African American Community Service Agency (AACSA)

The organization receives funding from government offices including the California Community Reinvestment Grants Program at the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, and the Silicon Valley African American Cultural Center Project. The Silicon Valley African American Cultural Center Project is one of the community projects legislatively backed by U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA). ^{2 3 4}

AACSA was also listed on the 2023 #Case4Reparations grantee list. #Case4Reparations is a campaign of the Decolonizing Wealth Project, a community organizing group that funds advocacy by community-based activist groups, including those associated with Native American communities and the Black Lives Matter movement. ⁵

Background

The African American Community Service Agency (AACSA) is a left-of-center community organization based in San Jose, California. The organization claims to advocate for “empower[ing] all Black and historically excluded communities” through “economic justice.” ¹

The organization, founded in 1978, claims its three pillars are education, advocacy, and “community building.” On its website, the AACSA also claims that one of its core values regarding advocacy is “reparations.” AACSA also advocates to “strategically promote equity” and “social and racial justice.” ¹

Affiliated Organizations

According to its website, the African American Community Service Agency (AACSA) lists its “friends and partners” which include Comcast, Wells Fargo, IBM, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) labor union. ^{6 7}

AACSA is also partnered with Health Trust, a healthcare conversion foundation that was founded with the proceeds from the sale of a nonprofit hospital system. Health Trust provided AACSA with a grant in February 2021. ^{8 9 10}

Financials

The African American Community Service Agency’s (AACSA) total revenue amounted to $2.17 million in 2022, $2.02 million of which came from contributions. The organization had $3.14 million in total revenue in 2023, $3.13 million of which came from contributions. The organization’s expenses amounted to $1.94 million in 2022 and increased to just over $3 million in 2023. ¹¹

Funding

The African American Community Service Agency (AACSA) received a total of $415,420 in government grants in 2020, $711,461 in 2021, $576,164 in 2022, and $1,149,745 in 2023. ¹¹

The California Community Reinvestment Grants Program at the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development granted a total of $450,000 to AACSA in the fiscal year 2020-2021. AACSA also received a grant from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office in 2023 and received $4,116,279 in 2024 from the Silicon Valley African American Cultural Center Project, one of the community projects pushed by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) to the House Appropriations Committee. ^{2 3 4}

AACSA received a grant for $30,000 in 2022 and another for $350,000 in 2023 from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, $201,000 in grants from the Heising-Simons Foundation in 2023, $50,000 from the Penner Family Foundation in 2022, and $40,000 from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in 2024. ^{12 13 14 15}

AACSA was also listed on the 2023 #Case4Reparations grantee list. #Case4Reparations is a campaign of the Decolonizing Wealth Project, a community organizing group that funds advocacy by community-based activist groups, including those associated with Native American communities and the Black Lives Matter movement. ⁵