Funnel Grant Recipients

Applying for a Grant

Grant Recipients

Lateefah Simon, the Executive Director of the Center for Young Women's Development, a 2001 Funnel grant recipient, was named one of 2003's MacArthur Fellows. Funnel is pleased that the MacArthur Foundation shares our high estimation of Lateefah Simon and the work she has done with young women in the juvenile justice system.

2006 Grant Recipients:

CRC advocates for the right of low-income communities and communities of color to have fair and equal access to banking and other financial services. CRC has a membership of more than 240 nonprofit organizations and public agencies across the State.

Website: www.calreinvest.org

City Slicker Farms increases food self-sufficiency in West Oakland by creating organic, sustainable, high-yield urban farms and back-yard gardens. These farms and gardens demonstrate the viability of a local food-production system, serve as community spaces, empower children and adults who want to learn about the connections between ecology, farming and the urban environment, and give West Oakland residents tools for self-reliance.

Website: www.cityslickerfarms.org

EBHO is an affordable housing advocacy coalition dedicated to working with communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties to preserve, protect and expand affordable housing opportunities through education and advocacy. EBHO’s membership, made up of over 140 organizations and individuals, includes: non-profit housing developers, development consultants, fair housing agencies, tenant organizations, faith-based groups, housing counseling agencies, architects, homeless and tenant advocates and service providers, neighborhood organizations, municipal housing staff, financial institutions and elected officials.

Website: www.ebho.org

2005 Grant Recipients:

Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) is an environmental health and justice non-profit organization, promoting clean air, clean water and the development of toxin-free communities. CBE's unique three-part strategy provides grassroots activism, environmental research and legal assistance within underserved urban communities. CBE directly equips residents impacted by industrial pollution with the tools to inform, monitor, and transform their immediate environment.

Website: www.cbecal.org

LSPC's mission is to advocate for the civil rights and empowerment of incarcerated parents, children, family members and people at risk for incarceration. LSPC accomplishes this work through responding to requests for information, trainings, technical assistance, litigation, community activism and the development of more advocates. Our focus is on women prisoners and their families, and we emphasize that issues of race are central to any discussion of incarceration.

LSPC focuses on the specific legal and social policy issues affecting incarcerated mothers and their children, parents in prison, and family members caring for the children of incarcerated parents. The organization has a rich history of successful advocacy on behalf of prisoners and their families.

Website: www.prisonerswithchildren.org

Young Workers United seeks to increase access for young people in San Francisco to quality education and employment by organizing youth as workers, students and consumers to hold corporations and policymakers accountable, and to unite the youth and labor movements to raise standards in non-union, low-wage jobs. Young Workers United was formed in 2002 to identify and address the particular needs of young workers, and of low-wage workers in food service and retail in general.

Website: www.youngworkersunited.org

2004 Grant Recipients:

ADC-SF seeks to guarantee the civil and human rights and full democratic participation of the Arab and Arab-American communities in the Bay Area through advocacy, education, community outreach and organizing. ADC-SF informs immigrants about their legal rights; provides legal counsel and translation help; runs a bilingual Arabic and English crisis line; and educates the public about Arab-American issues. ADC-SF currently collaborates with the National Lawyers Guild, the Employment Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a panel of legal volunteers to defend community members whose rights have been violated and who have been targeted specifically because of their Arab-American identity.

Website: www.adcsf.org

ACCESS works to ensure that quality, affordable reproductive health care is an accessible right for all women and girls in our community. ACCESS sees reproductive freedom as an issue that encompasses not only women's rights and access to abortion, but also welfare and immigrant rights, racial and economic justice, access to affordable health care, and other issues. Through English and Spanish hotlines, a volunteer network, an abortion fund, workshops and internships, ACCESS provides information, support, material resources, and leadership skills to women and girls, and combats the existing barriers to reproductive health care that disproportionately impact low-income, uninsured, young, immigrant and rural women. ACCESS also works for systemic changes that will improve access to quality reproductive health care, especially for low-income and uninsured women, young women, and immigrant women.

Website: www.whrc-access.org

CLSEPA provides free legal services to low-income and under-served communities in East Palo Alto, eastern Menlo Park, and the surrounding areas. CLSEPA currently assists low-income individuals and families in the areas of housing, immigration, predatory lending, consumer law, and juvenile justice. CLSEPA delivers its services through representation, advice, and clinics in collaboration with community organizations, local law firms and community activists. CLSEPA’s objectives are to ensure the health and stability of families by preserving safe and healthy shelter; avoid the break-up of families due to immigration issues; prevent domestic violence against undocumented victims; provide assistance to low-income persons through a student-operated Volunteer Attorney Program; educate and advise youth and their families regarding their legal rights as juveniles; and give low-income persons the tools to advocate for and protect themselves, their families, and their communities.

Website: www.clsepa.org

2003 Grant Recipients:

Greenaction
San Francisco, CA - $5,000

Greenaction works with communities to change government and corporate practices to protect the health of communities and promote environmental justice. The health of residents in Bayview Hunters Point has been heavily impacted by the ongoing environmental contamination of the soil and water with more than 200 toxic chemicals and materials, according to the EPA. Greenaction is working with residents in Bayview Hunters Point to identify environmental health threats in the neighborhood and plan programs to address them.

Website: www.greenaction.org

Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health
Santa Clara, CA - $5,000

SCCOSH organizes workers in Silicon Valley to be proactive on the issues of occupational safety and health; and to advocate for corporate responsibility with regards to such risks as unsafe working conditions and toxic chemicals used in production. SCCOSH has trained 1,500 workers in recognizing work-related hazards. In response to studies that show higher rates of injuries and fatality on the job for younger workers, SCCOSH has recently launched programs specifically to reach young workers.

Website: www.sccosh.org

People Organized to Win Employment Rights
San Francisco , CA - $5,000

POWER is an organization of no- and low-wage workers who have come together to find permanent solutions to the problems of poverty and unemployment. POWER's membership is made up of welfare recipients, domestics, day laborers, and child care workers, among others. POWER is working on strategic campaigns such as the recently passed initiative to raise the minimum wage for all workers in San Francisco. POWER also seeks to build the leadership capacity of these workers, and is creating an ongoing network of low-wage workers organizations throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

Website: www.fairwork.org

South of Market Community Action Network
San Francisco , CA - $5,000

SOMCAN works with low-income, people of color, immigrant and working class communities in the South of Market neighborhood, providing training, mentorship, and resource information. SOMCAN is working to ensure that San Francisco district planning and land-use regulations maintain diversity and affordability in SOMA and that community feedback collected by the SF Planning Department is implemented and adequately addressed to serve SOMA's residents.

2002 Grant Recipients:

PUEBLO is a multi-ethnic, multi-issue community organization with more than six hundred low- to middle-income member families from across Oakland. PUEBLO works to build the analysis, skills, and leadership of low-income people, people of color, and youth. By doing so, PUEBLO strives to build the capacity of our community to make changes in the institutions and policies that effect our lives.

PUEBLO currently works in three issue areas: youth and education, public health and environmental justice, and community safety and police accountability. PUEBLO's strategies include organizing, coalition building, civic engagement, policy research and analysis, leadership development, and popular education.

Caduceus has successfully created a harm reduction model of psychiatric treatment specifically designed to serve homeless psychiatrically disabled people, many of whom have not been able to get into or stay in treatment because of multiple levels of inaccessibility.

Caduceus adopts an innovative approach which combines compassionate, humane, client-centered psychiatric treatment provided by psychiatrists who volunteer their time with the education and policy work required to change the structures and values that circumscribe and stigmatize the lives of their clients.

Child care is crucial for the healthy development of young children and to the economic self-sufficiency of of families. Parent Voices works to increase funding, improve quality and provide better access to child care. Parent Voices is a partnership of parents in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco.

Through letters, news interviews, and parent testimonies at the State capitol, Parent Voices successfully pressured the Governor to reinstate $60 million for Stage 3 CalWorks child care subsides. Parent Voices sponsored a bill, which encouraged private businesses to partner with the state in investing in child care. Parent Voices also worked with state legislators to ensure there would be a parent representative on each county Child Care Local Planning Council.

Website: www.parentvoices.org

PODER is a environmental justice organization based in San Francisco's Mission District. PODER organizes Mission residents to work on local solutions to issues facing low income communities and communities of color. For the past 10 years, PODER has worked on issues such as childhood lead poisoning prevention, the need for affordable housing and open space, against the trivialization of youth, and for community participation in city planning and land use decision-making.

2001 Grant Recipients:

In our first grant-making round, in the fall of 2001, Funnel awarded seven grants to organizations in the Bay Area that embody our commitment to community-driven, systemic solutions to social problems in the Bay Area. The grant recipients were:

Parent Voices is a parent led and run program working to increase funding and improve quality and access to child care, particularly for low-income working parents.

Parent Voices is working in Bayview Hunters Point with Asthma Relief for Kids, to identify gaps in services for young children with asthma and to create sustainable changes in health policy or service delivery that could improve their lives.

Recently, Parent Voices was instrumental in persuading Governor Davis to reinstate child care subsides for former welfare recipients. The Chronicle reports the story here.

Website: www.parentvoices.org

APEN was founded to build a network uniting grassroots organizations in Asian Pacific Islander communities affected by and working on environmental justice issues. APEN works to build the capacity of API communities to protect their right to a clean and healthy environment.

The Laotian Organizing Project is a community organizing effort in the Laotian community of West Contra Costa County, one of the most toxic areas in the country with over 350 industrial facilities including waste incinerators, oil refineries, and chemical manufacturers. LOP brings together the different ethnic groups of the Laotian community to organize, develop indigenous leadership, and take action to change these conditions.

Website: www.apen4ej.org

BRIDGES is an eight-month fellowship that provides low-income youth with the opportunity to spend a summer volunteering in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The goal is to build a bridge between social justice work abroad and the struggles for social and economic justice in our local communities.

The program supports youth who are emerging leaders in their communities with a financial grant, educational training, mentoring and service-learning experiences with local community-based organizations and international volunteer programs. Participants focus on a particular field such as public health, economic development, the environment, and education in order to make tangible connections between local and global issues.

Website: www.grassrootsbridges.com

CWYD promotes economic self-sufficiency, community building, and youth led organizing by providing peer run employment and leadership development opportunities to low-income young women and girls who are homeless, unemployed and are involved in the juvenile justice system. CYWD is a "girl run" agency, governed by a management team of young women under 25 who were employed as outreach workers and have moved up through the program.

CWYD's program includes a comprehensive array of workshops, seminars, and experiences, each designed to encourage low-income young women to recognize, develop, and transfer their street survival skills and knowledge to organizational management and civic engagement.

Website: www.cywd.org

The Housing Rights Committee has worked for the last twenty-two years to empower tenants to secure fundamental rights to habitable and affordable housing in San Francisco. HRC advocates for change that promotes these rights and improves housing availability and affordability for people of all income levels and backgrounds.

The overall goal of the Low Income Tenant Organizing Project is to empower tenants to protect safe and affordable housing.

Website: www.hrcsf.org

Just Cause Oakland's goals are to develop a socially, racially and economically just Oakland through strengthening tenant rights and working in coalition for social and economic justice. Oakland currently has few protections for renters, lacking the "just cause" eviction protections of San Francisco, Berkeley, and other cities.

JCO's objectives are to: build a base of tenants, based in the working class communities and communities of color in Oakland, who have the organization and leadership capacity of participate in decisions affecting their rights; maintain a constant pressure on city government to expand tenant rights and prevent displacement; and build coalitions with other groups working against gentrification and displacement, on the local and regional levels.

The Mission SRO Collaborative is a collaboration between Mission Housing Development Corporation, Mission Agenda, and St. Peter's Housing Committee. Its mission is to improve conditions in the Mission District's fifty plus Single Room Occupancy hotels. SRO hotels are arguably some of the worst housing in the City, they are the housing of last resort for many low income people.

Through the SRO Tenant Leadership Program tenants learn about their rights, develop leadership and advocacy skills, and work on campaigns to improve SRO hotel conditions.