At EBCF, we believe that everyone should have the economic freedom to dream, heal, and belong. EBCF’s Campaign for a Just East Bay (CAMP) is a central fund for strategic investment in local communities that mobilized $4.2M this year. East Bay communities need us now more than ever. Join us in supporting CAMP today.
Because no single organization can create the just and inclusive East Bay we all deserve, CAMP pools our community’s resources to magnify our collective impact and accelerate change. Gifts to CAMP support EBCF’s grantmaking as well as our leadership work across the East Bay.
CAMP is having tremendous impact throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Over the past year, we funded visionary movement leaders, supported capacity building for Black-led organizations, provided critical resources for the arts, and invested in the resiliency of small businesses. These funds also allow us to be responsive and nimble, funding emerging needs as they arise.
In the past year, our 139 community partners won victories around affordable housing and good jobs; secured resources to safeguard our environment; funded artists and culture makers; and advanced inclusive economies and equitable education. Through our collective impact, we are providing community members what they need to create a sense of home and belonging.
EBCF’s community partners have a profound impact on Alameda and Contra Costa counties, listening and responding to community needs across six impact areas.
- Good Jobs: Good jobs are a fundamental building block of a just economy – raising wages, lifting people out of poverty, and ensuring dignity at work.
- EBASE’s worker rights campaign won the landmark decision of $400,000 in back wages to hotel workers – the largest determination of labor standards violation in Oakland’s history.
- Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) reached more than 1,000 immigrant women through street outreach, recruited 165 as new members, and graduated 70 from their leadership training. MUA also opened a new Union City community center that offers domestic workers vocational training, English classes, and workshops on domestic violence, civic participation, and worker rights.
- Affordable Housing: The housing crisis continues to hit low-income communities the hardest, and EBCF partners are fighting back.
- In Oakland, where more than 50% of residents rent their homes, Causa Justa: Just Cause and its allies won tenant protections that will prevent unnecessary evictions following the expiration of the COVID-19 moratorium.
- In Antioch, ACCE Contra Costa celebrated the passage of a new tenant anti-harassment ordinance, and Richmond passed a first-of-its-kind equitable public lands policy that will support the development of permanent affordable housing.
- Healthy Environment: The Bay Area may be known for its natural beauty, but low-income communities continue to fight against a harmful legacy of environmental racism.
- Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) negotiated with Raven SR Bioenergy Project to secure $500,000 for community reinvestment in Richmond, along with a commitment to adhere to strict air pollution limits.
- Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) helped secure $9.25 million in public investments to build a new, larger Lincoln Square Park and Recreation Center in Oakland Chinatown to assist residents before, during, and after disasters – in the languages people speak at home.
- Healing Arts & Culture: Storytelling, arts, and cultural practices create pathways for survival, healing, and resistance and have deep roots in BIPOC communities.
- Richmond Art Center offered exhibitions, arts education, and community events – including a Juneteenth paint-and-sip event and their 61st Annual Holiday Arts Festival. Of the 500 artists that exhibited their work over the year, 77% were BIPOC, and 54% of their 4,000 students attended classes at no cost.
- In Oakland, Destiny Arts Center used movement-based arts to uplift youth voices as they advocate for justice and build a community where everyone feels seen, valued, and free. In 2023, their school and community program served over 5,000 youth at 40 school sites throughout the East Bay.
- Equitable Education: Education has the power to transform lives, but too often, school systems criminalize low-income and BIPOC children instead of empowering them.
- A Black Education Network (ABEN) empowered local educators with the publication of a new book, A Soul-Centered Approach to Educating Teachers, and their 18th Summer Institute, Pedagogies & Practices for Successfully Reaching African American Students.
- The Oakland-born Hidden Genius Project built on the success of its 15-month Intensive Immersion Program, serving youth at its Oakland Ubuntu Center and at Richmond’s RYSE Commons, as well as expanding nationally to Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit.
- Entrepreneurship & Land Ownership: Unjust financial systems continue to disproportionately harm BIPOC communities, excluding many from wealth-building opportunities.
- Sogorea Te’ Land Trust partnered with Movement Generation to return 43 acres of land to Indigenous care in the unceded Bay Miwok territory of the East Bay Area.
- Through the $10M REAL People’s Fund, EBCF’s endowment, and many of our donor-advised funds, we invested directly in BIPOC-led businesses and funds, moved resources into community banks and local credit unions, worked with values-aligned BIPOC and women financial managers, and expanded our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments.
Invest in Our Community!
Please give to EBCF’s Campaign For A Just East Bay so our core grantees can continue their vital work to help every East Bay resident thrive. EBCF fund advisors can make a grant from their donor-advised funds by contacting our philanthropic advisors at philanthropicadvisors@eastbaycf.org or by going to the donor portal (use code CAMP).
Thank you for making EBCF your philanthropic home for investing in community, where together, we can foster a sense of belonging for all who live in the East Bay.
