Core Grantees

ABEN assists young people in reaching their full potential through programs designed to empower Black students and their educators.The organization works with a wide range of partners who are committed to moving towards the provision of African-centered education – a pedagogy that includes ideas and practices from African cultural groups and centers the needs and interests of Black children and communities.

ABEN integrates and disseminates research findings, education strategies, and culture through offering professional development opportunities, student-focused programming, and curricula. Specifically, ABEN supports and partners with educational institutions – schools, churches, nonprofit organizations, educators, researchers, parents, corporations, and foundations – to ensure Black students reach their full potential.

In 2023, ABEN celebrated its twentieth anniversary. The organization also published a new book: A Soul-Centered Approach to Educating Teachers, which illustrates the importance of spaces of excellence for Black children through portraits, narratives, and essays. In June, they hosted their 18th Summer Institute – Pedagogies & Practices for Successfully Reaching African American Students – at Stanford University. The Institute was attended by a sold-out audience of educators, parents, and supporters committed to participating in productive discussions to improve pedagogy and amplifying the voices and experiences of the African diaspora. 

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) is a grassroots, member-led, statewide community organization working with more than 15,000 members across California. ACCE is dedicated to lifting up the voices of everyday Californians, neighborhood by neighborhood, to fight for the policies and programs needed to improve our communities and create a brighter future. 

The ACCE Contra Costa chapter works on tenant rights and housing advocacy through low-income resident organizing and coalition-building in Contra Costa County in cities such as Richmond, Antioch, San Pablo, and Pittsburg.

In 2023, ACCE Contra Costa won a groundbreaking tenant anti-harassment ordinance in Antioch, where they also organized to hold the Antioch Police Department accountable for police violence and excessive use of force. In San Pablo and Pittsburg, ACCE members submitted tenant protections bill packages to their city clerks, a critical step in putting rent control, just cause, and tenant anti-harassment on the 2024 ballot.

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Oakland is a grassroots, member-led, statewide community organization working with more than 15,000 members across California. ACCE is dedicated to raising the voices of everyday Californians, neighborhood by neighborhood, to fight for the policies and programs needed to improve our communities and create a brighter future.

The ACCE Oakland chapter engages in member-led campaigns focused on tenant rights and housing advocacy in Oakland and statewide. They organize primarily across the Oakland Flatlands in districts 3, 5, 6 and 7 around issues of displacement, housing affordability, habitability, and equitable city policy.

After winning the longest rent strike in Oakland’s history in 2022, Oakland ACCE members amplified the lessons learned from that victory by co-hosting the California Community Land Trust Network 2023 conference in Oakland, where they presented on tenant organizing to activists from across California and beyond. Oakland ACCE also continued its ongoing work organizing in coalition for A People’s Budget in Oakland, which would prioritize investments in jobs, parks, the arts, and housing instead of giving more money to the police.

The African American Art & Culture Complex is a space for Black creatives from across the Bay Area to present, gather, and learn, while being a space for all to experience Black art and culture. 

Located in the historical Fillmore/Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, AAACC is one of the premier Black arts and cultural institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area. They provide a wide variety of art and cultural programming for youth, adults, and families – including visual arts, digital arts, and performance arts. They also offer subsidized offices; administrative services; and access to rehearsal, performance, and exhibition space to some of the most celebrated African American arts and culture organizations in the region.

In 2023, AAACC launched its “Season of Black Art” showcase featuring hundreds of Black artists, arts events, speaker series, and performances between October 2023 and February 2024. Its annual Wakanda Winter Wonderland Festival brought hundreds of families together over three days in December. It featured their popular “Dollhouse Day,” where kids get to take home a free doll for the holidays. AAACC also oversaw over $2 million in designated funds for arts and culture through San Francisco’s Dream Keeper Initiative and distributed artist grants through its Ubuntu Resource Program and Fund for Building Wellness, a radical self care program. 

In addition to all their programming, AAACC also sponsored the 19th annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival; co-hosted the inaugural San Francisco Women’s Policy Summit, Shift Happens; and hosted the Black Family Reunion as part of the Fillmore District’s Juneteenth Freedom Celebration.

Alena Museum is a cultural peacekeeping nonprofit rooted in West Oakland, California. Its mission is to provide critical safe spaces for peoples of the African diaspora and beyond. The organization counters gentrification and white supremacy while centering the growth of Black spaces, facilitating public art activism, and providing resources and mentorship to the community.  

The organization serves a dynamic range of artists and entrepreneurs through their “cultural placekeeping” work, where they provide dependable and affordable workspaces and art studios, peer support, and participation in large-scale projects. Through their public art, the community incubated at Alena Museum galvanizes many progressive social justice movements happening in Oakland and beyond. The organization also functions as a community-focused artist collaborative with expertise in visual branding, engagement, and storytelling. 

In 2023, Alena Museum hosted a series of health events for the community – including their “Freedom Self-Care Lounge” at Oakland’s annual Black Joy Parade; an “Afro-Chic Wellness Lounge” at Black Cultural Zone’s “Green Spaces Are Black Spaces” Black August event; and a “Home as a Sanctuary” workshop offering a unique exploration of African traditional healing methods.

APEB provides culturally-sensitive, non-judgmental, and effective services to all people in Alameda County living with and vulnerable to HIV. The organization is guided by a commitment to transforming lives through health and wellness. From HIV testing to housing services and much more, APEB aims to reduce the number of new incidences of HIV, serve people living with HIV and AIDS, and end stigma and discrimination.

In 2023, APEB continued their life-saving work providing HIV prevention services, referrals for HIV-preventing medications (PrEP/PEP), food and clothing support, housing support, and case management to hundreds of East Bay residents. Data from the organization’s work in 2022 showed that nearly half of all clients were LGBTQ+, and the vast majority of clients identified as Black. 

As part of their commitment to transforming lives through health and wellness, APEB hosted a Thanksgiving Food Bank providing groceries and hot meals to Oakland residents. They also co-hosted Oakland’s 35th World AIDS Day Block Party, with free HIV testing, health information, music, games, prizes, and family-friendly fun.

APEN is an environmental justice organization building power in California’s Asian immigrant and refugee communities. Since 1993, they have built a membership base of Laotian refugees in Richmond and Chinese immigrants in Oakland. With its members, APEN devises campaigns to make our communities more just and healthy places where we all can thrive.

Through building an organized movement, APEN strives to bring fundamental changes to economic and social institutions that will prioritize public good over profits and promote the right of every person to a decent, safe, affordable quality of life, and to participate in decisions affecting their lives. Though APEN holds this vision of environmental justice for all people, their work focuses on Asian immigrant and refugee communities.

In 2023, 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. The new center will provide cooling, warming, clean air, backup power, food storage, and emergency information and trainings in the languages people speak at home. 

APEN also assisted the St. Mary’s Gardens affordable housing complex for seniors in accessing funds to install solar panels. This was possible thanks to California’s historic $1 billion investment in solar for renters through Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH), legislation which APEN and its members helped pass in 2015.

The Center for ArtEsteem, formerly Attitudinal Healing Connection, is a longstanding Oakland-based, Black-led arts organization serving communities across the Bay Area. The organization empowers people to be self-aware and inspired through art, creativity, and education and to make positive choices to break the cycle of violence for themselves and their communities.

ArtEsteem, the organization’s award-winning art and literacy program, has inspired students since 1995 through the integration of arts into classroom academic coursework. In addition to art classes for children and youth, ArtEsteem provides professional development and training for educators in art curricula to help teachers develop visually engaging and hands-on methods that improve student involvement, comprehension, and critical thinking. The program has served over 75 at-risk schools and their communities, directly and indirectly reaching over 100,000 children, youth, and families in West Oakland, East Oakland, and San Francisco.

In 2022, The Center for ArtEsteem acquired approximately 5,000 square feet of land and property in West Oakland to ensure its sustainability in Oakland as the city transforms. They are currently raising funds to complete the project vision. The organization aims to revitalize its roots within the Hoover-Durant neighborhood and create a permanent sanctuary for the West Oakland community that provides space for creativity, the arts, and community-strengthening. The new center will allow them to double the number of children, youth, and families served per year; more than triple the number of children and youth served per week in on-site classes; and double the number of on-site art, healing, and community workshops and events per year.

Bay Area Plan is a social justice organization that develops leadership and builds the power of parents to transform schools so that all students achieve success. They work primarily with students of color and their parents in all nine counties of the Greater Bay Area.

In May 2023, the organization made the strategic decision to pause their programming to allow for evaluation and reassessment of their programs. Bay Area Plan brought on a consultant to conduct a wellness check and community assessment to help distill the strengths, areas of growth, and opportunities ahead, and plan to emerge stronger with a new strategic direction.

Bay Rising is a growing alliance of progressive, community-led organizations across the Bay Area. They organize working-class voters and voters of color year-round, working to shift the power back to local communities and empower residents to co-govern alongside elected officials. Through its political power-building and voter engagement programs, Bay Rising empowers the people who are most marginalized in Bay Area communities to lead the way for a government that centers racial, economic, and environmental justice.

This year, following ongoing community input organized by Bay Rising, Oakland City Council approved increased funding to hire a staff position to implement Democracy Dollars – public campaign financing vouchers that Oakland residents can give to participating candidates to support their campaigns in the 2026 election and beyond. City Council also added discretionary funds for the Oakland Public Ethics Commission to support implementation of Democracy Dollars. 

In 2023, Bay Rising collaborated with Local Progress Impact Lab to launch the Progressive Governance Lab, a six-month program for a diverse slate of elected officials. The alliance co-launched the Begins With Home movement for Bay Area housing justice. The movement aims to increase investments in affordable housing, advocate for policies to help renters live free from eviction and rent gouging, and create permanent supportive housing to help people experiencing homelessness gain stability and support. Bay Rising also worked in collaboration to publish a renter protections storybook, designed to help advocates, decisionmakers, and the media better communicate what’s at stake for Bay Area communities and how housing solutions can benefit everyone.

Anticipating the demands of the 2024 election year, Bay Rising also made deeper investments to embed resilience in the fabric of their organizational culture in 2023. They held restorative retreats through a partnership with Windcall in order to provide their team and member organizations with the necessary support and tools to navigate the work ahead.

Black Cultural Zone addresses the disparate impact of decades of disinvestment in East Oakland, as well as the more recent displacement of Black people and Black businesses from their historic communities in Oakland. The organization centers Black arts and culture within a community development framework. 

The East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative (“the Collaborative”) was formed by the Eastside Arts Alliance and several nonprofit organizations located in East Oakland to develop the Black Cultural Zone. The Collaborative designated the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone as the 50 square blocks from High Street to the San Leandro Border and focused on implementing arts and cultural strategies as well as engaging artists and community members in art activism. 

Since 2014, the Collaborative has worked with a coalition of residents, government agencies, churches, and grassroots organizing, and community groups to help keep Black people in East Oakland. Through their strategy of building power, securing land, and directing more dollars to community-driven projects, they are working to secure a foothold in East Oakland that finally allows their neighborhoods to thrive. 

In 2023, Black Cultural Zone hosted a plethora of arts and cultural events for the community. This included their weekly “Community Skate” at Liberation Park; their first annual “AKOMA Grand Market & Celebration of Mothers Tea & Hat Party” featuring live music, vendors, food and drink; an outdoor roller-skating rink; and their second annual Holiday Market and Gumbo Festival. Black Cultural Zone also partnered with local community organizations to offer wraparound services to Oakland residents at risk of homelessness and displacement. They held regular office hours through the “Keep People Housed” initiative, providing outreach, legal representation, emergency financial assistance, and supportive services.

BOP builds Black community power and develops leaders in Oakland and across the Bay Area. BOP is a central leader in reimagining public safety and works directly with impacted youth and their families to achieve racial, social, and economic justice.

BOP strengthens community by creating safe Black spaces for people to come together and heal. They are working to improve the school system by ending the criminalization of Black and brown youth in Oakland and beyond. BOP practices multigenerational organizing to develop a new generation of Black leadership to build a community of trust, love, and consciousness.

In 2023, BOP worked in coalition to successfully keep open five majority Black schools that had been slated for closure by the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Board of Education. They also released the “People’s Budget for School Safety,”  a roadmap to ending the criminalization of children in OUSD and an outline of what it will cost to do so. As it has for years, the organization kept up consistent pressure on the district’s implementation of the 2020 George Floyd resolution to eliminate the Oakland School Police Department. BOP also continued its additional programming, including their Baby BOP arts and literacy summer program for kids and listening sessions about community safety in East Oakland. 

CJJC builds grassroots power and leadership to create strong, equitable communities. They envision a more just world, where immigrants and working class people work in community and are in solidarity with one another, creating collective power in their living and working conditions.

CJJC works toward housing and racial justice for Black and Latinx residents through rights-based services, policy campaigns, civic engagement, and direct action. Their tenants’ rights clinics have served more than 1,000 tenants each year, stopping hundreds of evictions in their tracks, preventing rent increases, and forcing landlords to make needed repairs. 

In 2023, CJJC helped win an update to Oakland’s just cause ordinance that added protections for tenants and prevented unnecessary evictions following the expiration of Oakland’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium in July. CJJC also attended California Renter Power Assembly in Fresno, held multiple know-your-rights trainings for tenants, and published its bilingual newspaper “Just Causes.”

CBE builds people power in California’s communities of color and low-income communities to achieve environmental health and justice. The organization and its members prevent and reduce pollution and build green, healthy, and sustainable communities and environments. CBE provides residents in heavily polluted urban communities in California with organizing skills; leadership training; and legal, scientific, and technical assistance, so that they can successfully confront threats to their health and well-being.

In 2023, CBE’s 16-year Freedom to Breathe campaign culminated in the demolition of AB&I Foundry, the largest industrial source of air pollution in East Oakland. The organization also negotiated a community benefits agreement with Raven SR Bioenergy Project. This included $500,000 over the next 10 years for community reinvestment in Richmond and a commitment from Raven SR to adhere to strict air pollution limits and air quality controls. 

CBE also commissioned the film “Toxic Tour,” produced by CBE East Oakland and local filmmaker Cheryl Fabio. The film follows the organization’s effort to raise awareness of toxic facilities within the East Oakland community. It premiered on January 23, 2024, at the New Parkway Theater.

CHDC provides affordable housing opportunities and services to enable low- and moderate-income residents to gain better housing and financial stability. The organization’s approach to community development engages residents and ensures that the whole neighborhood benefits from affordable housing and neighborhood services.

In 2023, CHDC celebrated the reopening of Hacienda Heights in Richmond, an affordable housing community with 150 homes for seniors aged 62 and over. CHDC’s project, Eden, provides high-quality affordable housing for families and formerly homeless individuals in the City of Richmond. It received $3 million in federal grants for its 38th Street Supportive and Family Affordable Apartments project. 

CHDC also made an impact through direct service. Their annual pre-Thanksgiving food distribution program served 300 families and seniors. The organization also co-hosted the biannual Willie Spears Cleanup in North Richmond. Nearly 20 garbage containers and five metal containers were filled, serving 450 residents.

Destiny Arts Center is a North Oakland-based, BIPOC-led cultural institution that believes that art and movement give young people a vehicle for self- and community expression. The Center was founded by Black and queer dancers and martial artists in 1988. They use movement-based arts to uplift youth voices, supporting pathways for young people to express themselves as they advocate for justice and equity; fight against systemic racism; and build a community where everyone feels seen, valued, and free. 

The organization employs a skillful and diverse corps of professional teaching artists who engage thousands of young people each year in arts practices at its North Oakland center and in public schools, community centers, and public spaces throughout the East Bay. All of its classes are “pay what you can,” and no one is turned away for lack of funds. 84% of the families they serve fall below the federal poverty level. Since the onset of the pandemic, the organization has maintained a community food pantry at its dance and martial arts center that is open to anyone in need.

In 2023, Destiny Arts Center’s School and Community Program served over 5,000 youth at 40 school sites throughout the East Bay. Its summer program, Camp Destiny, served hundreds of participants. The organization built new relationships in East Oakland through participation in Town Nights, sponsored by the City of Oakland’s Violence Prevention Program. Destiny Arts Center’s continued partnership with Alameda County Community Food Bank supported Destiny families with healthy food. 

Performance opportunities abounded in 2023. Destiny Arts Center performers staged “The ReIntroduction” at several sold-out shows at Laney College. Students also created and performed a special showcase series, “Moving for Peace and Love in Action.” Finally, ballerina Misty Copeland invited the youth performance group at Destiny Arts Center to dance on stage at the historic Oakland Paramount Theater during the premiere of her celebrated new film, “Flower.”

The East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) addresses the root causes of economic injustice by developing strategic alliances among community, labor, and people of faith to build power and create change with low-income workers and communities of color.

EBASE champions a holistic “whole worker approach” to organizing, addressing everything workers need to thrive. The organization works with East Bay community members to develop transformative campaigns at the intersections of social, economic, and racial justice. They connect good jobs to affordable housing and better health; link worker organizing with empowerment and immigrant rights; and demand a cleaner environment as part of equitable development.

In 2023, EBASE’s worker rights campaign won the landmark decision of $400,000 in back wages to hotel workers, the City of Oakland’s largest settlement in its history – thanks to a new city department that EBASE helped create and launch. In Concord, they launched their first ever Tenant Leadership Institute, developing leadership and community among tenants who in turn organize tenants in their buildings and neighborhoods. 

Convening the Raise the Roof coalition in Concord, EBASE led the passage of a tenant anti-harassment policy and is on the verge of winning an historic just cause and rent stabilization ordinance in Concord. 

EOYDC develops the social and leadership capacities of youth and young adults (ages 5-24) so they are prepared to excel in their education, career, and service to their communities. Founded in 1978, EOYDC provides free after-school and summer programming to over 1,000 young people every year. The organization’s ultimate goal is to ensure that Oakland’s youth are prepared to have meaningful, well-paid careers that leverage their talent and passion. Through educational, cultural, artistic expression, and recreation programs, EOYDC seeks to meet the holistic needs of each individual child.

EOYDC has a lasting impact on the youth they serve. One hundred percent of EOYDC’s high school graduates completed high school within four years and enrolled in a college degree program. The CEO is an alumnus of EOYDC herself, as are 60 percent of the organization’s staff.

In 2023, EOYDC helped launch Rise East, a $100 million initiative that grew out of a community-led vision to develop a Black cultural zone in East Oakland. Oakland has been selected to receive $50 million in philanthropic capital, unlocked by local giving. Rise East is now securing an equal-sized investment from local foundations, businesses, and donors who recognize the unparalleled opportunity to build and rebuild the Oakland our communities deserve.

EastSide Arts Alliance is an Oakland-based organization of Third World artists, cultural workers, and community organizers of color who use arts and culture as a means of building community power and self-determination. Through year-round programming at their cultural center and other public spaces in East Oakland, EastSide Arts Alliance works to support a creative environment in Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood and beyond. They improve the community’s quality of life and advocate for progressive, systemic social change. 

The organization serves the diverse Black, Brown and Asian neighborhoods that populate Oakland. Every year, the EastSide Arts Alliance & Cultural Center presents free youth art classes, cultural programming, public art projects, ongoing gallery exhibitions, community town halls, and the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival. They work with numerous organizations and community groups to present hundreds of events annually. 

In 2023, Eastside Arts Alliance presented and co-presented a wide array of arts and cultural events. This included a “Black World Films” film class at Merritt College; the “Intergalactic Dreams / Sueños Intergalacticos” poetry night and arts exhibition inspired by Zapatista and Black Panther liberatory concepts; the “Dia De Los Muertos Neighborhood Procession” to honor and celebrate ancestors; a “Walk for Life” in solidarity with Palestine; and a community workshop to reimagine uses for the Oakland Main Library.

The Ensuring Opportunity Campaign is a collaborative effort of diverse stakeholders working to end poverty and improve economic security in Contra Costa County by addressing structural causes at the policy level. Using an “inside-out” strategy, Ensuring Opportunity brings the voices of impacted community members to elected leaders and government agencies and ensures that the community has a seat at the governing table.

In 2023, Ensuring Opportunity worked in coalition to pass a tenant anti-harassment policy and advance a strong just cause and rent stabilization ordinance in Concord. They also emceed and guided 200 attendees through a lunch and learn webinar: “The Epicenter of Evictions: Moving from Crisis to Solutions in Contra Costa County.” Attendees came away with an increased understanding of the injustices that renters face in eviction court; learned about how to replicate policy wins in other jurisdictions; and explored solutions to the county’s eviction and homelessness crisis. 

FIAEB is committed to faith-rooted organizing and leadership development in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties on immigration issues, community safety/anti-violence, anti-displacement, economic justice, and other member-identified campaigns. 

In 2023, FIAEB organized 36 “Ceasefire in Oakland” night walks and eight Richmond peace walks. They partnered with 90 allied congregations, schools, and community organizations and held six leadership development trainings, in which they trained 90 community leaders to build power towards equity in housing, jobs, education, access to health care, and vibrant, safe communities. 

FIAEB held 10 meetings and actions on illegal dumping, hosted an immigration forum with 300+ participants, held a D.A. town hall with over 490 participants, and held 15 housing research meetings and actions. 

FIAEB also sent 115 leaders to statewide housing actions in Sacramento, in which housing justice organizations from across California came together to fight for and win SB 567 to protect low-income renters from unjust evictions and exorbitant rent increases; AB 1418 to prevent discriminatory evictions and give people with criminal records more options for housing; and SB 4 to allow faith-based institutions to build affordable housing on lands they own.

FIERCE (Families and Individuals Equitably Rooted in Collective Empowerment) Advocates amplifies the voices of Black, Latinx, and other parents and caregivers of color to advance equitable access and opportunities so that all youth can have quality education, and all families can achieve emotional and physical well-being. 

Headquartered in Richmond, the organization empowers communities so healthy families can blossom and realize their full potential. By providing healing-centered care, leadership development, and activating inclusive parent-led advocacy, FIERCE Advocates support the personal and collective transformation of parents and caregivers as they reclaim their power. 

In 2023, FIERCE Advocates became an independent organization, reintroduced itself with a new name, grew the staff team, and expanded its reach. Its team of parent fellows built power and leadership by connecting with other parents at schools, housing communities, and beyond to exchange ideas on transforming education. Hundreds of community members participated in cooking, art, and fitness workshops; life coaching; and emotional well-being support groups throughout the year.

The organization also graduated nearly 30 women from their CoCo doulas training program this year and welcomed more than 50 babies. According to a 2023 survey, the FIERCE Advocates doulas program is making great strides in maternal health. Ninety-one percent of women surveyed felt their doula contributed positively to their birth experience; 90 percent of babies born in the program were delivered full-term; and 75 percent of babies born in the program were vaginal births.

FAJ builds a strong and empowered Filipino community by organizing constituents, developing leaders, providing services, and advocating for policies that promote social and economic justice and equity. FAJ serves Filipinos who call the East Bay home through its offices in Oakland’s Chinatown and Union City. 

FAJ celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. The organization has been an advocate for immigrant and civil rights since 1973, serving at-risk middle and high school-age youth, low-wage workers vulnerable to exploitation, and newly arrived immigrants and undocumented people. Its programs are rooted in Bayanihan principles, a Filipino demonstration of social justice values where a community comes together to help those in need.

In 2023, FAJ engaged over 1,000 neighbors through door-to-door voter canvassing in Hayward. The organization mobilized over 70 volunteers and incorporated integrated voter engagement throughout its programs. Through its CalGrows project with the California Department of Aging, they certified and trained more than 60 caregivers. Because community care is an important value for FAJ, the organization also held a free community healing clinic. By bringing together healers of different modalities and practices, they were able to offer acupuncture, yoga, massages, and more.

The Jakara Movement is a grassroots community-building organization empowering, educating, and organizing Punjabi Sikhs and other marginalized communities by advancing their health; education; and economic, social, and political power. The organization is committed to gender equality and caste abolitionism to develop powerful, informed, and organized youth leadership, locally-rooted residential power, and community capacity to build a better future for all.

In 2023, the Jakara Movement marked another successful year of offering life-changing programs for young people. They held their annual collegiate youth conference, Lalkaar 2023, at UC Davis. Through their Bhujangan Leadership Academy, young Singhs and Kaurs spent a week in the Sierra Mountains developing internal strength, building self-esteem and confidence, and creating brotherhood and sisterhood. The Jakara Movement also continued community empowerment by organizing impactful community health events and 5K runs, facilitating food distributions, and starting a community farmers’ market.

The Jakara Movement’s community advocacy was also a vital part of their work in 2023. They published results of a 300+ person survey showing the impact of the Madera Hospital closure on the Sikh community and beyond. Thanks to their work in the capitol in 2023, the California legislature declared the 1984 anti-Sikh violence in India a genocide.

Lift Up Contra Costa Action is a coalition of grassroots community organizing, advocacy, and labor organizations that builds political power, fights for policies, and holds local elected officials accountable. 

As a county-wide civic engagement coalition dedicated to amplifying the voices of Black people, people of color, and working families, LUCC unites over 100,000 Contra Costa residents who are members of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment, the Contra Costa County Central Labor Council, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, SEIU Local 1021, SEIU Local 2015, the Safe Return Project, the Richmond Progressive Alliance.

The organization’s vision of Contra Costa includes workers having dignity on the job families having the right to grow in their homes and thrive in their health; safe communities; a growing economy; and an engaged democracy. They organize to support politics and politicians that are responsive to the challenges Contra Costa communities face.

Monument Impact is a community-based nonprofit dedicated to building skills, resources, and power towards economic prosperity among immigrants, refugees, and low-income residents in Concord and surrounding communities. The organization primarily works in the Monument Corridor.

In 2023, Monument Impact launched ELEVATE Concord, a family economic equity pilot, in collaboration with the City of Concord. that provides a guaranteed income of $500 a month for a year to 120 families. The organization also worked in coalition to bring an ordinance for rent stabilization and just cause for eviction to the Concord City Council and won a tenant anti-harassment ordinance in Antioch. The organization’s community engagement team attended the 2023 California Renter Power Assembly in Fresno, hosted by Tenants Together and Homes For All – a conference to build power towards winning rent control and social housing for every Californian.

The organization served 24,000 people in 2023 through programs focused on workforce development, health, housing advocacy, and emerging business support for immigrant entrepreneurs. 

MUA is a member-led organization made up primarily of low-income immigrant women who work in domestic service. The organization utilizes healing justice as part of its dual mission of promoting personal transformation and building community power for social and economic justice. 

Through its innovative leadership development model, MUA trains members to plan and implement programs and lead its social work. MUA has local, statewide, and national influence through its campaigns led largely by undocumented Latina domestic workers. 

In 2023, MUA reached more than 1,040 immigrant women through street outreach via a team of existing MUA members and recruited 165 women as new members. The organization opened a new community center in Union City, launched a community garden and a Mayan loom workshop, and hosted several trainings in facilitation, peer counseling, labor counseling, and fundraising. Over 70 women graduated from their leadership training sessions this year, with 30 obtaining their CPR certification. MUA’s English language classes were full to capacity throughout the year, and they also grew their Mam Group, with 30 women participating in meetings in the Indigenous Mayan language, Mam.

My Eden Voice partners with community members to advocate for services and protections in  the unincorporated areas of San Lorenzo, Ashland, Cherryland, and Hayward Acres in Alameda County. The organization was born in 2018 to unite grassroots community organizations in the Eden Area to build community power and advance community-based campaigns that bring resources, investments, and greater equity to unincorporated communities.

In 2023, My Eden Voice successfully organized for the release of Dominique Walker, founder of Moms4Housing, from Santa Rita Jail. They also organized members to urge Alameda County courts to slow down a surge in eviction cases and released “In the Shadows of Eden: Rising Rents, Evictions, and Substandard Living Conditions in Unincorporated Alameda County” – the first report ever on the needs of renters in the Eden Area. 

The organization continued to offer free monthly know-your-rights workshops for tenants in urban unincorporated areas of Alameda County throughout the year and opened a new office in the heart of Ashland. 

A city chapter of Bay Area Rising, Oakland Rising educates and mobilizes voters in low-income Flatlands neighborhoods to speak up for and take charge of the issues impacting their lives. Oakland Rising is highly engaged in coalitional efforts related to redistricting and anti-displacement work in East and West Oakland neighborhoods. 

As a collaborative of racial, economic, and environmental justice organizations, Oakland Rising uses the civic process to build political power for and with BIPOC, working-class, immigrant, and formerly incarcerated community members to bring about systemic change.

In 2023, Oakland Rising organized to ensure that Oakland’s limited public financing program would be reinstated as an interim measure for the 2024 election, while awaiting the 2026 launch of Oakland’s Democracy Dollars program – publicly funded campaign finance vouchers for Oakland residents. They also successfully organized to convince the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to approve a ballot measure to make the election process more transparent, efficient, equitable, and cost-effective by consolidating its special elections with existing state primary election days. Oakland Rising’s canvassing events reached thousands of voters, laying the groundwork for more victories in 2024. 

Parent Voices Oakland (PVO) is a parent-led grassroots organization that advocates for affordable, accessible, quality child care. PVO organizes and empowers families with the highest need to build effective campaigns for economic and educational justice. They are a Black-led organization focused on building power among Black and brown parents to transform the systems that impact their lives.

In 2023, PVO organized to win childcare family fee reform in California, resulting in nearly $100 million going back into parents’ pockets every year. They also co-hosted community events and collected over 500 surveys in partnership with the City of Oakland’s Talking Transition initiative, a citywide initiative that gives the microphone to Oaklanders whose voices have long been ignored in conversations about their city government and invites them to co-author the next chapter of Oakland’s future. 

Through their training program, they engaged and supported 124 new parent leaders. Together, PVO parents fought for and won $14.4 million dollars in general purpose funding to sustain and expand Oakland Head Start programs during the 2022-2023 year; protected 52 Head Start jobs; and saved three Head Start sites in low-income Oakland neighborhoods from closure.

Power California leads voter and civic engagement with youth throughout the state, focusing on cities with large youth populations in Contra Costa County. It is a multi-racial civic organization made up of on-the-ground community partners in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Power California builds the power of young people of color and their families to participate in and lead systems of government at all levels and to ensure that voters and elected leaders mirror the rich diversity of our communities.

In 2023, Power California expanded its membership by more than 3,400 young people, launched its first statewide bill package, had 60 meetings with legislators and their staff, and brought members to lobby legislators in Sacramento. Its statewide field campaign, centered on young voters of color, had 13,105 contacts, identified 10,316 supporters, and activated 190 volunteers.

Richmond Art Center is a BIPOC-led organization that has been sharing art and creativity with the community since 1936. The organization aims to be a local catalyst for learning and living through art, equitably growing and sustaining innovative art practices in Richmond and beyond. Their in-house programs consist of classes, exhibitions, and events at their facility. They also provide off-site programs that bring free, high-quality art-making experiences to schools, community centers, and Richmond Public Library. Offerings include mentorship art classes for teens; bilingual residencies in schools; free art tours; and low-or-no-cost summer art camps to the community.

In 2023, Richmond Art Center’s programs continued to provide pathways for lifelong arts learning through exhibitions, arts education, and community events. They relaunched a number of programs that were eliminated during the pandemic. Their efforts included new professional development trainings to help district teachers integrate arts in their curricula; a partnership with the mayor’s office to recognize student artistic achievement; a Juneteenth celebration including a free paint-and-sip event; the 61st Annual Holiday Arts Festival; and an artist recruitment campaign for “Art of the African Diaspora 2024,” a Bay Area-wide group exhibition featuring work by artists of African descent.

Nearly 4,000 students attended classes and workshops throughout fiscal year 2022-2023. Fifty-four percent of students made art with the organization at no cost. Over 500 artists, 77% of whom were BIPOC, exhibited their work. The exhibitions were positively reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle, East Bay Express, Artforum, and beyond. Richmond Art Center’s classes and camps were selected for “Best Of” reader’s choice awards by Parents Press.

Rising Juntos is a community-powered organization that builds leadership and voice among low-income families of color – primarily immigrant moms – for a healthy, safe, and equitable Contra Costa. They advances family well-being and racial, economic, and social justice by shaping public decisions and investments.

Rising Juntos supports resident leadership through political education, coaching, and collective action to build a diverse base of youth, parent, and senior leaders. They increase power by bringing families into the movement, forging cross-cultural unity, and building strategic partnerships to shape our communities. Together, they advocate for public policies for healthy children and equitable communities. 

In 2023, Rising Juntos made great strides in housing justice throughout the region. In San Pablo, Rising Juntos’ members submitted proposed rent control and just cause legislation to the city council. They also worked in coalition to win Antioch’s anti-harassment ordinance and collaborated on the housing justice ordinance in Concord. In Richmond, Rising Juntos helped seat the first monolingual Spanish speaker on Richmond’s rent board.

Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) the Bay

works to improve restaurant workers’ lives by building worker power and uniting workers of various backgrounds around shared goals and values. It is an Oakland-based food-service workers’ rights organization building a future with higher wages, better working conditions, and greater equity in the Bay Area.

Its work is anchored by advocacy that helps restaurant workers advocate for rights in the workplace; policy efforts to create an equitable restaurant industry; and education programs that provide restaurant workers with skills trainings and political education. Its CHOW (COLORS Hospitality Opportunities for Workers) Institute provides in-depth and advanced professional training in both front- and back-of-the-house restaurant skills at no cost to either employers or employees.

In 2023, ROC crafted the Restaurant Worker Bill of Rights and succeeded in getting it introduced in Congress. In Oakland, thanks to the work of ROC the Bay as a part of the Lift Up Oakland Coalition, Oakland minimum wage workers received a raise on January 1, 2023, to $15.97 per hour. The organization also hosted multiple classes and know-your-rights workshops throughout the year. 

Restore Oakland serves as a movement incubator where communities most harmed by racial inequities have opportunities to heal, build strategies for solidarity, and create a shared vision for community safety and economic empowerment in their neighborhoods. 

Restore Oakland is based in Oakland’s Fruitvale District.Their mission is to create models of safe and thriving communities and economies. Their community space in Oakland brings residents together to build wholeness, a sense of safety, and democratic wealth.

In 2023, Restore Oakland mobilized over 500 people to defeat the $81 million Santa Rita Jail expansion. After years of mounting community pressure led by Restore Oakland and the Care First Community Coalition, the construction of the jail expansion was upended for the foreseeable future. Restore Oakland also won $19.2 million in new funding for mental health and housing in Alameda County to prevent incarceration of vulnerable people. 

Growing its team in 2023 allowed Restore Oakland to organize more than 1,000 residents and supporters and win an unprecedented $22M in new funding for under-resourced populations. At the programmatic level, it increased attendance at its weekly circles by 50 percent from the year prior, to a total of 673 people in 2023.

Roots Community Health Center uplifts those impacted by systemic inequities and poverty through medical and behavioral health care; health navigation; workforce enterprises; housing; outreach; and advocacy. It provides services in Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, and San Jose.

As part of the Rise East group, Roots Community Health Center has collaboratively raised approximately $26 million for East Oakland revitalization projects. In 2023, they opened Glow360 Candles, a soap and candle-making social enterprise that provides good jobs in East Oakland. Roots also expanded their advocacy work by filing a lawsuit against Pulse Oximiter manufacturers over inaccurate readings for people with darker skin. They continued hosting health-focused community events in Oakland, including Black Breastfeeding Week in Oakland and the Back to School Resource Fair. 

In 2023, Roots provided 11,526 medical visits for adults and children; distributed 10,650 COVID test kids; conducted 11,304 health navigation/barrier removal visits; and served 5,614 clients through pop-up food markets. They continue to provide reliable, consistent community health updates through their weekly People’s Health Briefing series, a component of the Trusted Voices Campaign, livestreamed every week.

RYSE is a movement led by young people that ensures dignity for youth, their families, and their communities. RYSE programs focus on equity within education and justice systems; youth organizing and leadership development; community health and healing; and expressive media, arts, and culture. It provides services in Richmond.

Their work envisions strong, healthy, united communities where equity is the norm, and violence is neither desired nor required, creating a strong foundation for future generations to thrive — a time and place where youth have opportunities to lead, to dream, and to love.

In 2023, RYSE completed the RYSE Commons Campus as a new and expanded space for young people in Richmond. The campus is a hub for healing, personal development, play, expression, incubating ideas, performances, art, launching businesses, exploring technology, and connecting with universities and partners. 

In addition to completing construction of RYSE Commons, the organization continued leading Contra Costa’s Restorative Justice Diversion program for youth, held youth-led arts-based healing workshops for teachers, and launched RYSE’s first Summer Youth Policy Institute. RYSE also partnered in the community-led creation of the first Contra Costa County Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice. 

Safe Return Project is invested in building a powerful base of formerly incarcerated people at the political, social, and economic levels locally in Contra Costa and across the state of California to address the root causes of poverty and the impacts of the criminal justice system on Black people and communities of color.

In 2023, Safe Return Project launched the Latinx Young Men’s Support Group and Sister Circle Support Group in Contra Costa County. Together with the community, Safe Return rallied against racism in the Antioch police department and successfully raised awareness of a longstanding pattern of racism and abuse. 

At the statewide level, with the support of community canvassing, Safe Return won the historic AB28 gun safety legislation package; won AB1418 to make “crime-free” housing laws unenforceable; and won AB 1226 to help incarcerated parents maintain contact with their kids.

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban, Indigenous, women-led land trust based in the Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people through rematriation, cultural revitalization, land restoration, public education, and coalition-building.

In 2023, 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. They also worked to pass the Rinihmu Resolution through the Oakland City Council, which supports Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and amends the memorandum of agreement (MOA) at Rinihmu Pulte-irekne, the land return in Joaquin Miller Park. While access to the land formerly known as Sequoia Point was returned through a cultural easement, many of the Trust’s activities are restricted by the zoning of the area, making the Rinihmu Resolution key to moving forward. 

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust also partnered this year with K-12 educators within Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Napa and San Joaquin Counties to create the Lisjan Nation Curriculum Collective. 

The Hannah Project Partnership for Academic Achievement is a community-based education and cultural organization which seeks to build community and promote the value of achievement among low-income Black and Latinx youth and their families.

The organization’s inclusive and culturally focused programming is intentionally designed to build the capacity and confidence of students and their families to achieve their dreams and be actively engaged in their communities. They promote youth development and education through academic support, college access scholarships, and leadership and mentorship programs for middle and high school students; they facilitate summer reading retention through the Hannah Freedom School, a full day summer literacy program for third through eighth grade students. As a convener, they also inform and amplify the voice of parents and other constituents to be effective advocates for their children and for school transformation. The organization also invests in changing the face of teachers and administrators through their Teacher of Color Pipeline, which focuses on identifying and developing new teacher prospects.  

The Hidden Genius Project trains and mentors Black male youth in technology creation, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills to transform their lives and communities. Services are provided in Oakland.

Hidden Genius was founded in 2012 by five Black male entrepreneurs/technologists who were concerned with the dramatic juxtaposition between the high unemployment of Black male youth and the plethora of career opportunities within the local technology sector. The organization works to connect young Black men with the skills, mentors, and experiences they need to become high-performing entrepreneurs and technologists in a 21st century global economy.

This year, the Hidden Genius Project hosted 2023 Brothers Code in Chicago, a groundbreaking convening teaching youth about AI, ChatGPT, robotics, and more. They launched the fourth cohort of Genius Founders in their Alumni Venture Seed Fund, and their team returned to London in 2023 to host Tech Slam UK programs for the third time. The Project opened their Ubuntu Center, a teen tech center in Oakland, and partnered with RYSE Village to host programming. Their 15 month Intensive Immersion program continues to expand, serving youth in Oakland; Richmond, CA; Los Angeles; Atlanta; Chicago; and Detroit. The organization also laid the groundwork to expand to Baltimore in spring of 2024.