Arts for Oakland Kids

Arts for Oakland Kids, a 501(c)3 organization, has awarded over $1,000,000 for arts education programs in under-resourced Oakland public schools since 1996.

Every dollar we raise, every child who participates in one of our funded programs, brings us closer to our vision -- that every kid in Oakland gets art in every school at least once a week. We are changing the lives of thousands of Oakland public school kids every day by bringing hands-on arts education back to school. With your support, our efforts improve academic success, build self-esteem and enhance growth among Oakland’s most at-risk kids.

Our Guiding Principles

We believe that the arts are essential to every child’s education and contribute to academic and personal success.

We focus on innovative new programs that combine hands-on creation of art education, including visual, literary, and performance arts.

We partner with schools, artists, projects, and organizations that share our vision of combining the experience of creating art with an aesthetic education. We are not program providers, but rather we accept requests for funding from artists and other program providers in the Bay Area who focus on the under-resourced K-12 student population in Oakland.

We support arts education programs in Oakland that are unlikely to succeed without our aid, and that benefit communities where inadequate financial resources have limited our kids' access to a full range of opportunities.

We work in schools where principals, teachers, and parents provide the support structure necessary to ensure an art program’s success and its eventual integration into the curriculum. Through our board liaisons, we maintain a direct relationship with the program provider throughout the term of each grant.