racial justice must be defined and led by the people of color most affected by structural racism. We foster a culture of accessibility and trust, building and maintaining deep relationships that lead to greater impact. CENTERING CULTURE AND BELONGING Culture is an essential component of power-building. Through culturally affirming spaces and narratives, people and movements build their strength and come to understand their relationship to each other and to the generations that preceded and will follow them.
Mission: Akonadi believes that racial justice movement building means communities of color lead efforts to build power, shape policy and strengthen culture. VISION We, at the Akonadi Foundation, dream of a day when all people, including youth and adults of color, enjoy the right to self-determination. When all peoples are respected and all cultures celebrated. When every community is safe, healthy and sustainable. A day when everyone has an opportunity to thrive. It is going to take a robust and powerful social movement to finally end structural racism. This movement will unite a wide and diverse range of people through shared strategy, principles and goals. But right now, racial justice organizations have many different strategies, ideologies and areas of focus, and may or may not identify as part of a cohesive movement. Funders often exacerbate this fragmentation by separating these organizations into "issue silos." That is why we start with movement-building. We do not just want to support good organizations in their individual work. We want to help them come together as a movement that can help this country become what it should be.
Operating as usual
Shoutout to activists and artists all over the country working hard to preserve #BlackLivesMatter murals, including Oakland's own Oakland Art Murmur and Black Cultural Zone.
https://bit.ly/2Wv9tTT
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Neither woman could bring themselves to watch the video of George Floyd’s final moments, his neck pinned under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee. But as their city grieved…
This Sunday, Dec. 20 at 11:30 am ET, catch Lateefah Simon, president of Akonadi Foundation, being interviewed by Laura Flanders on The Laura Flanders Show. The episode will focus on transportation and mobility as a human right in an era of COVID. Watch on PBS, the World Channel or Youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U27IA3RjCUQ&authuser=0
The U.S. transportation system has long been rife with inequality, making it more difficult for low-income people, people of color, and people with disabilit...
Join Part 2 of the Voices and Visions of Change Series this Saturday, Dec. 19, a free online hosted event by African American Museum and Library at Oakland.
Enjoy songs, a mini virtual AAMLO tour, presentations, panel discussions, and food for thought & resiliency.
Register now: https://bit.ly/2J1aJuM
#oaklandevents #oaklandart #socialchange #oaklandmuseums
Part 2 of Voices and Visions of Change(TM) Series: From Passion, To Protest, To Purpose" continues...
Oakland Bloom, one of our So Love Can Win grantees, is a nonprofit empowering refugee and immigrant chefs through food entrepreneurship. You can help support their work and get curated holiday food boxes that showcase Eritrean, Burmese, Cantonese and Bosnian foods and flavors. https://oaklandbloom.org
Oakland Bloom is a nonprofit that works towards developing new cooperative food business models that prioritize community, people power, and economic equity for poor and working class immigrant, refugee, and PoC chefs. We do this through our food business incubator and training program, direct servi...
Despite the existential challenges we have faced this year, our communities continue to guide us down the path toward a racially just Oakland. Organizers and movement leaders are undaunted in their work to make a beautiful vision of collective freedom and liberation a reality. Read more from Akonadi President, Lateefah Simon:
#oakland #racialjustice #liberation
https://akonadi.org/resilience-power-and-vision-of-the-movement/?fbclid=IwAR2w0XRydhulG04g8ekEL4fe1wZ9dUaXfdXPjGxJE0ANEn1a_H4BYJkkBxc
By Lateefah Simon | December 15, 2020 To our Oakland community, What a year. Whether in our personal lives, in our families or our neighborhoods, 2020 hit us hard. Yes, despite the existential challenges we have faced this year, our communities continue to guide us down the path toward a racially ju...
Join Black Organizing Project "We define safety, A community response to Police Violence" a forum of local organizers, including BOP's Executive Director, and special guest Alex Vitale, author of "The End of Policing."
Event starts at 4 p.m. PST today! Register: bit.ly/dec16forum
#policefreeschools #copsoutcommunityin
Please register to attend this event: "We define safety, A community response to Police Violence" a forum of local organizers, including Black Organizing Project Executive Director Jackie Byers, and special guest Alex Vitale author of "The End of Policing". 12/16 4p
Link: http://bit.ly/dec16forum
Happy Birthday to #EllaBaker, a true civil rights hero!
This piece "The Time for Action is Now" was created by @NataliaAnciso, one of our talented Racial Justice Poster Project artists.
It is part of a larger series, called "School," which Natalia writes is "a series of vignettes focused primarily around Anciso's work as an urban educator in the Bay Area, and is a product of extensive research that Anciso has partaken around elementary genocide, pushout, and the widespread disservice of students of color, especially black boys and girls, from Kindergarten through high school. Each piece is drawn in some combination of graphite, watercolor, and/or goldleaf.
#art #oaklandartists #pushout #education #community
RSVP to the launch event of Critical Resistance's latest issue of #TheAbolitionistNewspaper on December 15 at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET.
You'll get to hear from the writers about the international movement to abolish the prison industrial complex and connect with subscribers from inside and outside of prison walls.
https://bit.ly/3m0A45n
A webinar event for the COVID-19 Issue of "The Abolitionist" newspaper, featuring authors and imprisoned contributors to the paper.
This week is Black Organizing Project's Digital Week of Action. Learn more about their efforts to create Black sanctuary in Oakland and get police free schools. #IStandWithBOP #CopsOutCommunityIn
This week, Akonadi's president, Lateefah Simon, Grantmakers for Girls of Color's executive director, Dr. Monique W. Morris, and Black Organizing Project's founder Jackie Byers, had an inspiring conversation about how Black communities and communities of color are continuing to push in this movement moment to address criminalization in the education system and advocate for the lives, leadership and wellness of Black youth.
Watch the event recording now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jewyYzPFFQ
#pushout #schooltoprisonpipeline #policefreeschools
Black communities and communities of color are continuing to push in this movement moment to address the education system and how it is complicit in the crim...
Join education advocates on Dec. 15 for 'Secretary of Ed for Whom?' a 3-part online series by Dignity in Schools Campaign, Opportunity Institute and NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
tinyurl.com/sec4whom
Calling all #Oakland artists and arts organizations! Youth Speaks is offering free workshops and coaching sessions to meet your technical and programmatic needs until December 10.
Check out the schedule here: https://lil20.youthspeaks.org/ #lifeisliving
This year Life is Living will be taking place on a screen near you. Save the date and mark your calendar for the biggest celebration of Oakland going down from October 9 - October 11. You can expect to see the familiar faces of our dedicated cohort and zone curators like Emily Butterfly, Peoples Kit...
Oakland Art Murmur in partnership with Immersive Arts Alliance launched an Oakland Storefronts Initiative, which allows for people to enjoy local art safely by using the empty retail spaces in downtown Oakland as temporary installations.
Check out some of the exhibitions on display now: https://bit.ly/33gLj3h
#oaklandart
Oakland Storefronts Initiative is an arts lifeline
Today, we're joining in solidarity with Indigenous communities by uplifting their stories and experiences and sharing the real, decolonized story behind #Thanksgiving.
https://bit.ly/33dAnDq
Dakota MacColl (Plains Cree/Métis) and Geena Tsosie (Diné) share how they approach the complicated holiday Thanksgiving. Both women introduce themselves firs...
Jenae Butler, a Black Google employee created an open resource deck, "Standing United: The Fight Against Inequality,” to help educate others and provide advice for allyship.
https://bit.ly/2J5bS4b #blacklivesmatter
Read what 5 Black women imagine true justice for Breonna Taylor would look like in a world without prisons.
https://bit.ly/35D5ycM
In March, police in Louisville, Kentucky, shot and killed 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor while she was sleeping, during an early morning raid conducted with a no-knock warrant. Since her murder, Taylor's name has echoed across the nation as…
In the mood for a movie?
Check out QUEER Healing Arts Center's BlaQ ArTed online film fest Nov 22-28 to see short films by Black queer, trans and nonbinary emerging youth filmmakers from Oakland. There's even a drive-in opening night screening!
https://bit.ly/32QpnM8
Short films by nine Black queer, trans, and nonbinary emerging youth filmmakers will be streamed online, with a drive-in opening night at Oakland's Chabot Space & Science Center.
Check out this profile of Lateefah Simon in San Francisco's Business Times on her career in social change and philanthropy!
https://bit.ly/3fgg0u8
Lateefah Simon had found herself on both sides of the able as an activist, and a member of the BART Board of Directors.
We are so proud of grant partner Regina's Door for her visionary work to fight sex trafficking and provide a healing space for survivors through theater and creative arts in Oakland.
Watch this video to learn more about her story and check out her vintage clothing store to show your support!
https://cbsloc.al/3nybQ3D
Oakland's International Boulevard is a notorious hotspot for sex trafficking. Sharon Chin shows us this week's Jefferson Award winner who us at the forefront of the fight to stop the abuses and heal the victims.
We're excited to support this event organized by African American Museum and Library at Oakland and Friends-Stewards of African American Museum Library at Oakland this Saturday. Come enjoy a dynamic program filled with artist talks, spoken word, meditation, a virtual tour and more!
Register for Voices & Visions of Change Series: From Passion, To Protest, To Purpose: voicesandvisionsofchange.eventbrite.com
Listen to Jackie Byers, executive director of Black Organizing Project talk about police in public schools and BOP's work to abolish Oakland schools police department on @Axios Today podcast.
https://bit.ly/3nzn0VL
Widespread protests this summer changed how we think about policing, including in schools.
This Saturday, Nov. 21, join Samah Ali from sisterhood media and Dr. Aymar Jean Christian from OTV - Open Television as they talk about running online content platforms that stream media by, for, and about underrepresented communities. If you want to learn more about authentic storytelling, you don't want to miss this!
Register for this free event: re-presentmedia.org
Adamika Village and Oakland Violence Prevention Coalition held a community peace parade in East Oakland to raise awareness of the increase in gun violence and call for a citywide truce.
"The whole purpose of the parade is to make a mighty noise and let the community know that we are here, and we’re demanding peace in the streets,” said Tanya Dennis, board chair of Adamika Village.
https://bit.ly/35FrunE
Oakland-based photographer Harvey Castro captured images of Sunday's action, where organizers called for a citwide truce.
We love to see #AllinforOakland grantee Urban Peace Movement share the power of transformative healing and self-care practices for young people.
https://bit.ly/2IlbTAq
Youth organizations are not just protesting or mobilizing; they are increasingly and consciously working self-care and healing as a form of political...
"We have to protect the art form’s name. We have to protect the culture. This culture didn’t destroy lives, it saved lives." — William “Mr. Penguin” Randolph, a member of the legendary East #Oakland dance group The Black Resurgents.
Learn more about #boogaloo, a classic Bay Area dance style.
https://bit.ly/3eOmq3s
Pioneers of a funky Bay Area dance style are fighting to preserve their history, after alt-right extremists appropriated their name.
The Homecoming Project from Impact Justice is an Oakland-based reentry program that helps formerly incarcerated people find housing, Airbnb-style.
https://bit.ly/35gXoqx
The Homecoming Project has already matched over two dozen people with hosts in the East Bay, with plans to serve 120 more.
In June, the Oakland school board approved a resolution named for George Floyd to abolish the entire school police department.
"In Oakland, the victory was roughly half a century in the making. For as long as cops have been in the city’s school system, Black Oaklanders have protested their presence."
Read this Mother Jones story, which highlights the critical work done by groups like the Black Organizing Project
https://bit.ly/3p7bD94
"A" is for abolition.
Read this exclusive Black New World Media interview with Fredrika Newton, the widow of Huey P. Newton and President of the Huey P. Newton Foundation.
She has laid the groundwork for changing 9th and Center to Dr. Huey P. Newton Street, as well as creating a sculptured bust of Huey, on Mandela Parkway, in West Oakland in the coming months to honor one of Oakland's greatest freedom fighters.
https://bit.ly/3khozFP
#oakland #blackpantherparty
Intimate Life With Huey P. Newton: his widow Fredrika Newton speaks (Part 1) Posted on October 28, 2020November 8, 2020by JR Valrey By JR Valrey, the People’s Minister of Information The co-founder, Minister of Defense, and chief theoretician of the Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton was a very u...
Join Creative Justice Initiative on November 10 for a virtual conversation on race, myth, art and justice.
"As grassroots artists, culture bearers, and community-based organizations, we are frontline workers intent on addressing structural inequities that maintain our communities under development. Our objectives are to spark dialogue, understanding, and foster social cohesion that will create the changes to address our communities needs. By engaging people from all walks of life in artistic, critical, and cultural experiences, we reclaim joy and celebrate the human spirit."
Register here: https://bit.ly/3eruAP2
Conversations on Culture: Race, Myth, Art = Justice
Less than 1% of philanthropic dollars goes to funding #AAPI causes. Read New Breath Foundation's president & founder Eddy Zheng on why we need to invest more in AAPI communities as the nation grapples with #COVID19 and systemic racism.
https://bit.ly/2JDimaH
As the nation grapples with its legacy of systemic racism and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on poor people and communities of color, philanthropy needs to take a stronger stand for a community that too often is overlooked: the 22.6...
This Saturday, November 7, join a virtual #ReleasesNotTransfers town hall, an important conversation with formerly incarcerated organizers and community members. #WeKeepUsSafe
Register: bit.ly/releasesnottransfersnow
Oakland artists join Nigeria's #EndSARS movement against police violence. They are organizing a rally in Oakland led by Nigerian women this month. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3mL1Ao9
After soldiers shot protesters in Lagos, Nigerian Americans in the Bay Area mobilized as part of a global movement.
436 14th St, Ste 1417
Oakland, CA
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Black Art Is Medicine – #BAMBDFEST2020 explores the Black experience through artistic expression. This year's festival happening the month of Aug. features theater, gallery installations, panels & more showcasing the best of Oakland's vibrant arts. Details: https://bit.ly/39IXNCI #celebrateblackarts #OaklandArts
Some of the final posters from our Youth Poster Project, Oakland is Home at Skyline High @civicdesignstudio510 and @akonadi_oakland project. Today we’re celebrating the project and voting on the winning posters for printing and display in Old Oakland, as well as at our OUSD spring art show at @mochaarts on Friday, May 3rd. Could not be more proud!
Our racial justice poster exhibits are up! Come see the posters located on 9th Street off Broadway in Old Oakland in the 'alleyway'. Also, more at the Historic Central building windows on 14th and Broadway. Thanks to @civicdesignstudio ! #rjpp #rjpp19
2018 marks ten years of lifting up arts and culture to advance racial justice through our annual Racial Justice Poster Project. Each year, Akonadi Foundation commissions an artist to create a poster that reflects a vision of a racially just world. TONIGHT Davey D will speak with our 2018 commissioned artist, Joshua Mays, in conversation with past poster artist contributors: Robert Trujillo and Janine Macbeth for an evening of art, networking, and celebration.
Culture is Power May Day march downtown Oakland. Mayday activities organized by Boomshake Music & Abundant Beginnings
Joshua Mays is live at Historic Central Building checking out the Racial Justice Poster project ten year retrospective exhibit. Come by and view the political posters in the street level windows of 436 14th st, Oakland.
We are doing a live video of Akonadi President, Lateefah Simon in conversation with Valerie Jarrett, Former Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and Chair of the Obama White House Council on Women!
We are live streaming from Netroots Nation. Panel on California Dreamin': A Blue State Blueprint for Progressive Resistance. Aimee Allison, Tim Molina, Karla Zombro, Jessica Bartholow, Lateefah Simon
Fierce arrangement with Howard Wiley, Dr. Chester Thompson on organ, and other amazing musicians bringing it at the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival
Since 2000, Akonadi Foundation has promoted grantmaking that supports and nurtures racial justice movement building. We work toward a racially just society by investing in grantee organizations and visionary leaders who are fighting for racial equity in Oakland. To fulfill our purpose to support racial justice movement building, Akonadi Foundation focuses our funding in three main program areas:
ATJ
The Arc Toward Justice Fund focuses on long-term efforts to foster racial equity for youth and young adults of color in Oakland. Because Akonadi Foundation recently expanded our grantee cohort, at the moment we are not accepting new applications for 2018.
BCF
The Beloved Community Fund supports free public art and cultural events that celebrate and are rooted in Oakland’s communities of color, and that advance racial justice. Applications may be submitted online at any time; check here for dates proposals are due.
SLCW
We offer one-time grants ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 to spark imagination and seed efforts to create healing and safety in Oakland’s communities of color. The So Love Can Win Community Response Fund is not currently accepting applications; it will relaunch in mid-2018.
League of Women Voters Bay Area
436 14th StCity of Oakland Revenue Division
150 Frank H Ogawa PlzOakland Fund for Children and Youth -OFCY
150 Frank H Ogawa Plz, Ste 4216
Aanapisi Program at Laney College
900 Fallon St
NCNC Youth and Outdoor Ministries
401 Roland Way #260
Cambodian Community Development, Inc.
1909 International Blvd
East Bay Interfaith Immigration Coalition (EB
1814 Franklin St
Friends of Faith (Fancher) Inc.
3232 Elm St
