Fostering Belonging & Radical Imagination for Racial Justice
Akonadi Foundation believes that arts, culture, and healing are vital to racial justice movement building. Creativity has long been a force for resistance, resilience, and transformation, offering communities opportunities to come together, share their stories, and imagine a better future. We are committed to supporting BIPOC artists, culture bearers, and healers who inspire joy, hope, and collective action. Through this work, we seek to deepen belonging and strengthen the cultural foundation of movements for change in Oakland and Alameda County.
We invest in initiatives that integrate arts and healing into organizing efforts, ensuring that those fighting for justice have the space to restore, reflect, and sustain their work. We provide resources to Oakland-based artists and cultural workers who use their craft to spark critical conversations, uplift community voices, and envision new possibilities for liberation. By strengthening the creative and healing infrastructure of racial justice movements, we help build a more connected and resilient ecosystem.
Our signature projects and funding include:
Racial Justice Poster Project
Akonadi Foundation distributed our first Racial Justice poster in 2008 to commemorate March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Each year, a different Oakland-based artist or group of artists creates a new poster that illustrates their vision for a racially just future, sparks dialogue, and inspires action.
So Love Can Win
The So Love Can Win Fund originally launched in 2016 in response to critical national and local events that challenged a sense of safety for communities of color, with the intention to spark imagination and seed a vision of a safe, healed, and racially just Oakland. We provided grants to organizations, initiatives and projects in Oakland that focus on local racial justice organizing, art and culture, healing and wellness, and journalism, storytelling, or narrative change.
We Love Oakland
“We Love Oakland” is a campaign Akonadi sponsored in 2024 to celebrate vibrant and joyful culture, community, and activism that defines and animates the life and dreams of our beloved city. Oakland is home to artists, teachers, healers, organizers, cultural strategists, and more who are building solutions that are rooted in love and hope for our future. We featured stories and art from diverse Oakland community members about what roots them in Oakland, and their dreams, ideas, and investments in seeing our city flourish.
Creatives in Place
Creatives in Place was a collaborative listening project shared in 2021 that began with a question: In a time of such economic and racial disparity, what do creative and cultural communities need in order to continue to be rooted in the Bay Area?
We identified 22 diverse, multidisciplinary artists throughout the Bay Area and offered them a stipend to participate in a creative journey with us and share their insights and perspectives. The results of their wisdom is captured in a website, featuring photography, videography and other multimedia pieces from each of the artists and also ended up as a window display in downtown Oakland.
