Support Oakland’s Cultural Restoration - couchdate

Emmanuel Singh is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Lovers come and go, but couchdate is forever.

couchdate (all lowercase) is a restoration project of how we build community and culture. Through rethinking how we use space, music, and art, we’ve been centering brown and black creatives in Oakland for the last 4 years. This reshaping has taken the form of intentional events like vinyl listening parties (styled after Japanese jazz kissas [cafes]), artist pop-ups, and intimate live shows. This curation has been a rare opportunity for local artists and our diverse community to connect.

The cost of doing business in the Bay Area is one of the highest in the nation - keeping our events affordable and accessible while fairly paying employees is a delicate balancing act. Everything we’ve built has been without the capital that many other businesses start with. We’ve been under-resourced from the beginning, and while we’ve been able to bootstrap for the past 4 years, this has jeopardized the health and longevity of our business.

We’ve moved from pop-ups to a hopefully permanent restaurant/bar space in the heart of downtown Oakland. We’ve brought life to not just the historic building we’re in, but Frank Ogawa Plaza right outside our doors. Our lease with the current owner has 3 months left, and we have these 3 months to raise enough capital to buy the current business with all its licenses, or risk losing our space and going out of business.

With over 10,000 followers on Instagram and many sold-out events, we’ve been able to connect people from all walks within our diverse Bay Area community. While couchdate is designed to center brown and black people and their art, it is not about keeping anyone out. We are inclusive and intentional, not exclusive. This is where our social design principles come in - redesigning spaces with social injustices, inclusivity, and wellness in mind.

With this philosophy couchdate has built deep ties within our local community. It’s the same community that has bolstered us through the many transitions, pivots, and hard times that brown and black business owners are far too familiar with. Now we are looking to reach out beyond the community that has been supporting us this whole time.

Specifically, we need to raise $300,000: $160k for the purchase of Slug Bar LLC and $140k of operating costs for the next 3 years. We’re planning to use the space as a Hifi Bar + Community Space. It's our goal to offset some of those costs through this fundraiser. This fundraising effort is not just about growing our business, but stabilizing downtown Oakland. It’s about supporting a safe, inclusive space in the middle of a city filled with high rent, and high vacancies. It’s about showing that brown and black businesses have a chance. It’s about showing that the Bay Area supports not just the arts, but the communities behind the arts.