The Collective - Oakland is a Black owned bookstore founded by Michelle Walton and Wesley Dawan on September 18, 2019. We are currently operating fully online, but our goal - our dream - is to open a brick and mortar location in January 2021.
Our motto is:
READ something DOPE
DRINK something GOOD
CHILL somewhere COOL
Michelle & Wesley have a shared love for literature and unique experiences, involving coffee and handcrafted cocktails, which has turned into the passion project of opening up a book bar. The Collective Oakland will not only be a bookstore, but a gathering place for people to share stories and experiences. We feel that others will appreciate and benefit from curated experiences that encourage conversation and self exploration.
While we are a small team and have been operating online only, we hit the ground running with several offerings that have found great success and have built a loyal subscriber/customer base.
- The Collective Minds Book Club has found amazing success. In only four short months we have gained 150 online participants and a local chapter starting in the Bay Area in January.
- Our subscription box, which we started only a few months ago, has gained 150 subscribers and each box gets bigger and better.
- To date we have shipped thousands of books and hand delivered hundreds throughout Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Example of subscription box including Transcendent Kingdom
We are incredibly proud of the success we’ve achieved so far, but are eager to expand and have a physical space for our growing community. We believe that a physical location will address a number of problems that we’ve observed in the literary space, including:
- Little to no cultural representation in physical bookstores of Black literature
- Bookstores not encouraging community, open dialogue, nor a gathering place to enjoy literature
- While historical/well-known authors are highly visible, many contemporaries & independent writers find it difficult to also have a platform to be seen
This is why we’ve come to you - our community - to help us hit the ground running with this lofty goal. Securing a physical location for The Collective - Oakland will inherently address these issues by acting as a central meeting location for like-minded bibliophiles interested in the growth of Black literary spaces. We will celebrate diverse writers with a particular focus on Black literature. The Collective - Oakland will be your modern-day book bar providing literature, cocktails, conversations, and coffee, all in the spirit of community. This will be a space to highlight upcoming writers and authors through book signings, conversations, panels, etc. Our target audience is anyone that is passionate and curious about literature, with an emphasis on up and coming Black or diverse authors.
Our goal is to raise $35,000. As a thank you for supporting our vision, we are happy to gift our donors with the tier incentives listed within this campaign. Absolutely any amount is greatly appreciated and will get us to our goal.
We want to thank everyone who has supported us so far, as well as our new donors and customers. We wouldn’t be where we are without our community, and we hope that you will donate, share, and continue to patronize The Collective - Oakland.
