A small farm with the afternoon sun shining in the blue sky. The silhouette of a person tending to the garden can be seen.

Justice Funders (Past Project)

Location: Oakland, CA
Region: United States
Founding: 2009
Founders/leadership: Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, co-director; Dana Kawaoka-Chen, co-director

Justice Funders first emerged in 2009 as the Bay Area Justice Funders Network, as local funders sought spaces to unite the philanthropic community and front-line leaders following the murder of Oscar Grant by BART Police.

A partner and guide for reimagining philanthropic practices that advance a thriving and just world, Justice Funders fosters leadership development by supporting professional grantmakers and consulting with philanthropic institutions to reimagine how their organizations can operate as a justice funder. 

Justice Funders believes philanthropy must take an active role in building a world that redistributes wealth, democratizes power, and shifts economic control to communities. The organization is guided by the principles of Just Transition which support a shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. 


A picture from above of a room of people surrounding a table at Movement Generation

Movement Generation (Past Project)

Location: Oakland, CA
Founding: 2004
Founders/leadership: Zak Sinclair, founding director  

Movement Generation is rooted in vibrant social movements led by low-income communities and communities of color and committed to a Just Transition. Built out by a planning committee that included grassroots organizers, movement builders, and popular educators, Movement Generation’s concept intends to inspire and engage in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture. 

During their first two years, Movement Generation was housed by the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and Movement Strategy Center. During that time, they brought together more than 70 young movement leaders from more than 30 organizations for two cycles of ten-month movement strategy discussions. Movement Generation has since engaged with over 150 organizations and thousands of change agents (community leaders, activists, and organizers) through intensive retreats, political education, hands-on skills workshops, peer exchange, campaign development, alliance building, and strategic support. 


A large group of energetic people hold handmade poster board signs for Oakland Rising.

Oakland Rising (Past Project)

Location: Oakland, CA
Region: California
Founding: 2006
Founders/Leadership: Liz Suk, Executive Director

 

Oakland Rising was founded in 2006 by the executive directors from APEN, Ella Baker Center, E-BASE, and Urban Habitat. They envisioned an alliance of organizations that aligned with their civic engagement work, collectively worked on electoral organizing, and strengthened the social justice movement in Oakland. By aligning regional like-minded forces, leading with values that center social justice, and flexing people’s power through mass-based electoral organizing, Oakland Rising works toward realizing shared dreams of health, happiness, safety, and opportunity for all. 

A multilingual, multiracial economic justice collaborative, Oakland Rising, is building the political power of working-class communities of color along with three local alliances: Bay Rising, San Francisco Rising, and Silicon Valley Rising. Together, in response to the mounting inequity and displacement occurring in the Bay Area, they work to build political power that advances genuinely progressive policy solutions supporting healthy, equitable, and inclusive communities for all. 

Together, the collaborative has won flagship policies at local and state levels that included a minimum wage increase; a tenant protection ordinance; a landmark jobs policy that featured living wages, local hires, and job access for workers with disadvantages, prior incarcerations, and other employment barriers; Prop 47, a state measure reallocating resources from incarceration to community-based re-entry services; and Proposition 30, a state measure that returned $6 billion to the state for critical services by raising taxes on the wealthiest Californians.

Oakland Rising remains committed and forward-thinking, ready to face new challenges supporting a thriving, progressive community in Oakland.