Deadline: 14-Jun-21
Applications are now open for the Just City Cultural Fund to support Oakland-based, civically-engaged, BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/People of Color) artists/cultural practitioners to work with the communities they are rooted in to co-create a project driven by their vision of a just society that centers the perspectives of those who have borne the brunt of systemic racism and social and economic inequality.
Funding Information
Approximately seven or eight two-year grants ranging from $30,000 to $50,000 per year will be awarded. A special stipend equaling 12% of the grant amount (ranging from $3,600 and $6,000 per year) will be added to each award for life sustaining expenses of the artist(s)/cultural practitioner(s)—such as healthcare, childcare, student or other debt, restorative time or activities, or other such expenses—as a modest recognition of the hidden costs of maintaining cultural practices in Oakland’s communities of color.
Examples of Potential Projects:
- Below are some examples of the kinds of projects that could be supported by the Fund. These examples are meant to spark ideas, not to limit them.
- Creating spaces for equitable civic dialogue and practices relating to decolonization and rematriation informed by Indigenous and place-based wisdom
- Promoting community well-being and healing from civic traumas through new civic practices for truth-telling and restorative justice
- Designing a community-centered process that helps Oaklanders envision what the hardscape and softscape of a culturally-equitable neighborhood could include
- Employing under-recognized forms of cultural knowledge and/or new value narratives to build pathways out of white supremacist mindsets
- Creating new civic-facing cultural practices to address racialized violence, houselessness, xenophobia, faith-based prejudice, etc.
- Collaborations between arts practitioners and community organizers that are grounded in cultural practices that propel coalition- and power-building for racial justice.
What they will fund?
The Fund will focus on BIPOC artists/cultural practitioners who have a demonstrated commitment to community-centered social justice practices with an orientation toward systemic change. Moving beyond critiques of injustice, the Fund seeks projects with the multiple purposes of:
- Challenging the policies and practices of oppressive racialized systems;
- Lifting up value systems and ways of being that cultivate belonging;
- Supporting self-determined action by those most impacted by systemic racism;
- Generating new tools/policy arguments/prototypes for a just and equitable city.
What they will not fund?
The Fund values and recognizes the roles and needs of diverse forms of artistic and cultural work to a healthy and just community. However, this program, because of legal requirements and limited resources, will not fund:
- Activities to influence the outcome of elections for candidates for public office
- Capital campaigns for building maintenance/construction/purchase or endowments
- Projects with the sole purpose of putting artistic works before an audience
- Training activities with the sole purpose of helping individuals develop artistic skills
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants must be:
- an individual or group of BIPOC artists/cultural practitioners who resides and is rooted in Oakland with demonstrated experience in producing and/or co-designing community-centered/public-facing projects
- an Oakland-based cultural organization led by BIPOC artists/cultural practitioners with demonstrated experience in producing and/or co-designing community-centered/public-facing projects AND must have
- 501(c)(3) nonprofit status OR
- a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor
- Fiscal Sponsors
- A fiscal sponsor is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that is willing and able to assume the legal responsibility to receive and administer grant funds in compliance with requirements.
- The Fund seeks to support Oakland’s historically marginalized communities of color and the artists/cultural practitioners within them. While the Fund can only grant to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, we are aware that nonprofit infrastructure is challenged in communities of color in Oakland. For that reason, fiscal sponsors are not required to be located in Oakland nor BIPOC-led.
For more information, visit https://www.ebcf.org/a-just-city-cultural-fund-review-criteria-and-process/