Fall 2009 RAP Grantees
All of Us or None
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 year grant
San Francisco, CA
prisonerswithchildren.org
Project Description
For support of the All of Us or None project, designed to build a movement of formerly incarcerated people, prisoners, families and allies to fully restore the rights for people with incarceration or convictions in their past.
More>>
Arab Resource Organizing Center
Fall 2009
$80,000 – 2 year grant
San Francisco, CA
araborganizing.org
Project Description
For general support of the Arab Resource Organizing Center’s adult membership building efforts and the further development of the youth organizing program.
More>>
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
Fall 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
reproductivejustice.org
Project Description
For general support to expand and advance grassroots organizing within Asian communities and beyond around reproductive justice issues in the Bay Area.
More>>
Asian Immigrant Women Advocates
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
aiwa.org
Project Description
For general support to develop grassroots leadership among low-income immigrant women and youth in order contribute to the racial justice movement.
More>>
Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 year grant
Oakland, CA
aypal.org
Project Description
For general support to continue AYPAL's core work of racial justice organizing, leadership development, and arts activism.
More>>
Center for Young Women's Development
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
cywd.org
Project Description
To develop improved cross-county protocols for providing gender-responsive services to young women arrested in these three counties. And to engage incarcerated young women of color in political education workshops.
More>>
Communities for a Better Environment
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
cbecal.org
Project Description
To support environmental health education and community outreach, community leadership development, and research and policy advocacy work.
More>>
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 year grant
Oakland, CA
workingeastbay.org
Project Description
To support EBASE's main policy and advocacy strategies to improve jobs and reduce pollution at the Port of Oakland and create pathways out of poverty for Oakland's most vulnerable communities.
More>>
Ella Baker Center
Fall 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
ellabakercenter.org
Project Description
To support a ten-month fellowship program that will train Oakland's young leaders (ages 15 - 18) to develop and advocate for violence prevention policies.
More>>
Intertribal Friendship House
Fall 2009
$20,000
Oakland, CA
ifhurbanrez.org
Project Description
For general support to expand impact and visibility of IFH in the Bay Area as an advocacy organization for Native American social and racial justice, including the improvement in health disparities among Native Americans.
More>>
Just Cause Oakland
Fall 2009
$80,000
Oakland, CA
cjjc.org
Project Description
For general support to organize low-income Latino and African American residents of Oakland and San Francisco around housing justice and immigrant rights.
More>>
Justice Matters Institute
Fall 2009
$25,000
San Francisco, CA
justicematters.org
Project Description
To support the Real Schools Now Campaign in Richmond, CA, as well as to influence the local, state-based and national public discourse around education.
More>>
Leadership Excellence
Fall 2009
$45,000
Oakland, CA
leadershipexcellence.org
Project Description
To sustain four core programs which develop critical thinking, leadership, and racial justice advocacy skills in disengaged African American children and youth in Oakland.
More>>
Movement Generation
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
Project Description
To support broader movement convenings, including work with the Right to the City Alliance and the U.S. Social Forum along with local strategy building retreats, tailored trainings, curriculum development and technical assistance work.
More>>
Mujeres Unidas y Activas
Fall 2009
$80,000 – 2 year grant
San Francisco, CA
mujeresunidas.net
Project Description
To support the development of the power analysis, leadership, and organizing skills of Latina immigrant women.
More>>
Oakland ACORN
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
Project Description
To expand on the success of ACORN’s foreclosure fighter and home defender movement, stimulus investment, home ownership and tenant work.
More>>
Oakland Kids First
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 Year Grant
Oakland, CA
kidsfirstoakland.org
Project Description
For general support to train low-income youth of color to create a new student culture of peer support, full participation, and group accountability to make lasting systemic changes that improve educational outcomes in Oakland.
More>>
Oakland Rising
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
oaklandrising.org
Project Description
Oakland Rising intends to build on recent political victories to build a broad progressive issues platform and continue to expand their work in civic engagement, including extensive GOTV work.
More>>
Partnership for Immigrant Leadership Action
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
pilaweb.org
Project Description
To expand the immigrant community's civic engagement in such areas as parental involvement in schools, volunteerism, community organizing, and voting.
More>>
People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
peopleorganized.org
Project Description
To support POWER's efforts to unite and organize low-income families, workers and youth in communities of color in order to improve environmental health, increase access to affordable housing and living wage jobs and defend immigrant rights.
More>>
PODER - People Organizing To Demand Environmental and Economic Rights
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
podersf.org
Project Description
To support PODER's community organizing, leadership development and advocacy efforts to promote environmental and economic justice for low income immigrants and communities of color in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
More>>
People's Grocery
Fall 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
peoplesgrocery.org
Project Description
To enhance the leadership and career development activities among people of color; and to support the first larger-scale intensive urban agriculture and food production infrastructure in West Oakland.
More>>
Public Advocates
Fall 2009
$50,000
San Francisco, CA
publicadvocates.org
Project Description
To work with community partners in and affecting Oakland, with the goal of growing an informed, engaged base advocating for equity in transit funding and affordable housing and equitable development.
More>>
School of Unity and Liberation
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
schoolofunityandliberation.org
Project Description
To support the School of Unity and Liberation training center designed to develop a new generation of organizers and leaders who have the skills and analysis to build a movement for systemic change toward racial and economic justice
More>>
UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education
Fall 2009
$25,000
Berkeley, CA
laborcenter.berkeley.edu
Project Description
To support a Center for Black Worker Research and Training whose goal will be to improve the quality of jobs held by Black workers through the utilization of research, leadership development, technical assistance, and strategic communications.
More>>
Urban Habitat
Fall 2009
$130,000 – 2 year grant
$40,000
Oakland, CA
urbanhabitat.org
Project Description
For efforts to ensure that decision-makers on local and regional boards and commissions affecting housing and public transportation decisions are representative of and accountable to low-income communities of color.
More>>
Urban Strategies Council
Fall 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
urbanstrategies.org
Project Description
To support a redesign of community based web mapping and data warehouse system to allow for dedicated community/agency focused systems and the creation of a functioning governance structure for the Oakland Community Land Trust.
More>>
Youth Movement Records
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 Year Grant
Oakland, CA
youthmovementrecords.org
Project Description
YMR will cultivate the next generation of hip-hop leaders by engaging youth of color in the issues of racism and other forms of injustice and reach more than 200,000 youth with progressive social messages.
More>>
LONGER DESCRIPTIONS
All of Us or None
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 year grant
San Francisco, CA
prisonerswithchildren.org
Project Description
For support of the All of Us or None project, designed to build a movement of formerly incarcerated people, prisoners, families and allies to fully restore the rights for people with incarceration or convictions in their past—including employment eligibility, housing rights, voting rights, and public benefits.
Approach to Racial Justice
All of Us or None has emerged as a leading organization in the criminal justice/anti-prison movement, building political analysis among members and empowering them to speak in their own voices. Because the membership comprises predominantly people of color as well as the previously incarcerated they have become a key organization in this effort, occupying a unique and critical role in a movement that has traditionally lacked diversity at the leadership level.
Movement Building
All of Us or None is focused on organizing a movement of formerly-incarcerated people in Oakland, working in coalition with other community groups and organizing campaigns, such as Ban the Box and Clean Slate. Beyond Oakland, they are working in communities statewide and nationally, actively building a broad network of formerly incarcerated activists and organizers, with a goal of creating consensus on some national campaigns in order to move forward collectively.
Arab Resource Organizing Center
Fall 2009
$80,000 – 2 year grant
San Francisco, CA
araborganizing.org
Project Description
For general support of the Arab Resource Organizing Center’s adult membership building efforts and the further development of the youth organizing program.
Approach to Racial Justice
The Center focuses on challenging the discrimination and profiling facing Arabs, Muslims, and many people of color within the Arab community including developing young leaders. The Center will work specifically with several high schools and colleges in the area.
Movement Building
Arab Resource Organizing Center works to coordinate and connect with other organizations across California and across the country to support a powerful Arab youth voice in racial justice movements, the anti-war movement, immigrant rights efforts and beyond.
TOP
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice
Fall 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
reproductivejustice.org
Project Description
For general support to expand and advance grassroots organizing within Asian communities and beyond around reproductive justice issues in the Bay Area.
Approach to Racial Justice
ACRJ organizes young and adult women of color and young and adult immigrant women in order to strengthen a reproductive justice movement rooted in the needs and issues of local communities. They are also exploring how women's health is impacted by industries that exist at the heart of the climate crisis and how women and girls of color can play creative and cutting edge roles in leading the workplace and systemic changes needed to address the crisis.
Movement Building
ACRJ's analysis focusing on women of color and immigrant women working in low-wage toxic industries is being used to create a broad cross-sector coalition of community-based organizations, environmental experts and advocates, labor unions, and green businesses working to create, among other things, an equitable and just Oakland Energy and Climate Action Plan. Sisters in Action for Issues of Reproductive Justice (SAFIRE) is a youth leadership program at ACRJ that annually trains Asian girls from low-income, immigrant and refugee families in Oakland to research, develop and lead concrete, community-based reproductive justice efforts. As invaluable leaders, these women build bridges and translate between monolingual parents and mainstream society, educate their communities about reproductive justice, racial justice and social justice in a culturally competent way, while making significant gains in their overall health and well being.
TOP
>>
Asian Immigrant Women Advocates
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
aiwa.org
Project Description
For general support to develop grassroots leadership among low-income immigrant women and youth in order contribute to the racial justice movement.
Approach to Racial Justice
AIWA provides hands-on opportunities to youth core leaders in order to advance racial justice work in immigrant communities by working on critical issues such as racial health care disparities, educational equity for English language learners, and racially just immigration issues.
Movement Building
AIWA’s leadership development program equips immigrant women and youth to participate in coalitions and create a collective voice for important issues such as advocating for racially just health care reform. They develop leadership skills and movement building knowledge to empower this racially, linguistically and economically vulnerable, historically disadvantaged and politically marginalized group.
TOP
>>
Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 year grant
Oakland, CA
aypal.org
Project Description
For general support to continue AYPAL's core work of racial justice organizing, leadership development, and arts activism.
Approach to Racial Justice
AYPAL believes the key agents for creating systemic change are the communities most negatively impacted by race-based and profit-driven policies. AYPAL therefore organizes and develops the racial justice leadership of low-income Asian Pacific Islander youth to fight these inequities and to advance an agenda for progressive social change.
Movement Building
AYPAL is working to build infrastructure that connects our current leaders to the larger racial justice movement. AYPAL has convened meetings specifically with East Bay organizations to lay down the foundations for a movement pipeline that channels current and former youth leaders in progressive racial justice organizations.
Center for Young Women's Development
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
cywd.org
Project Description
To support strategic partnerships with Alameda County Probation jurisdiction and Oakland-based organizations for research relating to juvenile arrests in Oakland/San Francisco/Contra Costa. To develop improved cross-county protocols for providing gender-responsive services to young women arrested in these three counties. And to engage incarcerated young women of color in political education workshops.
Approach to Racial Justice
CYWD provides political education to and advocacy for incarcerated girls, especially girls of color, in order prevent their recidivism back into juvenile hall. CYWD's presence in both jurisdictions has provided continuity that previously did not exist for this population.
Movement Building
Engaging young women in these counties in political education workshops ensures the young women of color most affected by these policies have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this movement.
TOP
Communities for a Better Environment
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
cbecal.org
Project Description
To support environmental health education and community outreach, community leadership development, and research and policy advocacy work.
Approach to Racial Justice
CBE, along with the Silent Spring Institute, the AVON Foundation and health experts from Brown University, formed collaboration between breast cancer activists and the environmental justice community to address the disproportionate levels of breast cancer in low-income communities of color. CBE has also documented and highlighted the environmental effects of toxic pollution along the Hegenberger Corridor along with forwarding policy recommendations to mitigate the cumulative effects of pollution within the community.
Movement Building
In order to address the issues facing Oakland in an effective way over the long-term, CBE has established a model plan for building partnerships with public health agencies, community-based organizations, and the philanthropic sector. CBE is building grassroots power in and with communities of color and working-class communities most affected by these environmental inequities. CBE has reached thousands of community members, youth, elected officials, regulatory staff, funders, allies and others through flyer distribution, toxic tours, hearings, testimony, rallies, door-to-door outreach, research studies, leadership trainings and presentations.
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 year grant
Oakland, CA
workingeastbay.org
Project Description
To support EBASE's main policy and advocacy strategies to improve jobs and reduce pollution at the Port of Oakland and create pathways out of poverty for Oakland's most vulnerable communities.
Approach to Racial Justice
EBASE's mission is to advance economic and social justice by building power and raising standards for working families. Racial injustice, immigrant scapegoating and gender inequality all create barriers to economic security and equity.
Movement Building
EBASE is a bridge-builder in Oakland's social justice community, connecting worker rights with the racial justice movement, especially through our campaign and coalition work. We bridge the interests of communities often perceived to have conflicting interests. By bridging worker organizing to environmental justice—exposing the common links of public health and corporate accountability—EBASE seeks policy changes that will produce good jobs and clean up the environment. One example of EBASE's bridge-building role is the Worker Immigrant Rights Coalition (WIRC), an alliance of Bay Area labor unions and worker justice organizations fighting for humane immigration reform that would prioritize the rights of immigrant workers.
Ella Baker Center
Fall 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
ellabakercenter.org
Project Description
To support Heal the Streets, a project stemming from a previous older campaign, Silence the Violence. Heal the Streets is a ten-month fellowship program that will train Oakland's young leaders (ages 15 - 18) to develop and advocate for violence prevention policies.
Approach to Racial Justice
The Center focuses on civic engagement and leadership development, specifically focusing on youth involvement and the impact policies have on youth and families. For example, the Community Service for Community Change program aims to bring residents together to share resources, build mutual prosperity, and improve the environment.
Movement Building
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has been a champion of movement building in Oakland and across California.
Through Books Not Bars, 1,400 family members of incarcerated youth in California's Department of Juvenile Justice were mobilized, creating a local and statewide movement to reduce the number of youth sent to DJJ. Their Green-Collar Jobs Campaign has gained attention statewide and nationally, creating green career pathways out of poverty.
Through the 10-month Heal the Streets fellowship program, youth will work with government officials, community organization and their peers to find solutions to violence and promote opportunities within their communities.
Intertribal Friendship House
Fall 2009
$20,000
Oakland, CA
ifhurbanrez.org
Project Description
For general support to expand impact and visibility of IFH in the Bay Area as an advocacy organization for Native American social and racial justice, including the improvement in health disparities among Native Americans.
Approach to Racial Justice
The role of the Friendship House is to serve as a forum for Native people to engage in organizing, advocacy, and movement-building through provision of culturally-competent programming. Opportunities that IFH provides for cultural expression and pride as well as organizing and activism are a coping strategy within this environment and can be a catalyst for the spiritual healing and renewal of our community.
Movement Building
IFH builds and strengthens existing bridges to external organizations to increase the ability to advocate for community issues. Creating broader alliances also exposes the broader community to Native lifeways.
Just Cause Oakland
Fall 2009
$80,000
Oakland, CA
cjjc.org
Project Description
For general support to organize low-income Latino and African American residents of Oakland and San Francisco around housing justice and immigrant rights.
Approach to Racial Justice
As a member of Right to the City (RTTC) coalition, Just Cause advances the voice of the urban working class against gentrification and the national divestment in affordable housing. This coalition is important in building alliance and mutual investment between urban communities of color across the United States. Through amplifying the voices of oppressed peoples in a concerted, national effort, those voices will be heard on a larger scale and in greater numbers.
Movement Building
Just Cause Oakland is a key member of several coalitions and alliances, including Oakland Rising, Right to the City (RTTC), and Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ).
TOP
Justice Matters Institute
Fall 2009
$25,000
San Francisco, CA
justicematters.org
Project Description
To support the Real Schools Now Campaign in Richmond, CA, as well as to influence the local, state-based and national public discourse around education.
Approach to Racial Justice
Justice Matters engages parents, community leaders, policy makers, elected officials, and members of the philanthropic community to surface a people of color-led racial justice framework for educational issues, including systemic issues that disproportionately impact communities of color. Justice Matters has sought to bring about effective, responsive and sustainable policy change education initiatives rooted in the vision and values of racial justice.
Movement Building
The organization plays various roles in the racial justice movement, from leading organizing efforts for racially just schooling, collaborating and supporting agendas in line with racial justice values and vision, and being a voice and catalyst for racial justice analysis. As an active member of the Campaign for Quality Education, the Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership in Alameda County, and the Educational Justice Collaborative, the group’s reach is local, regional and statewide.
TOP
Leadership Excellence
Fall 2009
$45,000
Oakland, CA
leadershipexcellence.org
Project Description
To sustain four core programs which develop critical thinking, leadership, and racial justice advocacy skills in disengaged African American children and youth in Oakland.
Approach to Racial Justice
As an African American organization working towards social change, Leadership Excellence focuses on youth development and growth from a position of self awareness. It is important for the trajectory of the movement that youth become not only active but invested. Youths' ability to see community development as a personal choice and lifestyle during this critical time of identity formation can have a lasting impact on racial justice movement building in the long term.
Movement Building
Leadership Excellence has developed versions of their training workshops that are tailored for outside audiences without the benefit of our sequential services. This is a key opportunity to impact racial justice movement building in Oakland and beyond.
TOP
Movement Generation
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
Project Description
To support broader movement convenings, including work with the Right to the City Alliance and the U.S. Social Forum along with local strategy building retreats, tailored trainings, curriculum development and technical assistance work.
Approach to Racial Justice
Movement Generation supports the analysis, coordination and action of Bay Area racial justice organizations in relationship to key ecological justice issues such as climate change, urban food security, water security, the transition towards an equitable green economy, and the protection of biological and cultural diversity.
Movement Building
Movement Generation is aiming to solidify the role that racial justice organizations in the Bay Area and beyond are assuming within the ecological justice community, with a particular eye towards showcasing a shared set of analyses, strategies and actions at the United States Social Forum in June of 2010.
TOP
Mujeres Unidas y Activas
Fall 2009
$80,000 – 2 year grant
San Francisco, CA
mujeresunidas.net
Project Description
To support the development of the power analysis, leadership, and organizing skills of Latina immigrant women; conduct peer-led outreach and trainings; and lead campaigns for immigrant rights, domestic worker rights, and violence prevention in Oakland.
Approach to Racial Justice
Leadership development of Latina immigrant women is the foundation of MUA's work. MUA believes in their members' capacity to be leaders of their own lives, their families, their communities, and their organization. They address basic needs first through direct service provision, and steadily dismantling barriers—such as low self-esteem, domestic violence, and economic hardship—that otherwise prevent many women from recognizing their own potential to make change.
Movement Building
As the only base-building organization specifically dedicated to building the power of Latina immigrant women in Oakland, MUA plays a unique role in racial justice movement. MUA's job is to provide a space where Latina immigrant women are able to develop their own analysis of power, make their voices heard, and take the lead in building coalitions for immigrant rights, domestic workers' rights, and women's rights.
TOP
Oakland ACORN
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
Project Description
To expand on the success of ACORN’s foreclosure fighter and home defender movement, stimulus investment, home ownership and tenant work, as well as participation in multiple coalitions to create an anti-gentrification model for middle market cities in the country.
Approach to Racial Justice
ACORN members focus on ways to quantify and measure progress in tackling structural racism, including among other things tracking good career jobs within the community, tracking the number of people in quality, affordable housing, and tracking the number of foreclosures and evictions in low-income communities and communities of color.
Movement Building
Oakland ACORN continues to work off of grassroots organizing, leadership development, civic and political engagement and strategic campaigns to pass policy and budget priorities. ACORN's role has been to work with indigenous community leaders in playing an active role in the social justice movement to not only help move decisions but to return to their community informing their neighbors and institutions.
TOP
Oakland Kids First
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 Year Grant
Oakland, CA
kidsfirstoakland.org
Project Description
For general support to train low-income youth of color to create a new student culture of peer support, full participation, and group accountability that will allow students to build the power needed to make lasting systemic changes that improve educational outcomes and results in Oakland.
Approach to Racial Justice
Oakland Kids First creates opportunities for young people to transform schools and communities through youth leadership and action. OKF elevates the importance of culture change, alongside policy change, to create racially just schools. OKF engages the most marginalized students in order to become cornerstones in addressing structural racism in Oakland high schools.
Movement Building
OKF will leverage positive relationships with schools to offer core leadership training at each school site, doubling the number of youth from each school that can participate in the program and building a deeper and broader movement to transform Oakland schools.
TOP
Oakland Rising
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
oaklandrising.org
Project Description
Oakland Rising intends to build on recent political victories to build a broad progressive issues platform and continue to expand their work in civic engagement, including extensive GOTV work.
Approach to Racial Justice
Oakland Rising is the result of six community-based organizations that have come together to build a progressive city -wide electoral base that forwards an agenda which addresses the needs and issues of low income communities of color in Oakland. Organizations that make up Oakland Rising have decided to step-up and take leadership to build and put in place the capacity needed to realize and sustain a long-term progressive vision for Oakland.
Movement Building
Oakland Rising has literally emerged out of a strong foundation of movement building work in Oakland, creating an effective community organizing group out of sister organizations. Oakland Rising intends to continue this trajectory and build on their growth and electoral success through community outreach, developing a broad policy platform, trainings and expanded civic engagement efforts.
TOP
Partnership for Immigrant Leadership Action
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
pilaweb.org
Project Description
To expand the immigrant community's civic engagement in such areas as parental involvement in schools, volunteerism, community organizing, and voting. PILA also develops grassroots leadership to strengthen the capacity of immigrant organizations to link their work, build alliances, and advocate for healthy communities in the Greater Bay Area of California.
Approach to Racial Justice
PILA supports organizations who strive to address environmental, economic, and criminal justice issues that negatively affect low-income communities of color.
Movement Building
PILA aims to build the capacity of immigrant-led grassroots organizations through the Strategic Program for Action and Community Empowerment [SPACE]. PILA will support organizations by providing facilitated and working convenings, retreats, trainings and learning sessions.
TOP
People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
peopleorganized.org
Project Description
To support POWER's efforts to unite and organize low-income families, workers and youth in communities of color in order to improve environmental health, increase access to affordable housing and living wage jobs and defend immigrant rights.
Approach to Racial Justice
Through grassroots organizing campaigns, leadership development and movement building, POWER is increasing the power of African American families and youth in Bayview Hunters Point and low-wage immigrant Latina women workers in San Francisco to affect positive change in their workplaces and neighborhoods.
Movement Building
POWER is using a structural racism analysis and a movement-building approach in local, regional and national organizing efforts. They are prioritizing broad and strategic alliances and relationships around shared goals and joint work, which increase the impact and create opportunities to educate and move allies towards a sharper racial justice analysis and commitment.
TOP
PODER - People Organizing To Demand Environmental and Economic Rights
Fall 2009
$40,000
San Francisco, CA
podersf.org
Project Description
To support PODER's community organizing, leadership development and advocacy efforts to promote environmental and economic justice for low income immigrants and communities of color in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Approach to Racial Justice
Through PODER's collaborations, they are working with organizations in Oakland to address fundamental racial justice issues affecting low income communities of color and immigrant communities such as the right to live in the city, environmental racism and strengthening the participation of people of color and immigrants in the electoral process. PODER is also using cross-racial youth leadership programs with sister organizations in the Common Roots Program. This program has successfully fostered the political consciousness and organizing skills of Latino and Chinese immigrant youth and cultivated cross-racial solidarity and understanding.
Movement Building
PODER is working to build a movement beyond San Francisco, Oakland and the Bay Area, throughout the state of California and nationally. They connect their work with broader-based movement building efforts through partnerships with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, the California State Alliance, the Mobilize the Immigrant Vote Initiative, the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice , Network and the Right to the City Alliance to name a few.
TOP
People's Grocery
Fall 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
peoplesgrocery.org
Project Description
To support the next phase of bringing People's Grocery community food system to scale; to enhance the leadership and career development activities among people of color; and to support the first larger-scale intensive urban agriculture and food production infrastructure in West Oakland.
Approach to Racial Justice
In low income communities of color, the basic human right to healthy food has been sacrificed to global food industry and industrial agricultural interests. People’s Grocery strives to reverse this injustice by mobilizing people of color to control their own food production, distribution and consumption; and to educate and influence others in the healthy food movement to assure that food system reform benefits everyone, regardless of class, race or ethnicity.
Movement Building
The group provides leadership development and nutrition education to residents to increase their knowledge and change their attitudes and behaviors towards healthy food choices. The Community Health and Nutrition Demonstrators (Community HANDS) program will provide intensive Training for Trainers, equipping teams of resident leaders to provide nutrition education and food preparation training to their communities.
TOP
Public Advocates
Fall 2009
$50,000
San Francisco, CA
publicadvocates.org
Project Description
To work with community partners in and affecting Oakland, with the goal of growing an informed, engaged base advocating for equity in transit funding and affordable housing and equitable development.
Approach to Racial Justice
Public Advocates challenges the systemic causes of poverty and discrimination by defending and expanding civil rights through advocacy, litigation, and partnership with low-income communities, people of color, and immigrants. They have chosen to address areas such as education, housing, transportation and health that are fundamental to enabling individuals and communities to fulfill their potential
Movement Building
By engaging in strategic partnerships, policy and media advocacy and litigation, Public Advocates will increase the capacity of grassroots organizations to shape public policy and discourse, which can also positively influence public opinion, the media, policy makers and courts to hold business and government accountable.
TOP
School of Unity and Liberation
Fall 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
schoolofunityandliberation.org
Project Description
To support the School of Unity and Liberation training center designed to develop a new generation of organizers and leaders who have the skills and analysis to build a movement for systemic change toward racial and economic justice
Approach to Racial Justice
SOUL conducts workshops and disseminates curricula which explicitly explore racism at the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels with an emphasis on structural institutional racism. Trainings also explore gentrification, displacement and workers' rights while building the capacity of people of color to become leaders in their communities.
Movement Building
By developing a new generation of organizers rooted in systemic change analysis—especially people of color, young women, queer and transgender youth and low-income people—SOUL is working to build a stronger, more effective movement. SOUL provides nuts-and-bolts organizing skills, strong political analysis, and a vision for fundamental social change.
TOP
UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education
Fall 2009
$25,000
Berkeley, CA
laborcenter.berkeley.edu
Project Description
The Labor Center is in the process of building a Center for Black Worker Research and Training whose goal will be to improve the quality of jobs held by Black workers through the utilization of research, leadership development, technical assistance, and strategic communications including a report on Black workers in the East Bay.
Approach to Racial Justice
Because most people of color are working people and many of the problems facing communities of color stem from a lack of economic power, The Center believes that strong, democratic unions are a key solution to structural racism. Employing a message of job quality and the need for job transformation, The Center has engaged the Black immigrant movement and the Black male empowerment movement. In addition, the Center is working to create a broader narrative framework, to examine organizing as something deeper and richer than a mechanical set of tools.
Movement Building
The Labor Center’s contribution to racial justice movement building involves using leadership development and research programs to assist union growth and union transformation—in particular the need to reach out to immigrants and people of color. The C.L. Dellums African American Union Leadership School is a key strategy in this effort, with graduates moving on to work with significant partners in the movement. A full-fledged Center for Black Worker Research and Training will be another key component of this effort.
TOP
Urban Habitat
Fall 2009
$130,000 – 2 year grant
Oakland, CA
urbanhabitat.org
Project Description
For efforts to ensure that decision-makers on local and regional boards and commissions affecting housing and public transportation decisions are representative of and accountable to low-income communities of color.
Approach to Racial Justice
Urban Habitat looks at the Bay Area's planning and development policies through a critical social and racial justice lens. Both past and current development policies and practices such as discriminatory zoning and redlining have isolated people of color and the poor from economic opportunity and concentrated these communities in areas of poverty and pollution. Urban Habitat is part of a joint working group to stop a fare hike proposed by AC Transit that would have eliminated the reduced fare bus passes for youth and the senior/disabled riders.
Movement Building
Founded in 1989, Urban Habitat's mission is to build power in low-income communities and communities of color by combining education, advocacy, research and coalition building to advance environmental, economic and social justice in the Bay Area. Urban Habitat is dedicated to increasing the capacity of the Bay Area's low-income communities of color to win long-term policy change in key areas including transportation, housing, economic development, health, and land-use. We advance policy solutions that address racial injustice and offer customized leadership development trainings to increase effective community participation in these policy-making arenas.
TOP
Urban Strategies Council
Fall 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
urbanstrategies.org
Project Description
To support a redesign of community based web mapping and data warehouse system to allow for dedicated community/agency focused systems and the creation of a functioning governance structure for the Oakland Community Land Trust.
Approach to Racial Justice
The Council's mission is to eliminate persistent poverty by working with partners to transform low-income neighborhoods into vibrant, healthy communities. The Council uses its core skills in service to low-income communities of color, including data and information for action; convening, facilitation and strategic planning; program and tool development; advocacy for policy and systems reform; and capacity building and technical assistance.
Movement Building
The Council takes a multi-racial/-ethnic approach to neighborhood-based strategies because few neighborhoods in Oakland are of a single ethnicity. The most stable base for broad-based reforms are multi-racial/ethnic coalitions of low income residents that work to address issues that are common to all working-class communities of color. Overall goals include a federation of neighborhood-based membership organizations, whose memberships are primarily working-class people of color, working to advance the interests of that base. Each of these organizations would have sufficient power to play a major role in economic development and resource allocation decisions in their neighborhoods.
TOP
Fall 2009
$100,000 – 2 Year Grant
Oakland, CA
youthmovementrecords.org
Project Description
To engage 400 young people this year in critical consciousness raising and media development. YMR will cultivate the next generation of hip-hop leaders by engaging youth of color in the issues of racism and other forms of injustice and reach more than 200,000 youth with progressive social messages.
Approach to Racial Justice
Youth Movement Records creates a progressive cultural counter-punch to challenge the racist and oppressive stereotypes targeting youth in the main stream media by developing the next generation of hip-hop leaders. These leaders will emerge by engaging youth of color in the process of critical consciousness raising and media literacy, particularly around is sues of racism and other forms of injustice.
Movement Building
YMR's mission statement captures the essence of the organization, which is to use the framework of a media company for the purpose of developing young leaders and for making social change.
"Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle."
- Malcolm X