* Thanks to some generous anonymous donors and Oaklandish, who are sending us checks directly, we have actually raised $40,000 MORE than the total shown here! We are close to our goal! Please help us over the top!*

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Your contributions will help us achieve the following goals:

• Raising enough money to open the building to the public this year,
  
• Potentially buying the building and converting it to a community land trust!
  

The impact

You can help us grow and sustain the resources already freely available to the people of Oakland. Your support will also make the Omni Commons available as a space and community to nurture your own projects and movements. We’re committed to thorough, transparent documentation of everything we do, and to supporting projects that could make the world a better place to live in for future generations. Full disclosure: we hope to spawn a social movement for creating commons-oriented spaces everywhere, from Bangkok to Rio de Janeiro and beyond!

Community resources at the Omni:

• Free classes and workshops
• A commercial kitchen
• A bike shop
• A media lab
• Tools ranging from basic power tools and robots to 3D printers and electronics soldering stations
• A sewing station with heavy-duty sewing, embroidery, and button-sewing machines
• A community print studio with a letterpress and shelves full of fonts
• Free Wi-Fi for our neighbors
• Weekly film nights
• Yoga classes
  
• Monthly “Omni Gathers” with food, music, and dancing.
• A variety of spaces available where the community can gather to create, connect, ponder, learn, heal, organize, and move.

Our story

It all started in 2011 with the creation of Sudo Room (a publicly-accessible hackerspace) and the Bay Area Public School (a free collective university). Emerging out of the Occupy movement, these two groups formed a collectively-run space in downtown Oakland, and were joined by other groups and individuals who shared their vision of a more equitable commoning of resources and meeting of human needs over private interest or corporate profit.

When the opportunity to lease the Omni building, located near the intersection of Telegraph and Shattuck Avenues, arose in October 2013, we met weekly for a year. We invited other aligned groups and individuals and learned to organize together, negotiated a lease with an option to buy, and created a set of shared values and goals: the radical commoning of space and resources, liberation of knowledge, transformative justice, and solidarity with struggles against capitalism, racism, misogyny, and other forms of violence.

The Omni Commons already hosts an array of organizations: hackerspace Sudo Room, citizen science laboratory Counter Culture Labs, food justice project Food Not Bombs, worker-owned cafe and bookstore La Commune, the Bay Area Public School free university, small press Timeless, Infinite Light and more, including a community print shop, a shared music studio, and a celluloid film processing lab. 

The projects in our community are inclusive and diverse: from a community lab for DIY biology and citizen science, to a community wireless network that provides free public Wi-Fi, to reclaiming food to ensure all are fed and a horizontally-organized all-volunteer school! The building can accommodate this because there are a range of shared spaces – including a giant ballroom and theater – where you can do everything from host mass meetings to stage performances, readings, and classes, and it will be available on a sliding scale basis to the public. 

The only thing that's missing is you.

The Omni welcomes all individuals and groups aligned with our mission to use this space to build Oakland’s future. We want to share what we have in the spirit of care, cooperation, and mutual aid in making the Omni a commons for all of Oakland- a place where you and your organization can organize, collaborate, thrive, and perform. Together, over the next 3 years, we intend to buy the building and convert it to a community land trust!

You can help us open our commons!

Before fully opening our commons to the general public, we need to ensure it’s ready, accessible, and safe. This means making renovations to bring the building up to code. 

We are a growing group of quick-learning volunteers, and are working with skilled contractors to do everything from installing ADA-accessible toilets to soundproofing. We’ve already invested over $80K from small donations and micro-loans within our community into readying the building, but we need your help to cover the final set of improvements.

You can help our crew cover critical costs to open by January 1st!

Our $80K goal covers the costs of necessary building improvements, such as: accessibility for people with disabilities; overhauling the commercial kitchen; refurbishing, soundproofing, and equipping the ballroom; removing and replacing fire hazards in the building with safer and more functional alternatives; and much more. For many of these upgrades, the landlord will reimburse us for 50% of the cost, making your contribution go even further.

Our all-volunteer team won’t be taking any cut of your contributions; all of the funding from this campaign will go directly toward the cost of materials, equipment, and other expenses related to opening the physical space to public use for as long as possible.

Even if we don’t reach our goal, every dollar we raise goes directly to the costs of renovating the building to open to the public.

Our gratitude to you

We’ve got this!

Our community has been practicing the art of organizing for years, and we include many veterans of the Occupy movement that began in 2011. Over the past year of working to build the Omni Commons, we’ve developed effective organizational strategies based on our shared values. We are not leaderless – rather, we are committed to collectivizing our leadership – drawing on the strengths of everyone in our community. 

Risks and challenges

By far the greatest challenge we face is funding. As an explicitly anti-capitalist organization dedicated to providing space and resources to the public on a sliding scale, we nevertheless have to pay rent, utilities, insurance, and materials costs for maintaining the building. As in all that we do, we believe that by working together, we can overcome these hurdles! 

Here are a few reasons why we believe we can do it:

1. Preparation: The lease is signed, the official option to purchase is registered, our move-in is over, and the only thing between us and a long-lasting community resource is the funding to fully open our doors to the public and to keep them open.

2. Economy of scale: by pooling our resources, talents, labor, hearts, and minds we can achieve efficiency and savings by operating collectively.

3. Diversity: the varied kinds of groups working at the Omni Commons ensure that we have a broad and deep pool of skills to draw upon. If we need something done, there is someone among us who knows how to do it.

4. Network effects: We are one of many community spaces found locally and around the world. We choose to share, collaborate, and learn with each other in an effort to resist oppression and exploitation. We can do much more together, in solidarity, than we can do in isolation!

Our model for sustainability integrates income from booking paid event rentals in several core spaces throughout the building on a sliding-scale basis, depending on the renter’s financial resources, values, and admission fee, if any. We've crunched the numbers, created budgets, and have commitments from renters: If you can help us finish funding our building improvements and permitting requirements now, we will be able to cover our operational expenses with event rentals alone by the end of 2015. We’re here for the long haul.

More ways you can help

We know and appreciate that much of the funding for a campaign like this comes from folks who have comparatively little, but who give disproportionately more in their donations. We are humbled and honored to receive contributions from the grassroots.

What else can you do besides contribute financially? You can start by sharing the campaign with your friends and acquaintances on social media and letting others within your communities know about the project. If you’re local, you’re welcome to stop by the space, attend our weekly meeting, a free event, class, or workshop, or jump right in and join one of our working groups. We’re continually improving the building, developing how we organize, planning events, and otherwise “playing house.” We want to create a space that addresses the needs and concerns of our surrounding community, and we welcome your input.

To learn more about the Omni Commons, visit our website and check our calendar for upcoming meetings, classes and events!

Frequently Asked Questions

What do you mean by a “Commons”?

The idea of “the commons” consists of resources that are shared in common and which are maintained by a self-organizing community. The Omni Oakland Commons is a people’s organization that is run and led by the people that use it. Rather than our resources being controlled by private interests or corporations, they are shared equitably among those participating in the Omni community, and distributed to those in need. To learn more, check out the trailer of this documentary on the commons, featuring interviews with a number of Sudo Room members: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiJY10_RdQY

Why does Oakland need a commons?

We believe that everybody needs to build a commons! As for Oakland specifically – economic disparity and displacement have pushed long-time residents out of the area. We see a real need for projects that provide space and resources in a manner more befitting of Oakland’s radical history of creativity, cooperation and social justice organizing. More than a physical space, the communities served by the Omni enable those struggling with the violence and injustice of our city to come together in solidarity and mutual aid.

What is and was the Omni Commons?

Built in 1934 as the Ligure Club, a neighborhood center for the local Italian-American community, the building served as a social nexus predominantly for the Oakland Scavenger Association, the largely Genoese refuse collectors who formed one of the Bay Area’s first worker-owned and operated co-operatives. From this time until the early 1980s, it served as the site for not only countless social events (concerts, dances, banquets, weddings, birthday parties), but major civic gatherings and lectures. Public speeches by the likes of presidents (Richard Nixon) and supreme court justices (Earl Warren) filled the building to capacity, along with regularly-held forums on local politics. Even sporting events like boxing matches and bocce ball tournaments were regularly held at the building.

As the neighborhood changed, by the early 1980s the building transitioned first to a community centered-club called The White House before becoming the infamous Omni nightclub and grill from the mid-80s through the 90s. Focusing mainly on rock and local metal scenes, it featured innumerable local musicians as well as well-known performers as diverse as Dr. John, McCoy Tyner, Bad Brains, Primus, and Crazy Horse.

From the mid-90s onward the property was carefully stewarded by a thoughtful couple who returned the building to its more diverse traditional use – albeit on a smaller scale, with a mixture of occasional social events (dances, weddings, birthday parties) as well as civic ones (political forums, neighborhood meetings), while also making it their workplace and home.

In October 2013, a local poet and artist who had known the current owners for many years, introduced them to the Bay Area Public School and Sudo Room as we were searching for a new location. From that moment on, we’ve worked tirelessly to make the Omni Commons a reality – and one year later, we’re almost ready to open our doors!

How can I start a similar project in my community?

We’re especially excited to support the creation of commons-based communities all over the planet! For starters, feel free to join any of our mailing lists, and pour over our wiki which is full of documentation around our organizational processes, our vision and values, meeting notes and plenty more. In your community, seek out those individuals and projects that resonate with positive social change, and start meeting weekly wherever you’re able (a coffee shop, home, library, anything will do!) to start creating a shared vision of occupying space and sharing resources with those who need it most. You’ll be surprised what can happen once the word gets out and people come forward with all forms of skills, knowledge, ideas, and materials!

What are the terms of your lease agreement and purchasing options?

Our 3 year lease contains an option to buy the building for $1.95 million dollars at any point before the end of our lease term. We're currently paying $13K per month in rent and nearly $2K per month in utilities and other shared expenses.

Are my donations tax-deductible?

Yes! Note that you will have to subtract the fair market value of rewards you receive. Omni Commons is applying for federal tax-exempt status. In the meantime, we are fiscally sponsored by the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, a registered 501(c)3. Your receipt will say "East Bay Food Justice Project."

What's that awesome music in the video?

It's Fairyland by Zebrat. Please visit and 'like' their Facebook page – when they get 750 'likes,' they'll release their next new song!