Akonadi Foundation Allocates $1 Million for COVID-19 Rapid Response Funding Through the Relaunch of its So Love Can Win Fund
April 8, 2020
OAKLAND, CA — Akonadi Foundation announced today that it will allocate $1 million from its endowment in rapid response funding to people of color-led organizations and initiatives in Oakland that are on the frontlines of responding to communities impacted by COVID-19.
From disparate health impacts and health care access, mass job loss, housing insecurity, crowded jails and prisons, and the absence of safety net programs, the magnitude of the pandemic further exacerbates racialized inequities. Oakland’s movement leaders and organizations are being challenged like never before to meet and sustain power in this moment and beyond.
“This unprecedented moment demands progressive philanthropy rapidly move unrestricted resources to powerbuilding groups working in communities,” said Lateefah Simon, Akonadi Foundation President. “Oakland’s racial justice movement ecosystem is hard at work. And as these groups build solidarity across campaigns, provide around-the-clock support for community residents, and hold leaders to task, we too, as funders, must step up.”
Akonadi Foundation has a 20-year history of providing rapid response funds to social change movement building groups in times of political unrest, economic fragility, and community crisis. The Foundation’s 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. With the current pandemic heightening racialized inequities, the Foundation is relaunching the fund to support Oakland-based efforts led by Black, Indigenous and people of color using organizing, healing, arts and culture, and journalism and narrative strategies to fortify the resilience and vitality of our people.
Details on the So Love Can Win Fund:
- The fund will provide one-time rapid response grants of up to $10,000 and can be used for general support.
- The unrestricted funding will help sustain emerging needs to meet community demands and/or to aid the loss of operational revenue from facility closures, cancelled programs, events or other impacts of the Bay Area’s need to shelter in place.
- Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and interviews will happen online or via phone; applicants will receive a decision within two weeks from the day their application is submitted.
- Funds will be distributed in two cycles with $500,000 disbursed between April and June, and $500,000 disbursed between July and September.
Click here for more information on how to apply.
Akonadi Foundation supports powerful social change movements, primarily in Oakland, that work to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society. Akonadi Foundation seeks to stop the criminalization of young people of color and promote responses to harm that nurture wellness and well-being. Since its founding in 2000, the Foundation has given over 1,800 grants totalling $43 million to nonprofit organizations, primarily in the Bay Area as well as across the country.