Everytown Awards $1.5 Million in New Grants to 15 Community Violence Intervention Organizations; $600,000 in Sustainer Grants to 15 Existing Grantees; $250,000 in a Newly Launched Innovation Grant Program to Five Organizations with an Innovative Gun Violence Prevention, Intervention or Healing Strategy
Everytown Also Provides Strategic Support Including Peer Convenings, Capacity-Building Trainings, Data & Research Access and Support from Everytown’s Volunteer Networks
NEW YORK — Today, the Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, announced a new investment of $2.35 million in funding to 35 community-based violence intervention organizations working in 27 cities across the country. The funding announced today includes $1.5 million in first-time funding to 15 organizations and $600,000 in sustainer grants to 15 existing grantees. The Everytown Community Safety Fund is also launching a new type of grant to specifically support community-based violence intervention programs with a particularly innovative approach to solving gun violence. The first class of innovation grants – totaling $250,000 – includes five organizations from cities across the country, including Wambli Ska Okolakiciye, a native-led organization that works with indigenous communities in Rapid City, South Dakota. The Everytown Community Safety Fund is the largest national initiative solely dedicated to fueling the life-saving work of community-based violence intervention organizations in cities nationwide.
“Cities across the country continue to grapple with persistent gun violence, and community-based violence intervention groups are answering the call,” said Michael-Sean Spence, senior director of Community Safety Initiatives at Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and creator of the Everytown Community Safety Fund. “But there is an urgent need for increased support and resourcing to ensure these organizations continue to fulfill their promise. With this new round of investments, we are proud the Everytown Community Safety Fund can play a role in sustaining their life saving efforts, which are so critical to a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence.”
“Investments in Gun Violence Prevention and Community Violence Intervention programs are proven methods to successfully make our communities safer,” said U.S. Representative Steven
Horsford, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It’s especially important that these investments and grants support Black-led organizations because they are trusted and know how to do the work in our communities. I commend the Everytown Community Safety Fund for making these important grants in Nevada with Nevada Partners and across the country. It will take all of us, inside and outside of government, to solve our gun violence epidemic. I will continue to advocate for policies that protect our neighborhoods and ensure a safer future for all. These investments will reduce crime, save lives and break the cycle of violence that plagues our communities.”
“Community-based violence interventions are a critical component in reducing gun violence and continue to be a greater need than ever before,” said Anthony Smith, a member of the Everytown Community Safety Fund Advisory Board and executive director of Cities United. “These investments will provide crucial capacity to groups working to interrupt gun violence and create peace inside communities hit hardest — the Community Safety Fund’s commitment is evident with their continued investments in community-based violence intervention organizations across the country.”
As gun violence continues to devastate communities following an exponential increase in recent years, community-based violence intervention (CVI) programs are working tirelessly to sustain their work, working with individuals at the highest risk of shooting or being shot and helping reduce violence through targeted interventions — including street outreach and hospital-based violence intervention — in the country’s most vulnerable communities. These programs are on the frontlines in the cities with the highest gun violence and communities experiencing the disproportionate impact of gun violence. While historic investments have been made at all levels of government, CVI organizations still struggle to access promised funding and when they do, funding is restricted to programmatic expenses, preventing them from increasing staff, building their capacity or scaling to more people and places in need. The Community Safety Fund’s investment will allow community-based violence intervention organizations to build their capacity to sustain and scale their programs long-term, enhancing their ability to successfully access additional government, philanthropic and corporate support.
Since 2019, the Everytown Community Safety Fund has granted $10.6 million in support of 117 community-based violence intervention organizations implementing promising strategies, like street outreach, hospital-based violence interventions and youth development and counseling, in more than 67 American cities. This latest round of first-time support grants, currently the Community Safety Fund’s largest grant offering, will provide grant recipients $100,000, in two disbursements over two years, as well as access to the Community Safety Fund’s quarterly calls, peer convenings, capacity-building trainings, national conferences, as well as support from Everytown, Moms Demand Action volunteers and national partners.
This year, the Everytown Community Safety Fund will award first-time support grants to fifteen community-based violence intervention organizations, including investments in seven new cities. The organizations include:
- Baton Rouge Community Street Team, Baton Rouge, LA
- Building a Better Way for Trenton/Trenton Community Street Team Inc., Trenton, NJ
- Center for Structural Equity, Wilmington, DE
- COMPASS Youth Collaborative, Hartford, CT
- Grady IVYY Program, Atlanta, GA
- Hand in Hand Hospital Violence Intervention Program (Riverside Health System), Newport News, VA
- Healing Hurt People, Portland, Portland, OR
- Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Boston, MA
- MASK (Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings, Chicago, IL
- Movement 4 Life, Sacramento, CA
- The Next Step Program, Minneapolis, MN
- Selma Center For Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation, Selma, AL
- Shaphat Outreach, San Diego, CA
- V.I.P. Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
- YEAH Philly, Philadelphia, PA
This year, the Everytown Community Safety Fund is launching a new grant for violence intervention organizations with an innovative gun violence prevention, intervention or healing strategy, granting $50,000 over one year. The first five Everytown Community Safety Fund innovation grantees include:
- The BRIC (Bullet Related Injury Clinic), St Louis, MO
- Wambli Ska Okolakiciye, Rapid City, SD
- Rise Up Rochester, Rochester, NY
- 4-CT, New Haven, CT
- QLatinx, Orlando, FL
The Everytown Community Safety Fund will also award new Sustainer Grants to 15 prior recipients. Sustained support will allow each organization to scale their work to more communities in need. The organizations include:
- Advance Peace, Richmond, Stockton & Sacramento, CA
- AIM4Peace, Kansas City, MO
- The Buffalo Peacemakers, Buffalo, NY
- Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance, Cleveland, OH
- Community Passageways, Seattle, WA
- Detroit Public Safety Foundation – Ceasefire Detroit, Detroit, MI
- Employment Connection, St. Louis, MO
- Inner City Innovators, West Palm Beach, FL
- Center of Hope, Baltimore, MD
- No More Red Dots, Louisville, KY
- People’s Advocacy Institute – Operation Good & Safe Streets, Jackson, MS
- Paterson Healing Collective, Paterson, NJ
- Philadelphia CeaseFire, Philadelphia, PA
- Regional One Health – Rx for Change, Memphis, TN
- South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace, Pittsburgh, PA
In July 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a historic, bipartisan gun safety safety bill. The law is the first federal action on gun safety in almost 30 years and takes a multifaceted approach to address the different types of gun violence impacting our communities, and includes $250 million in dedicated funding to support evidence-informed, community-based violence intervention programs that reduce gun violence in the most affected communities using a public health approach. Everytown Community Safety Fund’s grants provide an immediate and flexible lifeline to programs that may qualify for federal support, helping groups build capacity and sustain their efforts while they prepare to unlock federal funding at a time when many of these programs have been stretched far past capacity.
The Everytown Community Safety Fund currently supports multiple grant opportunities:
- Support Grants provide community-based 501(c)3 violence intervention organizations with funding, peer engagement, and capacity building over two years.
- Sustainer Grants provide prior Support Grant recipients with a lifeline to help them sustain a continuing gun violence prevention effort for one year.
- Innovation Grants provide community-based 501(c)3 violence intervention organizations with an innovative gun violence prevention, intervention or healing strategy, and target an emerging or underserved demographics, drivers of gun violence, or adopt an evidence-based strategy to a new setting with funding, peer engagement, and capacity building over one year.
- Wear Orange Grants provide community-based 501(c)3 violence intervention organizations funding and technical assistance, to start or complete a local Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) project in partnership with a Moms Demand Action volunteer chapter, in celebration of Wear Orange weekend.
Grantee selection follows a rigorous process administered by Everytown Community Safety Fund staff, as well as Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers and an external review panel of experts from across the country, including the Everytown Community Safety Fund Advisory Board, made up of advocates, academics, survivors and city leaders from diverse backgrounds who recognize the critical role community-based violence intervention organizations serve as a component of a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence.
The full list of community-based violence intervention organizations currently supported by the Everytown Community Safety Fund and more information can be found here.
