Akonadi Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Akonadi Foundation focuses its grantmaking on Oakland and Bay Area community organizations working on racial justice, youth, criminal justice reform and, to a lesser extent, education.
IP TAKE: Akonadi is a progressive funder working towards lasting social change and eliminating structural racism. As IP has reported, quoting co-founder Quinn Delaney, Akonadi prioritizes organizations that are “truly grounded in the community it claims to be working for.” While Akonadi is a small regional funder averaging about $3 million in annual grantmaking, its collaborative spirit and influence in the progressive sphere makes it an important funder for Bay Area nonprofits to know about. The foundation’s influence in local politics and policy advocacy is notable. In a recent IP interview, Akonadi president Ray Colmenar specified that Akonadi’s grantees have been “successful in getting public policies enacted.” He believes the “new frontier” is implementing these policy victories to create lasting systems change.
Known for its multi-year support for grassroots organizations, Akonadi funds through a gender lens to create a “racially just Oakland.” Its limited grantmaking programs are only open at specified times of year, as detailed below, so interested grantseekers should contact the organization or monitor its website for updates.
PROFILE: Based in Oakland, California, the Akonadi Foundation was established in 2000 by Wayne Jordan, the founder and CEO of Jordan Real Estate Investments, and his wife, Quinn Delaney. In addition to real estate, the couple has been involved in political campaigns, philanthropy and the Bay Area arts scene for many years. Akonadi was created in the wake of California’s passage of a proposition under which juvenile offenders above the age of 13 are tried and penalized as adults. The foundation is committed to supporting “the development of powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism” and emphasizes “ending the criminalization of Black youth.” Since its founding, Akonadi has made over $40 million in grants to nonprofits involved in the racial justice movement. Its current funding programs are So Love Can Win, which supports organizations working toward “a radical collective vision of freedom and racial justice” in Oakland, and All in for Oakland, a $12.5 million commitment to “end the criminalization of Black youth and youth of color” launched in 2020. Grants support social justice movements and policy development in Oakland and Alameda County, but national organizations have also received some support in recent years.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
Racial justice one of the main areas of focus of Akonadi’s current grantmaking initiatives.
Through the So Love Can Win funding program, the foundation supports “organizers, storytellers, culture bearers, and healers who seek to ignite and implement a radical collective vision of freedom and racial justice” with $10,000 grants for general operations and, on occasion, larger grants for special projects and programs.
Recipient organizations must be led by Black, Indigenous or people of color, and organizations that “advance the leadership of women, trans, queer and nonbinary communities, and immigrant and undocumented communities”; the foundation also prioritizes people who are formerly/currently incarcerated and their families.
The foundation names organizing, arts and culture, healing, and voice as priority strategies for its racial justice grantmaking.
In a recent year, the So Love Can Win program awarded more than 50 grants to Oakland-area organizations including the East Oakland Youth Development Center, HipHopForChange, the African American Museum and Library of Oakland and the Queer Healing Arts Center.
Akonadi also makes grants for racial justice via its All in for Oakland funding program, which focuses on the decriminalization of Black youth and youth of color in the Oakland area.
Recent grantmaking has emphasized the reimagination of school policing, school discipline and youth incarceration, as well as reform of the youth justice system in California.
Grants have gone to Oakland’s Black Organizing Project, which works with grassroots organizations to effect policy change, and the Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network, which organizes families to support school-level changes toward equitable funding, discipline and academic opportunity.
A handful of racial justice organizations operating nationally or in other areas of the U.S. have also received funding from Akonadi. Recent recipients include New York’s Center for Popular Democracy, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, Inc. and the African American Policy Forum.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
Criminal justice reform is the main focus of Akonadi’s All in for Oakland program, which aims to transform youth justice in Oakland and beyond.
Specific areas of interest include the accountability of the state’s criminal justice, legal and social service systems and improving outcomes for young people involved in the criminal justice system and correctional programs.
Grants support a range of organizations including community coalitions, legal organizations and organizations involved in research and strategy development.
One recent grantee, San Francisco’s Youth Law Center, “advocates to transform foster care and juvenile justice systems across the nation so every child and youth can thrive.” Another grantee, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, works in Oakland to “shift resources away from prisons and punishment, and toward opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy and strong.” Other grantees working in youth criminal justice reform include the Justice Reinvestment Coalition, the East Bay Community Law Center and the Young Women’s Freedom Center, which works with formerly incarcerated women and others toward “decarcerating and decriminalizing girls, women and TGNC people in California.”
Grants for K-12 Education
Akonadi’s All in for Oakland initiative names school-based discipline and policing as areas of grantmaking interest. It also works more generally to restore “the freedom and futures of Black youth and youth of color.” In this funding area, the foundation supported California’s Dignity in Schools Campaign, which works to end the school-to-prison pipeline by building solidarity between the state’s progressive and more conservative communities. Other grantees of the All in for Oakland program include the W. Haywood Burns Institute, San Francisco’s Forward Change and the Urban Peace Movement.
The foundation has also supported several social-justice-oriented arts education programs through its So Love Can Win initiative, including E4EArts, the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music and BoomShake Music.
Important Grant Details:
Akonadi has made between $2 and $5 million in grants each year over the past several years. Grants range from $2,000 to $500,000, with an average grant size of about $10,000.
Grantmaking is heavily focused on the Oakland area, with only a few national organizations receiving grants. This funder tends to support grassroots and community-led groups that work for social justice in the foundation’s specific areas of interest.
For additional information about past grantmaking, see the foundation’s So Love Can Win Awards page and its grantee partners information for the All in for Oakland program.
The Akonadi Foundation runs two annual grantmaking cycles for its So Love Can Win funding program, accepting applications between March 15 to May 1 for the spring cycle and July 1 through September 1 for the fall cycle, with application materials available at the foundation’s website during these periods.
This funder also runs a phone application system for applicants with accessibility issues or limited access to technology and accepts application questions via email.
Initial So Love Can Win grants are generally awarded in the amount of $10,000, but larger grants are considered on a case-by-case basis.
The foundation does not currently accept applications for its All in for Oakland program but invites prospective grantees to sign up for updates via the foundation’s newsletter.
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