
MISSION
The Mission of OAW is to launch and sustain for-profit businesses for cooperative ownership by formerly incarcerated and other socioeconomically marginalized people.
ABOUT
Oakland & the World Enterprises
In 2014, Elaine Brown, former Chairman of the Black Panther Party, founded Oakland & the World Enterprises, Inc. (OAW), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, in Oakland, California.
To realize its Mission of developing cooperatively-owned businesses, OAW acquired a license from the City of Oakland to develop a 32,000 square-foot, three-quarter acre of City-owned property in West Oakland, California, on the corner of 7th and Campbell Streets, a lot that had been left abandoned and blighted and vacant by the City for over 30 years. Seventh & Campbell is only a few blocks from the West Oakland BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station—the gateway to San Francisco—and is part of the depressed community of Lower Bottoms, contiguous to the Campbell Village Public Housing project.
The City license agreement required OAW to build affordable housing as well as its envisioned businesses. Upon possession of the lot, OAW engaged a number of formerly incarcerated people, at $20/hour, to clean and clear the property and establish its first business there, an urban farm, naming it West Oakland Farms.
Ultimately raising all of the final project budget amount of $80 Million, OAW was able to break ground and start construction on the project in late 2022, naming the complex The Black Panther.—Construction is slated for completion in late May 2024.
Presently, OAW is engaged in a vigorous campaign to raise the $10 Million in capital needed to launch and sustain for at least two years our businesses at 7th & Campbell: a restaurant, a fitness center, a neighborhood market, a tech center and the reimagined urban farm.
GALLERY
OAW ENTERPRISES
Invest in OAW
Use the button below to invest Oakland & the World Enterprises, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Your contribution will be tax deductible.
Contact Us
(510) 368-0390
Oakland & the World Enterprises, Inc.
1407 Webster St. #208
Oakland, CA. 94612