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The Oakland chapter funds projects and events in – or in support of – Oakland and the surrounding area of the East Bay that bring art, performance, and social change and improve and enrich our larger community.

Proposal guidelines

• We review and award grants to proposals for projects, ideas, and events based in – or in support of – Oakland and the surrounding communities of the East Bay. To fund a project that takes place somewhere else, apply through that chapter.

• Your proposal must have a clearly defined problem that you're trying to solve and describe how your project solves the problem by providing a solution, resource, or benefit to your intended audience or community. Defining the community or audience should be a significant part of your proposal.

• Your proposal must include a detailed budget of your project, including how you plan to spend the money, what you'll spend it on, and how much those items cost. In the form field "How will I use the money," you must include a budget of your expenses, listed out as individual line items. We won't accept a screenshot of your spreadsheet. Ya gotta type it in.

• Because we're a small group of volunteers with limited funds, we strive to make a significant impact when we can. So we prefer to fund projects with limited funding resources, where our contributions can make a big difference over proposals where our contributions are only a tiny part of an otherwise well-funded or large-scale project.

• We prefer to fund projects that make a big impact and serve a large community, especially if that community is historically underserved.

• We prefer to fund projects that aim to inform, educate, delight, or entertain your community or intended audience, and/or your project directly involves your community as part of its execution.

• Your proposal and project includes details how many people you hope to serve and a clear and concise outreach plan for reaching your intended audience. If your plan is to 'use FB ads' or 'social media' that's not enough. Be as specific and open minded as you can, it will help get you funded and help your project.

How this works

We award twelve grants per year and generally $1,000 per month. Proposals are due on the last Wednesday of each month. We meet on the 1st Wednesday of the month to review the applications, and recipients are announced shortly after. If your project is awarded a grant, you'll receive your funds through Paypal or Venmo.

Psst! here's an example winning proposal

Want to know what a winning proposal looks like? Check out this one from Red Light Legal

We're here to help

Didn't get funded this month? No worries. If a proposal has promise, but needs some love we'll reach out to help you tweak it for resubmission, and we're happy to review proposals before you submit them. Just be sure to contact us at least one week before the first of the month at: oakland@awesomefoundation.org

All of your projects are awesome, but sometimes they don't meet the goals of our chapter. If you're here in the Bay Area consider applying to the SF and SJ chapter, as they might fund an idea that isn't a fit for us, conceptually or geographically.

Thank you for your awesome passion!