Featured Grantees

Battle Tested Kids (BTK)

Battle Tested Kids (BTK) provides disadvantaged youth with a path to personal growth and success through competitive athletics training and personalized mentorship. Through participation in organized sports training and competition BTK focuses on self-discipline, leadership, accountability, healthy living, teamwork, and responsibility. BTK recognizes and harness the positive influence coaches can have on a young athlete’s professional, intellectual, social, and emotional development. The organization’s goal is to support youth to become conscientious leaders on their teams and in their communities.

Chabot Space & Science Center

The Oakland Space Academy, a transformative workforce development initiative of Chabot Space & Science Center, prepares more than 300 Bay Area youth each year for high-growth careers in aerospace and STEM. With a special focus on students from low-income Oakland communities, the Academy directly addresses systemic barriers by offering hands-on STEM education, technical training, and real-world work experience in a supportive, future-focused environment. The Oakland Space Academy not only opens doors – it launches lives, empowering students to pursue meaningful, family-sustaining careers, and creating lasting impact across generations.

KIDS for the BAY

KIDS for the BAY (KftB) helps students find joy in connecting with nature, gets children excited about learning hands-on science, empowers children to take positive action for the environment, and creates a lasting impact for communities and the environment. KftB provides meaningful and engaging environmental education experiences, especially for students in under-resourced school communities in Oakland, and throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. KftB is committed to increasing access to environmental education and to restoring a healthy environment for all communities with special focus on students from low-income and urbanized areas who would not otherwise have access to these opportunities and have limited access to nature.

Prescott Circus Theatre (PCT)

Prescott Circus Theatre (PCT) provides safe environments that empower and engage Oakland youth, through circus and theater arts training, to develop the confidence and skills to thrive on stage, in school, and in life. This is accomplished through year-round, no-cost culturally affirming programs in partnerships with professional teaching artists, public schools, and other organizations. PCT youth go to perform for as many as 40 events each year, representing themselves and their communities in proud and powerful ways. Since 1984, PCT has directed all of its resources to promote and provide equitable access to quality art education experiences for Black, Brown, and All Children.

Grants Made in 2024

Creative Arts

  • Oakland School for the Arts
  • Cal Performances – Ailey Camp
  • Piedmont East Bay Childrens’ Choir
  • Oakland Museum
  • Luna Dance Kids
  • Bay Area Girls Rock Camp
  • Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir
  • Oakland Childrens’ Fairyland

Social Justice/Community Engagement

  • Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom Center
  • Brothers On the Rise
  • YMCA of the East Bay
  • Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY)
  • Youth Vs. Apocalypse
  • East Bay Spanish Citizens Foundation

Environmental Education

  • Things That Creep
  • Camp Phoenix
  • KIDS for the BAY
  • Vida Verde Nature Education

Health & Well Being

  • Crisis Support Services of the East Bay
  • East Bay Children’s Law Offices
  • Health Initiatives for Youth (HIFY)
  • Girls, Inc.

Sports & Recreation

  • BORP
  • Running for a Better Oakland
  • Oakland Soccer Club
  • Bay Area Wilderness Training
  • Camps In Common
  • Girl Ventures

Academic Enrichment

  • College Prep Partners Program
  • Students Rising Above
  • Elevate Tutoring
  • America SCORES
  • Aim High
  • Community Resources for Science
  • Berkeley Baby Book Project
  • Aspire Education
  • Edventure More/EVMO
  • Oakland Literacy Coalition
  • Science is Elementary

Vocational & Technical Skills

  • Hack The Hood
  • Beyond Emancipation