Bay Area Community Organizations
Trybe
www.oaklandtrybe.org
Trybe supports East Oakland families through wrap-around programs designed to go deep with small pockets of the community: 0-5 playgroups, grade-school after school clubs (not programs), middle-high school group in youth nights and college/outdoor adventures trips, young adult transition (pre-workforce development and internships), couples counseling referrals, and help with jobs, housing, and food assistance for families.
Frailty Myths
railtymyths.org
“At Frailty Myths, we offer free workshops for women, trans, and gender nonconforming folks on skills traditionally dominated by men, including woodworking, climbing, and sailing. We create transformative experiences for each participant, inspiring our community to dream and discover that we are the leaders that we’ve been waiting for.”
Vietnamese American Community Center of the East Bay (VACCEB)
www.vacceb.net
The Vietnamese American Community Center of the East Bay (VACCEB) has been providing program services for well over 20+ years to one of the most vulnerable subgroups within the Asian community; namely, Southeast Asians. Additionally, the serve other smaller, low-income refugee/immigrant communities (Nigerians, Ethiopians, Congolese, Middle Eastern, etc.) “Our organization’s core competency and differentiator is in our ability to provide a full range of program services in a culturally relevant manner and at a location that is within walking distance of where many refugees and immigrants live (i. e., in the heart of East Oakland, County of Alameda) or within reach of public transportation.”
NorCal Resilience Network
www.norcalresilience.org
The mission of the NorCal Resilience Network is to promote a Just Transition to an equitable and regenerative future by supporting and activating community-based and ecological/permaculture-inspired solutions in Northern California. Founded in 2015, some of its major programs include co-organizing the annual Permaculture (Building Resilient Communities) Convergence, hosting capacity building workshops for emerging leaders and writing a Sustainability and Resiliency Plan for the Berkeley Unified School District.
Technology and the Internet
The Mobilization Lab
mobilisationlab.org
Facebook.com/MobilisationLab
twitter.com/MobilisationLab
youtube.com/user/MobilisationLab
Spun out from Greenpeace this year, and led by their former digital director Michael Silberman, the Mobilization Lab is a small group of technologists and consultants with lots of experience who are contributing to the progressive digital revolution by bringing their talents to the rest of the non-profit world, including training, consulting, and convening.
Resistance Labs
resistancelabs.com
“Resist. Recruit. Elect. Win. — We leverage technology and our army of passionate, remote volunteers to help progressives run and win everywhere.”
Digital Democracy
www.digital-democracy.org
“Digital Democracy (Dd) is a Bay-Area based non-profit organization, founded in 2008. Our mission is to empower marginalized communities to use technology to defend their rights.”
Music and the Arts
ARTogether
www.artogether.org
“ARTogether is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Oakland, California that works to support refugees in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing art programs that promote healing and community-building for refugees and immigrants, while supporting local refugee artists. Through creative arts, art therapy and social gatherings, we work to help refugees develop the capacity to heal from trauma, and to develop the enduring skills and confidence they need to navigate the hardships of starting over in a new home.”
Evolution of Organic … a Film
evolutionoforganic.com
Mark Kitchell, Producer-director-writer:
My next film is called ‘Evolution of Organic.’ It’s the story of organic agriculture, told by those who built the movement. A motley crew of back-to-the-landers, spiritual seekers and farmers’ sons and daughters reject chemical farming and set out to explore organic alternatives. It’s a heartfelt journey of change, from a small band of rebels to a cultural transformation in the way we grow and eat food. By now organic has gone mainstream, split into an industry oriented toward bringing organic to all people and a movement that has realized a vision of sustainable agriculture. It’s the most popular and successful outgrowth of the environmental impulse of the last fifty years.
Indispensable … a Film Company
www.indispensableus.org
“Indispensable is a new, progressive 501c3 organization, launched in January 2018. We are a non- profit multi-media company that educates Americans about human rights, free expression, and equal opportunity around the world. Our goal is to use compelling media content to show Americans the importance of advocating for human rights around the world.”
Youth Beat
youthbeat.org
Founded in 2009, Youth Beat partners with KDOL-TV to provide high quality training and mentoring to low-income, inner-city Oakland youth — kids from some of the most challenging neighborhoods in the entire SF Bay Area.
Project Commotion
www.projectcommotion.org
“Project Commotion’s mission is to foster healthy development in children of all abilities through purposeful movement, play, and family and community relationships. Our innovative movement programs are based on emerging research in neuroscience, child development, and sensory integration, that shows how movement can support healthy brain development and school readiness. Our passion for helping children to better understand themselves and relate in positive, healthy ways to the world around them guides our dedication to individualized programming and low instructor:student ratios. We are a diverse, inclusive community.”
The Mesa Refuge
mesarefuge.org
The Mesa Refuge is a residency for writers, journalists, and other creatives located in Point Reyes Station, California, an hour north of San Francisco. It sits beside the San Andreas Fault, literally on the edges between land and water, metropolis and wildness, busyness and quiet. Here writers enjoy time and space to connect with their muses and a supportive community, before going back into the world.
Concert Career Pathways
theuctheatre.org/education/concert-career-pathways
The UC Theatre’s Concert Career Pathways program is a six-month program that is a combination of workshops and paid internships where students learn best practices in production management, event coordination, stagehand, floor staff, live sound engineering, lighting design, event budgeting, box office operations. I went to visit, and it is almost all teens of color from the East Bay transferring their enthusiasm for music into learning the backstage aspects of production.
Friends of John Coltrane
friendsofjohncoltrane.com
The mission of The Friends of John Coltrane is to preserve and celebrate the life and music of John Coltrane and to enrich the lives of others through the introduction of jazz and other musical genres. In addition, the organization produces the annual John Coltrane International Jazz & Blues Festival, scheduled for September 1-2, 2018 in High Point, NC.
Habitats, the Outdoors, and Climate Change
Cascadia Wildlands
www.cascwild.org
“We envision vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, and vibrant communities sustained by the unique landscapes of the Cascadia Bioregion. — Envision it with us.”
Made Safe
www.madesafe.org
Founded in March 2016, Made Safe’s mission is to change how products are made. Made Safe has certified products for more than 50 companies, 21% of which manufacture or are headquartered in California (including HAIRPRINT, True Botanicals, and AnnMarie Skincare). Made Safe additionally works with other companies behind the scenes to foster safer and more sustainable ingredient practices. Many of these companies have a national and/or global footprint.
Earth Team
www.earthteam.net
“Earth Team works each year with 150 youth as paid interns distributed in 10 separate teams, to learn new skills and help with social and environmental restoration in Oakland and Richmond. Our program works with underserved communities building capacity for engagement in the Earth System Sciences (aka STEM with a Heart).”
Center for Sustainable Economy
sustainable-economy.org
The Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) recognizes that, in order to slow climate change, we must both work to keep over two-thirds of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground and protect and enhance the uptake of carbon by our forests and soil, as analysts suggest, and simultaneously challenge the economic, political and social status quo.
The Snake River Alliance
snakeriveralliance.org
The Alliance is Idaho’s grassroots nuclear watchdog and advocate for clean energy with a long track record of success. This small group is an organizing powerhouse, having stopped every nuclear bomb plant, waste incinerators and power project proposed in Idaho over several decades.
The Northern Sierra Partnership
northernsierrapartnership.org
Since founding this initiative 10 years ago, the partners—including The Nature Conservancy, the Feather River Land Trust, the Sierra Business Council, the Truckee Donner Land Trust, and the Trust for Public Land—have conserved over 70,000 acres of priority habitat in the Northern Sierra, including rich wet meadows, rangelands, wetlands, and the Sierra Crest.
Pegasus Voyages
pegasusvoyages.org
Pegasus Voyages (aka Pegasus Project) has taken thousands of inner city kids onto the Bay for marine environment education aboard Pegasus, a classic heavy displacement, full keel sailing vessel. Pegasus Project’s “mission is to enable youth to become productive members of a sustainable society through positive outdoor environmental education and by reinforcing life skills.”
Empower Generation
pollinategroup.org
“We train women in rural Nepal to develop business and sales skills, as well as the confidence, to distribute life-improving products to families most in need. The communities of remote Nepal lack access to electricity, clean water, basic hygiene products and more. Our sustainable product solutions, including solar lights, cookstoves, sanitary napkins etc. improve the health, safety, quality of life, and immediate environment of families in economic and energy poverty. Through our work we assist families, our customers, to switch to sustainable solutions at an affordable price. In turn, we provide our women entrepreneurs with significant incomes that enable them to be promoted to leadership positions while gaining power in their household and community. In six years, we have distributed 60,000 life-improving products, reached 300,000 people, saved families $2.1 million and displaced 13,000 tons of CO2.”
McKenzie River Trust
www.mckenzieriver.org
The trust protects land by buying easements and making outright purchases in southern Oregon.
It was founded in 1989. Since then it has grown to be a regional land trust, conserving and protecting more than 3,400 acres of land in western Oregon. The core mission is to protect riparian areas on the McKenzie River that are vital to the river’s biological integrity and water quality.
Friends of Furthur
Kesey Farm
keseyfarm.com
The Kesey Farm is a historic site in Pleasant Hill, Oregon situated on 64 verdant acres. It served as the headquarters and home of author Ken Kesey and his family from 1967 until his passing in 2001. During this time, the Farm acted as a de facto community center and productive hub for artists and friends from around the world.
After years of quiet, the Farm is being revitalized as a center for the arts. Through artist residencies and varied educational programming, the goal is to build on the Farm’s rich history and reestablish it as a space in which individuals can share and support one another through creative practice.
Color Outside the Lines
coloroutsidelines.org
Color Outside the Lines is a program based out of Portland OR which focuses on offering art and music outreach to underprivileged children, specifically foster children. Color Outside the Lines aims to offer at-risk youth and marginalized people in our community experiences in self- expression, which helps to heal, inspire, and encourage challenged communities through art.
Circle of Hearts Foundation
www.thecircleofhearts.org
The Circle of Hearts Foundation provides financial support and compassionate care for individuals suffering from life threatening or incapacitating illness that have limited resources and diminished ability to care for themselves.
Camp Winnarainbow
campwinnarainbow.org
Camp Winnarainbow’s philosophy helps prepare campers to reach for the stars!
Donations go toward helping an economically disadvantaged child come to camp by contributing to the Grace & Joy Scholarship Fund.