The East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) and the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) have a deep partnership that goes beyond funder and grantee. While EBCF provides crucial financial resources, we also have been instrumental in growing broad philanthropic support for EBASE’s 10-year agenda to drive structural transformation of jobs, housing, and local government.
EBASE takes a “whole worker” approach, recognizing that economic justice cannot be achieved simply by improving people’s jobs. Instead, we must address the whole of people’s experiences, including housing insecurity, discrimination due to criminal records, and unfair distribution of public resources, while dismantling systemic racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression.
“By leaning into the whole worker approach, we grow power not only in workplaces, but also in apartment buildings and in city halls throughout the region,” said Kate O’Hara, EBASE executive director.”
Over the last year, EBCF hosted not one, but two funder briefings for EBASE at our offices, and we invited many of our fellow foundations. The first briefing provided a platform for EBASE to showcase its track record of winning higher wages and worker protections, affordable housing and rent stabilization, and expansion of community leadership in local government. The second briefing focused on their 10-year agenda to transform jobs, housing, and local government so that all East Bay residents can thrive.
“On our own, we could have attracted mostly funders we already have a relationship with,” said O’Hara. “But EBCF brought together new funders that have been a stretch for us.” As a result of the briefings, EBASE has been able to broaden financial support to close a funding gap, expand the organization’s reach across Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and pursue a robust community organizing agenda.
“We need to address the needs of the whole region,” said Kate. “The East Bay is in many ways a microcosm of California, the fourth largest economy in the world. Organizing, policy, and legislative wins serve as a model for how we govern the state and can bubble up to the rest of the country. This is critical in the new federal political environment.”
Just as EBCF is an anchor funder in the East Bay, EBASE is an anchor among social justice organizations. EBASE multiplies its power by leading large coalitions comprised of numerous EBCF grantees. With so many fights on the horizon being driven at the federal level and trickling down to the state and local levels, social justice organizations need to band together for greater impact. EBASE is spearheading those efforts, leaning into its vast experience as a coalition leader in the East Bay.
“No one organization can achieve structural transformation on its own,” said O’Hara. “Together, we build deep alliances among community, voters, labor, faith, and elected leaders to generate enough power to transform the region. EBCF has been an instrumental partner in those efforts, providing multi-year funding and opening doors in the philanthropic community. I like to say that in these challenging times that hope is a discipline. EBCF provides us with hope and fuels our work so that all East Bay residents can thrive.”
