LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

Info Sessions

Guide our advocacy and strategic efforts by growing of our membership, distributing mutual aid, stewarding land, and developing pathways to food access, cultivating sustainable, Black-led food ecosystems.

LC Offers Experiences Around:

  • Strategy

  • Advocacy

  • Liberation Learnings

  • Land Stewardship

Join us May 5th from 6:30-7:30PM or May 7th from 5:30-7:30PM

Tell Me More

  • Feed Black Futures (FBF) is a Black, queer-led organization committed to food justice, sovereignty, and healing within our communities. We promote healing by strengthening Black food economies, creating ecosystems for resilience, and addressing the historical harms caused by carceral violence and land dispossession. Through principles of abolition and self-determination, we aim to build community power to advance collective liberation. We seek to activate our communities to reclaim their right to healthy, culturally relevant food, and to shape a future where everyone has access to food that sustains both body and spirit.

    Location: Oakland, CA (Remote/In person as needed)

    Hours: ~10 hours/monthly

    Commitment: 1 year, $500 quarterly stipend

    About the Leadership Council:

    The Leadership Council (LC) will serve as a guiding force in shaping the advocacy priorities of Feed Black Futures. LC Members will play a critical role in building our membership base, assessing and administering mutual aid requests, and fostering the development of radical, local Black-led food systems. With community support, we can build local power and create opportunities for our membership to find their power, connect with the land and participate in our collective liberation.

    Key Responsibilities:

    • Develop infrastructure for the FBF mutual aid fund

    • Triage and manage mutual aid requests

    • Conduct recruitment and outreach activities to build FBF membership

    • Support in stewardship of land when the opportunity arises

    • Explore opportunities for free and low cost food distribution to support mutual aid efforts

    • Collaborate with FBF staff to inform FBF land strategy

    • Participate in a quarterly political education offerings (i.e., bookclub, teach ins)

    • Meet with fellow leadership council members once a month (twice virtually and once in person each quarter)

    • Attend relevant FBF events

    • Collaborate with other Leadership Council members to host two political education sessions and/or events annually

    Subcommittees:

    • Project Management

    • Communications

    • Land Strategy

    • Outreach

    Who We’re Looking For

    Folks passionate about food justice who:

    Required

    • Are politically aligned with Feed Black Futures' mission and values

    • Are committed to deepening your relationship with an understanding of equity, Black liberation, and food sovereignty

    • Live in Oakland or surrounding cities

    • Are willing and able to travel to FBF office in downtown Oakland at least once a quarter

    • Are committed to continually developing personal political education

    • Are interested in shaping policy and advocacy efforts that build sustainable, community-led food ecosystems in Oakland

    Preferred

    • Have some knowledge or experience in farming, gardening

    • Are familiar with food policy, mutual aid, or related fields

    • Have experience in organizing and/or advocacy

    • Are tapped into food justice networks at the local, state, or national level

Our Leadership Council stewards our mutual aid fund.

  • Mutual aid is a practice rooted in collective care and solidarity. It’s ancestral wisdom: we take care of one another by sharing resources, knowledge, and support—directly and without hierarchy. Unlike charity, which often positions people as passive recipients of aid, mutual aid is built on the belief that everyone has something to contribute and everyone deserves care.

  • In a world shaped by systems of oppression, mutual aid offers a pathway toward self-determination, reclaiming our agency and building resilience. It challenges the structures that create scarcity and barriers to essential our resources, like healthy food, land access, and economic opportunity. Mutual aid is offered by community, for community.

  • Food sovereignty goes beyond ensuring access to food; it’s about uplifting our community to grow, share, and govern our own food systems. By addressing barriers like financial insecurity, lack of land access, and limited resources, mutual aid enables more people to join this vital movement.

    Our Mutual Aid Fund is managed by members of our Leadership Council, the fund provides direct support to our people, helping to overcome obstacles to participating in food sovereignty efforts. Whether it’s covering transportation to teach ins, purchasing seeds or garden supplies, or addressing urgent needs, this fund ensures that no one is left behind.

  • Black communities have long practiced mutual aid as a means of survival, resistance, and liberation. Rooted in African communal traditions and adapted to the realities of enslavement, segregation, and systemic oppression, mutual aid has been central to our resilience.

    • Enslaved Communities: Shared resources and skills to care for each other despite brutal and violent conditions, supporting each other’s collective survival.

    • Freedmen’s Aid Societies: After emancipation, Black people organized to provide food, education, and legal aid for newly freed people.

    • The Civil Rights Movement: Groups like the Black Panther Party ran free breakfast programs, health clinics, and community schools, demonstrating the power of mutual aid in fighting systemic racism. We still have organizations, like People’s Programs, continuing their work around the world.

    • Modern-Day Movements: Black-led mutual aid networks continue to address food insecurity, housing justice, and health care disparities while building community power.

    Mutual aid is not new—it’s a continuation of Black communities’ deep-rooted practices of care and solidarity.

Join a Network of Community Care

Mutual aid thrives when everyone contributes and practices vulnerability to ask for support when they need it. Here’s how you can get involved:

  • Contribute to Our Mutual Aid Fund: Your contributions directly support community members working to build food sovereignty.

  • Share Your Skills and Resources: Whether you have gardening expertise, access to land, or other valuable resources, your support makes a difference.

  • Join Our Community: Participate in events, workshops, and collective efforts to strengthen the movement.