One Oakland Vision

Three “Bigger Than Us” Initiatives

An Oakland Approach to Violence Prevention and Community Empowerment

The Three Bigger Than Us Initiatives are rooted in a public health approach to violence prevention and community empowerment. These initiatives can only be carried out through partnership, public and private with local institutions, faith networks, the City of Oakland and Alameda County, embodying a collective “One Oakland Vision,” for systemic change shaped by years of grassroots organizing, advocacy, community engagement and work. These interconnected efforts align with larger statewide goals of reducing violence, ensuring economic stability for businesses and residents, improving livability, fostering more solutions to homelessness, remedying outdoor inequity, creating employment opportunities for youth, and uplifting valuable cultural traditions, coalescing to increase community safety

Reimaging Public Safety
Reinvesting in the Social Contract

$150 Million Dollars!

The cost for the One Oakland Vision: Three Bigger Than Us Initiatives is $150 million over three years or $50m annually. It is a big number but half of the money is already there within city and county tax measures such as Measure AA, NN, W, OFCY, and in the County’s Measure W and C. We have begun funder’s briefings to bring in private philanthropic dollars to support up to 20% or $30 million of the cost. For Trybe’s part, we need $6 million annually to employ 50 ambassadors and 300 year-round youth jobs in 2026. We are happy to report that we are a quarter of the way there for 2026 and are already in the process of hiring 8 new ambassadors to start in January, MLK Day of Service!

Why This Matters Now

Oakland stands at a critical juncture that requires leadership and intentional decision-making. Communities continue to face overlapping and layered crises in the areas of violence, poverty, education, housing, underinvestment, and a lack of opportunity, especially in the Flatland neighborhoods. The Flatlands of Oakland sit opposite of the Hills, and are the lower-lying, historically red-lined areas of East and West Oakland. Typically, the Flatlands have been called home by the majority of Black, LatinX, Asian and immigrant families who continue to carry the long-lasting impacts of systemic discrimination, divestment, environmental hazards and economic inequality.

The One Oakland Vision responds directly to these systemic inequalities by investing in people-centered strategies that reduce violence, expand economic opportunity, and reclaim public spaces. This proposal builds upon:

Years of advocacy and community engagement.
Alignment with statewide goals for violence prevention and economic stability. Piloting street and youth programming since 2022

Ongoing partnerships with local Community-based Organizations (CBOs), institutions, and public agencies.

Safe Public Spaces

Building value and community activation through public parks, natural resources, recreational opportunities, corridors, cultural preservation and mutual-aid support to remedy historic underinvestment in socially and economically disadvantaged communities.

Safe public spaces incorporate healing-centered and culturally-responsive frameworks that aid in the support of underserved and historically-marginalized communities. With these elements and frameworks, we see thriving, safe public spaces such as the Black Cultural Zone, BOSS Resource Centers, Trybe, , Fruitvale Plaza, 23rd Ave Corridor/Eastside Arts Alliance, Roots Health Clinics and a few others. Oakland’s vision of safe public spaces must be realized through reinforcing the main concept of what safe public spaces truly are: safe, vibrant, thriving and desirable.

Citywide Peace Ambassador Program

People from the community helping the community.

Employing 300 community members as “Peace Ambassadors” to provide positive presence and community engagement in Oakland Flatland 30x15 block areas through beautification, community outreach, education and resource distribution and navigation, who are certified LCA counselors.

What is an Ambassador?

Ambassadors are community stewards who build trust, solve problems, and connect people to resources

Ambassadors are from the community, and for the community. They are trusted neighbors who show up daily to build peace.

Ambassadors possess
local legitimacy and empathy.

Ambassadors Are Not

Police officers
Security guards
Enforcers or surveillance
Outsiders “patrolling” the community
Just beautification crews/ or janitors
Temporary or one-off workers
“Avengers” or “Punishers”

Year-Round Youth Jobs

And finally, funding 3,000 year-round jobs for youth in Oakland to reduce community violence, expand access to employment, and promote long-term economic mobility; providing hands-on experience, skill-building opportunities, and a pathway to stable careers for our community.

- Expanded age range eligibility.

- Education and career preparation as a united initiative

- Hands-on financial literacy services (financial advisors)

- Increased partnership with city and county-level departments

The combination of expanded age services, finance services, and dual employment/education programming allow for the establishment of an alumni network and matriculation pathway for students to gain a better understanding of the duality of education and employment, as well as the transition between the two. With such networks and pathways, students can continue to pull from a large resource pool that includes tangible services like financial counselors, support from educators and mentors, and their own toolkit of workforce experience.

These three interconnected initiatives symbiotically support one another.

Safe Spaces are enhanced and maintained by Citywide Peace Ambassadors, and Youth jobs contribute to overall community safety, upward mobility, and a divergence from the cycles of poverty and violence too present in Oakland.

The One Oakland Vision focuses on Oakland’s strengths: people, place, culture, food, music, art, CBOs, churches, small businesses, proximity, climate, diversity, toughness.

These are people-jobs reimagining public safety and reinvesting in the social contract where $150m over three years would transform Oakland from the Flatlands up and forward. Funding $150m is a big question yet the bigger question is, what will Oakland do and who will it be for once it is actually livable, safe, and clean throughout the city? How do we get better for the people, by the people, and develop without displacing?

How You Can Help

We are looking for deep investment to make this work. $150m is a big number but it is really lean to get Oakland to a more equitable, safe, more livable city for low-income residents in the Flatlands. We are looking for funding champions, those who would want to endow this vision with big investments in capital.

We are also looking for thought partners, political allies, and grassroots community organizers to link up with and talk through the vision, help be a herald for it, talk to funders and politicians about an actual plan that could get Oakland to actually be better. The One Oakland Vision has huge implications for the rest of the country or any urban metropolis if we could get it up to a scale to show greater impact than Trybe has already had in the Eastlake/San Antonio Area.