For answers to these thought-provoking questions, we turn to community-rooted visionaries, artists, activists, cultural workers and resilient culture keepers to help us create barrier-breaking narrative frames, policy ideas, and practices; to recover old wisdoms to illuminate future paths; and to liberate our imaginations and realize untapped potential.

Belonging in Oakland: A Just City Cultural Fund (the Fund) is a unique public-private partnership inspired by the values lifted up in the City of Oakland’s cultural plan, Belonging in Oakland and a vision to create a more just city. The partnership brings together the cultural equity vision of Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Division, the racial justice mission of the Akonadi Foundation, and the commitment to power building of East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF).

Belonging in Oakland: A Just City Cultural Fund is made possible with major funding from the Surdna Foundation’s Thriving Cultures program and additional funding from the Akonadi Foundation and East Bay Community Foundation. Radical Imagination for Racial Justice is Surdna’s national regranting initiative to enable artists in partnership with communities to reimagine policies and practices that will advance justice for those most impacted by systemic racism.

The Fund will award no more than three community-centered collaborations with grants of $100,000 per year for three years, in addition to a $12,000 stipend each year toward life sustaining expenses of the artists/cultural practitioners (for example, to pay down student debt, healthcare or childcare expenses, etc.) and a stipend of up to $25,000 for project-related research/documentation. The program also includes networking and peer learning support for awardees.