Akonadi Foundation

Are you part of an Oakland-based organization, group, or collective seeking to ignite and implement a radical collective vision of freedom and racial justice in Oakland? Or do you know a group doing great work that fits this description?

Apply for our 2026 Fund! Applications are due by June 30th: https://akonadi.org/so-love-can-win/

2026 So Love Can Win Fund - Akonadi Foundation Akonadi Foundation’s So Love Can Win Fund provides project support grants to Oakland’s organizers, storytellers, culture bearers, and healers who seek to ignite and implement a radical collective vision of freedom and racial justice. Grant awards range between $10,000 to $30,000. About So Love C...

Happy Pride Month! We are so thankful for Oakland's incredible LGBTQ+ community. In the face of mounting attacks on q***r people, especially trans communities, we are reminded the first Pride was, in fact, a riot.

Akonadi is PROUD to stand alongside our LGBTQ+ led and serving partners who are working to ensure all our neighbors are seen, safe, and free.

While Oakland's official Pride celebration is in August, there are still so many opportunities to celebrate throughout the Bay.

🌈 San Francisco Pride June 27-28
🌈 Enchanted Masquerade: Q***r Prom 2026 hosted by Town Youth Club
🌈 Pride Sip N' Paint hosted by Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District
🌈 Soulovely PRIDE IS A RIOT!, an alternative Pride experience

Our 2026 Fund applications are open now! These grants support Oakland-based organizations and projects focused on one or more of the following strategies for racial justice:
💫 Storytelling that advances narratives of togetherness and belonging
💫 Arts and culture spaces bringing people together for deeper understanding and collective action
💫 Initiatives fostering collaboration between movement leaders, community leaders and artists/culture bearers

Learn more about the Fund and apply by June 30th: https://akonadi.org/so-love-can-win/

It's a beautiful time to be outside in Oakland! There are so many ways to get plugged into the community. From Juneteenth celebrations and new exhibitions to cookouts and work classes, there's something for all of us.

Upcoming events include:
💫 new "Comrade Sisters" exhibit at Black Panther Party Museum
💫 We Losin’ Recipes cookout by West Oakland Library Friends, solfood, and West Oakland Public Library
💫 Juneteenth! At the Museum presented by Oakland Museum of California and Black Freedom Fund
💫 Oaktown Thursdays monthly outdoor series every third Thursday from June - October

Visit weloveoakland.akonadi.org for details on more events in The Town.

Applications for our 2026 Fund are now live!

We're so proud to support Oakland-based groups who seek to ignite and implement a radical collective vision of freedom and racial justice. This year, we’re prioritizing:
🌟 Storytelling advancing belonging and counters the doom loop narrative
🌟 Arts & culture spaces bringing people together to inspire collective action
🌟 Projects fostering collaboration between movement leaders, community leaders and artists/culture bearers

Apply by June 30th and learn more here: https://akonadi.org/so-love-can-win/

Our 2026 Racial Justice Poster, “Get In Where You Fit In,” celebrates all the ways we can show up for our communities. Few demonstrate that sentiment more powerfully than our partners at Urban Peace Movement and the remarkable young leaders they’re cultivating every day.

UPM builds youth leadership in Oakland to transform the culture and social conditions that lead to community violence and mass incarceration in communities of color. At the heart of their approach is “Healing-Centered Youth Organizing,” a model that supports young people to feel self-confident and hopeful while empowering them to work for healing, social justice, and a brighter future for all.

As we move toward the midterms, Urban Peace Movement’s youth organizers know the stakes have never been higher. UPM’s youth leaders stand up for issues that affect our families and neighborhoods most: racial justice, community-rooted safety, cultural preservation, and power building for young people in our most marginalized communities.

Right now, UPM’s youth leaders are campaigning to end the use of pepper spray on youth in detention facilities, and they’re asking all of us to join in – attend a council meeting, join a campaign, sign a petition, and turn out to insist on solutions that honor our progressive community values.

Learn more about Urban Peace Movement’s work: https://urbanpeacemovement.org/

Our 2026 Racial Justice Poster, “Get In Where You Fit In,” created by artist Thi Bui, beautifully captures all of the ways we can all show up in our communities. Our partners at Oaklash live out this ethos every day in their work with Oakland’s q***r and trans communities.

Oaklash produces large-scale drag performances, facilitates mutual aid, and provides mentorship to emerging q***r and trans leaders in nightlife. Their year-round programming creates safe and accessible environments celebrating the full diversity of intersectional identities in the community.

And in 2026, Oaklash continues to lean in and double down on political engagement and community mutual aid as the new status quo. As Mama Celeste shared with us, “meet your neighbors, volunteer for causes you believe in, and share what resources you have —not because things are bad right now but because this is the ecosystem we need for progress to happen in the Bay Area and around the country.”

Thank you, Oaklash, for the joy, creativity, care and celebration you bring to our community. We are so proud to support your work. Learn more about Oaklash here: https://www.oaklash.com/

For 17 years, Akonadi has invested in the Racial Justice Poster Project to celebrate Oakland’s rich community of artists and lift up the connection between art and activism.

The 2026 Racial Justice Poster, “Get In Where You Fit In,” was created by writer and artist Thi Bui. Our new blog features a conversation between poster artist Thi Bui and Akonadi Founder and Board Chair Quinn Delaney on the role of art in Oakland activism, what it looks like to see yourself in a movement, and how philanthropy can engage artists to build and sustain real change over the long term.

Thi’s message for funders on investing in the arts? “It’s such a gift to be honored as a whole person and to be given the space and freedom to really create, rather than just illustrate an idea or meet a request in a transactional way. A lot of people think that when they engage with an artist, they have to already envision what they want, so the artist just executes, and that loses so much of the magic of what art and artists can do.”

Read their full conversation here: https://akonadi.org/finding-heart-and-courage-in-difficult-times-through-art/

akonadi.org

Our 2026 Racial Justice Poster theme, “Get In Where You Fit In,” celebrates all the ways people show up for one another and for their communities.

For our partners at Saba Grocers Initiative - سبأ للأكل الصحي, that means making sure everyone has access to healthy food and trusted information about health and well-being. This year, Saba Grocers is focused on deepening relationships with residents and strengthening community-led advocacy around food access.

At the same time, they are navigating real challenges. Anticipated SNAP cuts under HR.1, “The One Big Beautiful Act,” are already creating stress for both residents and small store owners, and the uncertainty is real. Saba Grocers is staying closely connected with Alameda County Social Services to share updates on CalFresh changes and work requirements, while continuing to advocate for clearer data and greater investment in community-based solutions.

Even at this moment, their commitment remains the same: to build power with residents and ensure their voices drive the policies that affect their quality of life and health.

We’re proud to invest in organizations like Saba Grocers. Learn more about their work: https://www.sabagrocers.org/our-story

Yesterday, we celebrated the birthday of revolutionary leader and activist El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, more widely known as Malcolm X.

This past Saturday, our Senior Program Officer, Demetria Huntsman, attended East Side Arts Alliance's 26th Annual Malcolm X JazzArts Festival. The festival, which brings together arts, culture, community and healing, occurs every year during the week of Brother Malcolm’s birthday.

For our latest blog, Demetria wrote about Malcolm’s understanding of something that many political movements still struggle to fully embrace: that the fight for Black liberation is inseparable from the cultural imagination of Black people. At Akonadi, our healing, arts, and culture strategy is grounded in this same understanding that creativity is and has always been a force for resistance and transformation.

To EastSide Arts Alliance: we thank you for what you have built and sustained for over two decades. In a political moment that tries, relentlessly, to rob us of joy, you keep creating space for it.

And to Brother Malcolm, whose birthday we celebrate with full hearts, thank you for showing us what it looks like to love your people all the way to the end.

All photos by Demetria, featuring her cousins, Lyndsey and Thelonious.

Read more reflections: https://akonadi.org/remembering-malcolm-x-through-art-and-celebration-in-oakland/