The Just East Bay Fund: Building Cultural, Economic, and People Power

Photo credit: Black Organizing Project protest by Brooke Anderson  

In 2021, East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) launched The Just East Bay Fund, a pooled fund to advance social change and help build an inclusive, fair, and just East Bay.  

The Fund supports a strategic regional approach that is about more than grantmaking–it’s about building cultural power, economic power, and people power for and with Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI), South & Southwest Asian and North African (SSWANA) communities in the East Bay, and those impacted by multiple, intersectional systems of oppression. 

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022, donors to The Just East Bay Fund contributed $1.5 million to our pooled grantmaking and giving capacity. In total, EBCF awarded $4.8 million in grants to 100 nonprofit organizations that are leaders in one or more of our four program strategies: 1) Arts & Culture for Racial and Social Justice; 2) Capacity Building with a Racial Equity Lens; 3) Community Organizing, Power Building, and Movement Building; and 4) Fostering Inclusive Economic Models. 

Donors’ generous contributions to The Just East Bay Fund allowed our core grantee partners to maintain, and for some increase, their programming and capacity to quickly adapt to the growing needs of the communities they serve. For example: 

Arts & Culture for Racial and Social Justice grantee partners’ work resulted in commissioned works by 16 artists and the use of under-recognized forms of cultural knowledge and value narratives to build pathways out of the mindset of white supremacy.  

Capacity Building with a Racial Equity Lens grantee partners from Black-led organizations received funding or support to increase their capacity, leadership development, and community voice and power.    

Community Organizing, Power Building, and Movement Building grantee partners’ work resulted in substantial tenant and eviction protections, the increase of equitable access to vaccines, support for youth and their families in school transitions, key wins on local ballot measures, stronger policies in favor of worker and immigrant rights, and efforts to reimagine public safety.    

Fostering Inclusive Economic Models grantee partners’ work resulted in successful economic justice campaigns to support those hit hardest by COVID-19 and the economic recession: low-wage and essential workers, domestic workers, and formerly incarcerated people. 

The Just East Bay Fund by the Numbers

141

Grants awarded to grantee partners that are leaders in our core grantee program strategies

$4.8M

Awarded in grants to grantee partners in Alameda and Contra Costa counties

100

Grantee partners benefited from our strategic grantmaking approach

Our four program strategies describe the areas where we are advancing transformational change. The strategies were the culmination of years of work, listening and learning from our community partners, and piloting various targeted initiatives in collaboration with community leaders. The chart below represents the grantmaking by program strategy for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022.