FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 14, 2018
Akonadi Foundation Launches Third Year of #SoLoveCanWin Community Response Fund
Funding will support efforts that create healing and safety in Oakland’s communities of color
Oakland- Akonadi Foundation announced today the third year of the So Love Can Win Community Response Fund to support and seed racial justice projects in Oakland that reimagine, as well as lift up, healing and safety for communities of color.
Through the fund, Akonadi will award grants of up to $5,000 to community organizations who seek to advance safety and healing in communities most harmed by inequity and injustice in Oakland. In 2018, Akonadi will distribute a total of $115,000 through the So Love Can Win Fund, and applicants will receive a decision within two weeks of submitting an application. The foundation will accept applications for funding on a rolling basis through November 15,2018.
So Love Can Win was launched in 2016 to support community efforts to create gathering spaces and healing opportunities during a wave of racialized police-involved shootings and community violence. Since the fund’s inception, the foundation has awarded 64 grants totaling over $200,000 to spiritual practitioners and frontline activists working in partnership with organizations to build community rooted solutions that promote safety and healing.
“Oakland can and should be a haven for communities of color to thrive, but we urgently need to uplift current efforts and seed new ways of what safety looks like – beyond policing and prisons – in order to address the roots causes of social issues,” said Iris Garcia, So Love Can Win Program Officer. “We seek to invest in our collective radical imagination to dream of what a more just, safe world can look like for all of us.”
The projects supported in 2018 will create spaces for connection, build culturally relevant self-care and community-care practices, and bring an intergenerational frame to sustaining healing and safety.
Visit our website to learn more about how to apply for So Love Can Win. Spread the word and join the conversation online using the hashtags, #SoLoveCanWin, #SLCW18.
About Akonadi Foundation
Akonadi Foundation’s mission is to support the development of powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society. Through an ecosystem grant making lens, Akonadi supports and nurtures racial justice movement building in Oakland by supporting grassroots organizing, culture shift, and policy change. Since its founding in 2000, the Foundation has given over 1,600 grants totaling $35 million to nonprofit organizations, primarily in the Bay Area as well as across the country. For more information: Akonadi.org. On social media @akonadi_oakland