In 2009, the City of Richmond, California, had one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation. The San Francisco Bay Area suburb of just over 100,000 people was averaging about 40 homicides and nearly 190 firearm-related assaults each year. In search of solutions, Richmond’s Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) implemented the Operation Peacemaker Fellowship, a violence intervention strategy rooted in evidence-based practices that also incorporated bold, innovative elements.

Despite headlines framing stipends as “paying people not to commit crimes” and dismissing transformational travel as paid vacations for criminals, the results in Richmond speak for themselves. Within three years, the city saw a 45% reduction in homicides and firearm assaults. Today, Richmond continues to make remarkable strides toward reducing violence, with 2023 marking the lowest number of homicides in the city’s recorded history.

This incentive structure, which was funded by donors and private foundations, is now a defining feature of Operation Peacemaker. The approach, known broadly as the Advance Peace strategy, is now being successfully replicated in a growing number of cities and its results are supported by multiple evaluations.

Though Advance Peace has “made it”—with program evaluations and academic research validating its efficacy and new municipalities adopting the model—the rapid growth and success of Operation Peacemaker holds valuable lessons for the future. As Vaughn reflects, “Everything that is evidence-based was evidence-informed or a promising practice at first.” For the next groundbreaking solution to emerge, community violence intervention programs must have the capacity to innovate, experiment, and grow. 

There is limitless untapped potential in grassroots spaces, but to access this insight, funders, policymakers, researchers, and civic leaders must collaborate to carve the path that allows innovative practices to flourish.

Operation Peacemaker is just one example that demonstrates how crucial CVI work is to public safety—and how important it is to allow these programs to grow to fit the needs of their community. Communities of color face a historical lack of investment and are disproportionately impacted by community violence, yet are often too under-resourced to address the magnitude of these issues without a concerted attempt to support their efforts. 

This is why CVI programs are essential to reducing violence. Traditional crime reduction strategies often fail to account for cultural and community dynamics, leading to interventions that miss the mark or even escalate harm. In contrast, homegrown peacemakers build trust with those most at risk, using their credibility to intervene before violence occurs and build peace in a community.

However, funding for this critical work has been insufficient and inconsistent, limiting the growth and impact of programs that have the potential to save lives. For over two decades—and until only the last few years—the Dickey Amendment prohibited the CDC from using federal funds to “advocate or promote gun control.” This has had a chilling effect on the CDC’s research into America’s gun violence epidemic, stalling progress in developing effective violence reduction strategies and leaving significant gaps in understanding the root causes of gun violence. 

As was the case for Richmond’s Operation Peacemaker, philanthropy plays an instrumental role in supporting CVI, enabling the field to emerge as an innovative approach to addressing the root causes of violence in a culturally responsive way. Unlike public sector funding, which often faces bureaucratic constraints and political pressure, philanthropic organizations possess the flexibility to take calculated risks and invest in novel initiatives. This agility allows them to quickly respond to emerging needs and fund experimental programs that may lack extensive evidence bases. This characteristic is necessary when exploring strategies, like CVI, that have often operated off of shoestring budgets and lacked opportunity to create a stable organizational infrastructure or scale up their efforts. In many ways, philanthropic efforts can pave the way for public sector adoption of successful interventions that reduce violence improve quality of life, serving as a testing ground for innovative strategies that save lives. 

Still, both philanthropy and public sector funding are essential for the comprehensive development and implementation of effective CVI programs. The synergy between these funding sources creates a powerful funding ecosystem, wherein philanthropy incubates new ideas while public sector funding provides resources for large-scale implementation and sustainability. This collaborative approach is crucial to supporting community violence intervention as a viable public safety strategy. By combining philanthropy’s innovative spirit with the public sector’s reach and resources, we can create a funding landscape that is responsive to community needs, adaptable to changing circumstances, and driven by those closest to the issues of community violence.

Importantly, by presenting firsthand accounts and insights, this report seeks to create a line of communication between funding sources and the needs of practitioners in the hopes of fostering a collaborative ecosystem that is responsive to community needs and adaptable to emerging obstacles. It highlights opportunities for innovation while addressing the challenges that have hindered progress, and emphasizes the need for sustained and thoughtful investment to unlock the full potential of CVI programs. Ultimately, the overarching goal is to align future investments with on-the-ground realities and help inspire a more flexible and responsive funding approach capable of nurturing effective, community-driven solutions to violence.

The field of community violence intervention has made significant strides in recent years. Yet, securing and sustaining funding remains one of the most persistent and pressing challenges for organizations working on the frontlines. As we work to build on the momentum of the progress that has been made, it is critical to understand, expand, and strengthen the support structures that have enabled these advancements. 

This section explores the barriers that have historically hindered CVI organizations in their pursuit of financial stability, including misaligned evaluation standards, preferences for certain types of data, overly compressed grant timelines, and the complexities of forming equitable research partnerships. By outlining these concerns raised by subject matter experts, we can work collectively with key stakeholders to strengthen the foundation of CVI work, ensure its sustainability, and protect its transformative potential at a time when it is most at risk.

“I think a lot of this stuff has room for improvement, as anything that we do, but we have to start looking at things from a holistic aspect. There are a lot of things to capture that aren’t data driven.” —Ross Watson, former program director at Allegheny County Health Department 

Too much emphasis on preferred metrics can create challenges for CVI programs by prioritizing outcomes that may not capture their immediate impacts. This misalignment makes it harder for programs to demonstrate broader benefits such as improvements in community well-being, reductions in retaliatory violence, and behavior change.

The disconnect between the data that funders, policymakers, researchers, and civic leaders are most interested in and the types of evidence most valuable to CVI programs has created significant barriers to effective evaluation and program improvement. Many practitioners have observed that funders often prioritize quantitative metrics and a desire for clear, measurable outcomes that can be challenging to produce. This preference is amplified by government officials and policymakers who rely on such data to justify budget allocations and policy decisions. Additionally, researchers may pursue their own scholarly interests or fulfill contractual obligations that diverge from what CVI programs most need to demonstrate their impact in unstable funding environments. These metrics, while important, have notable limitations in the context of CVI work.

To better capture the multifaceted impact of CVI programs, evaluation frameworks could integrate process and impact evaluations as complementary approaches. Process evaluations assess how programs operate, highlighting immediate effects such as reduced retaliatory violence and improved participant engagement, while impact evaluations focus on longer-term outcomes like reductions in homicide rates and sustained community cohesion. Combining these insights provides a fuller understanding of program effectiveness and ensures that both the short-term and enduring contributions of CVI work are recognized.

To create more synergy between the data funders and CVI programs prioritize, many interviewees called for a more balanced approach to evaluation metrics. Specifically, some suggested that funders, policymakers, and researchers should collaborate with practitioners to identify metrics that capture both the immediate and long-term effects of CVI work. While quantitative data such as homicide rates and cost-benefit analyses can provide valuable insights, these should be complemented with qualitative measures that reflect community well-being, behavior change, and the broader social impacts of intervention efforts. For example, tracking shifts in community cohesion, reductions in retaliatory violence, improvements in participants’ mental health, and enhanced opportunities for education or employment can provide a more comprehensive picture of program success. Establishing shared frameworks for evaluation that integrate both traditional and nontraditional metrics can help funders justify investments while empowering programs to demonstrate their multifaceted impact in ways that resonate with all stakeholders. 

“The problem I have with [randomized controlled trials] in this space is the narrative around it. Because an RCT, in the traditional sense, is considered the ‘gold standard,’ and it does a huge disservice to other work that is happening in the space that… should have the same value in terms of data. Qualitative data is building on individuals’ experiences, and that should matter as much as the quantitative piece… I think it does a disservice to a lot of what’s out there and perpetuates this hierarchy of research and, by extension, programming.” —Soledad McGrath, CORNERS

Depending on quantitative methods to evaluate CVI programs can pose challenges if they cannot capture the nuanced and interconnected impacts of the work. This focus can narrow our understanding of program outcomes and unintentionally minimize the broader contributions these interventions bring to public safety.

Addressing the disconnect between funder priorities and community needs requires not only rethinking the metrics used to evaluate CVI programs but also reconsidering the methodologies employed to assess their effectiveness. Evaluating the impact of CVI programs is inherently complex due to the multifaceted nature of the work, a challenge compounded by the widespread academic emphasis on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as the gold standard. While RCTs hold value in many research contexts, they can be ill-suited to capture the complexities of the public safety landscape in which CVI initiatives operate. This misalignment is highlighted by researchers like Dr. Andrew Papachristos at CORNERS, who critiques the over-reliance on RCTs: “Elevating [RCTs] to a sacred standard that should be applied to every scientific investigation ignores both the empirical realities of violence and the idea that other methods might be better suited to evaluate social policies like CVI programs.” CVI initiatives do not exist in isolation; they intersect with law enforcement strategies, social services, and grassroots efforts, creating a web of interactions that makes isolating the effects of a single intervention nearly impossible.

It is also worth noting that favoring RCTs or similar methodologies seeking clear causal relationships imposes a reductionist perspective onto a holistic problem, which can lead to a systemic undervaluation of CVI programs. This issue is exacerbated by an incentive structure that pressures programs to pursue the evidence-based credibility tied to positive RCT outcomes to secure funding and legitimacy. Notably, the larger, well-funded organizations are often better positioned to navigate these burdensome demands, while smaller, grassroots efforts frequently lack the capacity to do so. This expectation is inherently inequitable, as it demands CVI programs meet standards that are poorly suited to the nuanced and interconnected nature of their work. As a result, the inability to demonstrate isolated impact can often be misinterpreted as inefficacy, rather than a limitation of the evaluation method itself. As Hariton and Locascio (2018) explain:

To remedy this, some interviewees emphasized the value of qualitative, participatory, or observational methodologies, which were considered invaluable for understanding and enhancing their interventions. These methods can capture the complex realities of community dynamics that reflect the lived experiences of affected communities and shared priorities such as increased trust in local institutions, improved perceptions of safety, and shifts in community norms around violence. Further, they allow for nuanced insights into how programs are received, adapted, and integrated into community life and offer critical opportunities to identify areas for improvement. 

Unfortunately, these methodological approaches, despite offering useful knowledge to stakeholders, are sometimes perceived as less scientifically rigorous by those who prefer more traditional quantitative outcome metrics. This perception creates a tension between the need for immediately demonstrable “results” and the long-term, multifaceted nature of effective violence intervention work, ultimately hindering the development and sustainability of innovative, community-responsive programs. To address this challenge, funders may consider adopting more comprehensive evaluation frameworks that integrate qualitative and participatory methodologies. Such approaches ensure programs are assessed based on their true impact on communities while addressing the most pressing questions relevant to their needs and goals.

“We’re looking for the guys that are most likely to get arrested. And if it takes 18 months for behavior change, in the first 12 months, [it’s not uncommon that] kids will get arrested… There is no such thing as overnight change. It doesn’t happen.” —Lili Elkins, Roca

The misalignment between short grant terms and the time needed to achieve meaningful change through CVI programming can distort how we measure success. Brief funding cycles that demand short-term metrics and quick results fail to capture long-term impact and program fidelity, which hinders comprehensive evaluation and innovation.

The challenge of short grant terms emerged as a significant barrier across the spectrum of CVI stakeholders. Practitioners, researchers, and even some funders and policymakers acknowledge that grant periods typically limited to 1–2 years are fundamentally misaligned with the time required to achieve meaningful change in community violence. Practitioners emphasized that effective violence reduction necessitates consistent, long-term engagement to build trust, shift behaviors, and enact systemic changes that lead to lasting impact—objectives that cannot be met through short bursts of activity.

From an academic perspective, short-term funding can also impede rigorous research and evaluation. Researchers contend that these brief periods do not provide sufficient time to fully assess long-term impacts or conduct comprehensive studies that capture the true effectiveness of interventions. This limitation not only jeopardizes individual CVI programs but also undermines the entire field’s ability to develop and implement truly effective violence reduction strategies. By realigning funding cycles with the appropriate timelines for realizing community transformation and expanding evaluation timelines, funding agencies can create an environment that nurtures innovation, allows for the refinement of approaches, and ultimately leads to the sustained, community-wide transformations that are the true measure of successful violence intervention.

“As an executive director myself, I often find that CVI organizations are hesitant to trust researchers because they frequently seek data without understanding our needs and overlook opportunities to bolster our capacity like using grant money to help us access resources… especially because so many people in this field are trauma survivors, researchers need to be more empathetic and provide support to participants in their studies to ensure their protection and not take advantage of their vulnerability.” —Dr. Liza Chowdhury, Paterson Healing Collective

Funding and visibility should be more evenly distributed between community-led initiatives, which rely on knowledge and lived experience, and institutionally-affiliated programs. Prioritizing the latter risks marginalizing grassroots expertise, reinforcing top-down approaches that may not align with community needs, and limiting the adaptability of violence intervention efforts. 

Academic research in community settings often reveals a significant disconnect between institutions and the communities they aim to study, particularly those most affected by violence and inequity. This divide is rooted in a history of exploitative research practices, especially in communities of color, where residents have been treated as subjects rather than true partners. Such approaches have left these communities with little tangible benefits from the research conducted in their midst. Practitioners and community leaders frequently point to cases where researchers prioritized data collection over meaningful engagement, neglecting community needs and failing to build local capacity. This dynamic not only erodes trust but also denies communities actionable insights that could strengthen their violence intervention efforts, perpetuating a cycle where research serves institutional interests more than the communities themselves.

This disparity profoundly shapes funding decisions, policy development, and the broader understanding of what constitutes effective violence intervention. But as it stands, truly impactful, community-driven strategies often remain underfunded and undervalued, despite their success in addressing violence at the grassroots level. By shifting away from an institutionally-dominated narrative, we can create space for greater recognition, equitable support, and investment in community-led solutions that prioritize local knowledge and lived experience.

The barriers restricting the community violence intervention field from accessing the adequate resources and support to allow for innovation have far-reaching implications that reverberate throughout the entire ecosystem of violence prevention and community safety, and go far beyond the immediate challenges these programs face. These obstacles are not just operational hurdles; they fundamentally distort the developmental trajectory of the CVI field in several key ways and hamper innovation at its core. The following section highlights the most pressing concerns we heard from subject matter experts in the field. 

“Funding practices that elevate punitive models of violence intervention over community-based, care-first models compel organizations and municipalities to adopt status-quo strategies that maintain harmful systems. Ultimately that just undermines the positive outcomes of culturally responsive and innovative approaches that are proven to help achieve community safety.” —Fernando Rejón, Urban Peace Institute

As Dr. Caterina Roman notes, “For every intervention we need to be asking who benefits and who is burdened.” To support innovative practices and address the diverse needs of communities, it is essential to open new pathways for understudied yet promising interventions. However, inflexible funding requirements can suppress the development of culturally responsive violence reduction strategies that could more effectively meet these unique needs. Moreover, requiring the use of well-cited models further marginalizes community expertise, allowing institutional perspectives to dominate the development of violence prevention and intervention programs, even when they may not align with local realities. By privileging these institutional models, we not only block the evolution of more effective strategies but also disempower those with the deepest understanding of the problem from contributing to meaningful solutions.

“The [programs] that are ‘evidence-based’ tend to be larger. There are some programs that have started off as grassroots groups and really gain traction themselves either by [partnering with] philanthropy or others that can give them resources to invest in researchers to follow and document their work, which, of course, then leads to being evidence-based. The ones that are less savvy in terms of engaging philanthropy… In many cases they’re not necessarily less successful in their outcomes, they just may not necessarily be set up to grow as a business rather than just to provide a service.” —Joseph Devall, Ballmer Group

The privileging of institutional models and marginalization of community expertise also contributes to disparities in resource distribution within the field of violence intervention. Unsurprisingly, smaller organizations, often lacking the capacity to compete for funding opportunities, face systemic barriers that create a stark divide between well-resourced organizations and grassroots efforts. This imbalance disproportionately favors organizations with established networks and institutional ties, granting them greater access to resources and influence. Interviewees noted that larger programs, often labeled as “evidence-based,” achieve this status not solely based on merit or effectiveness but because they possess the resources to form strategic partnerships and enhance their visibility through extensive documentation and marketing.

This is not to suggest that well-funded programs are necessarily ineffective, but rather to highlight the challenges grassroots programs face in securing similar support. With their focus on providing direct services rather than building a business model, they are often left without the necessary resources to scale or document their impact in ways that appeal to larger grantmakers or public expectation. As grassroots efforts struggle to demonstrate their value in terms recognized by public agencies, researchers, and policymakers, there is a risk of overlooking innovative, context-specific approaches that may be highly effective but underdocumented. This struggle can create a scarcity mindset and develop into an unhealthy dynamic where community organizations are pitted against each other, vying for “limited” resources instead of collaborating and empowering one another to achieve shared goals. 

The consequences of this imbalance are far-reaching and have a direct impact on public safety. Any perceived dysfunction or lack of evidence for community-based approaches risks fueling arguments for more calls to rely on punitive solutions. This perception is often not a reflection of the actual impact of CVI programs but rather a consequence of resource constraints that limit their ability to demonstrate measurable outcomes. Policymakers and the public, influenced by this misconception, may default to familiar enforcement-based strategies, even when these approaches have repeatedly failed to address the root causes of violence and have disproportionately harmed marginalized communities. This shift not only undermines the transformative potential of CVI programs but also perpetuates systemic inequities in how community safety is approached and diverts attention and resources away from holistic, community-driven solutions that have the power to save lives.

“Our capacity building support is rooted in relationships… We came across many folks who were using their own resources to fund their organizations or use grassroots fundraising such as donation drives, selling dinners, or reaching out for volunteer support… We have spent years filling in as grant writers for organizations…  to lighten their load and help them access the resources they need.” —Tonjie Reese, Equal Justice USA

This lack of access to tailored solutions forces communities to rely on one-size-fits-all approaches that fail to address the unique root causes of violence in their specific contexts. In a field where innovation and adaptability are critical, the exclusion of these voices diminishes the effectiveness of violence intervention efforts as a whole.

Concerningly, this capacity gap risks creating a stark divide within the field. On one side emerges a small number of well-funded, professionalized organizations with the resources to scale their operations and dominate policy and funding narratives. On the other side are grassroots initiatives, rich in community knowledge and culturally relevant approaches, yet lacking the technical capacity and institutional support needed to fully develop or expand their work. This division undermines the field’s ability to address violence comprehensively and equitably and leaves grassroots organizations especially vulnerable at a time when their work is increasingly under threat. Addressing this imbalance is not just a matter of fairness; it is essential for ensuring the field remains innovative, inclusive, and effective.

“Chicago is gonna invest $40 billion in policing. Are we holding them accountable at anywhere near the level we are with these tiny amounts of investment we’re putting into CVI? … Why are we asking those questions all the time? We just started to invest in it, and already, reporters are starting to question how effective we are. Well, it’s actually, really too early to find out.”  —Teny Gross, Institute for Nonviolence

Many stakeholders interviewed highlighted a troubling disparity in how success is measured between CVI programs and traditional public safety entities, namely law enforcement—a disparity that threatens to deepen under an administration prioritizing punitive approaches to violence. Practitioners voiced frustration that CVI initiatives are often held to unreasonably high standards of proof, while law enforcement agencies continue to receive substantial financial support with little accountability for delivering tangible reductions in crime or violence. As a result, policymakers and municipal leaders, under pressure to address public safety concerns, may find it politically safer to invest in visible policing measures over CVI efforts, whose long-term impacts may be less immediately apparent.

This imbalance consequently creates an unfair playing field, where rigid benchmarks that overlook essential qualitative outcomes like increased community engagement, strengthened social capital, and positive behavioral shifts—core elements of sustainable change that are difficult to quantify. Success metrics in the field should be structured to support long-term progress, rather than undermining it by risking the premature termination of promising programs that make significant, though less easily measurable, strides. Failing to address this double standard stifles innovation by pushing organizations to chase metrics instead of tackling the complex root causes of violence. It also perpetuates the misallocation of resources, resulting in missed opportunities to support truly effective, community-driven strategies.

Government, philanthropic, and private funders are encouraged to adopt funding models that encourage innovation and ensure the long-term sustainability of CVI programs. This includes establishing tiered grant structures to support the piloting of promising practices, scaling evidence-informed strategies, and providing ongoing resources for long-term impact. 

Philanthropy is uniquely positioned to take on higher-risk investments by establishing innovation funds with minimal restrictions. These funds allow organizations to explore promising strategies with the potential to transform the field. For example, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation provided the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab with $1 million to establish an innovation fund that allows organizations to pilot projects and explore new ways of conducting research. By evaluating and sharing the outcomes of innovative efforts, philanthropy can help promising community-based strategies refine their approaches and establish new models for addressing violence. This investment can also help create a roadmap for broader public sector adoption, advancing the field as a whole.

One proposition to support government funders in embracing innovation is to develop a tiered grant structure that provides awards to CVI initiatives at various stages of development, helping to ensure programs can access the resources they need to support and expand their work while safeguarding public dollars. For instance, organizations with a proven track record of serving communities most affected by gun violence could be invited to apply for innovation grants with minimal restrictions, allowing them to pursue promising initiatives that have the potential to further reduce violence. Continuation grants could then support evidence-informed and promising practices requiring ongoing funding, while implementation grants could help communities pilot or further solidify programs based on evidence-based and evidence-informed strategies.

By establishing clear pathways for program growth, public funders can promote the long-term development of promising CVI strategies that address violence in deep and lasting ways.

This collaborative model extends beyond traditional stakeholders to include voices often overlooked in program development. Community leaders and grassroots organizations must be integral to the innovation process, ensuring that new approaches are culturally competent and rooted in lived experiences. Healthcare systems, recognizing violence as a public health issue, can integrate CVI programs into their community health initiatives, providing additional funding streams and expanding the evidence base for these interventions. 

Policymakers and legislators play a critical role in creating an enabling environment for innovation, not just through funding allocations but by crafting policies that recognize the multifaceted nature of violence prevention. By fostering this interconnected ecosystem, we can create a self-reinforcing cycle of innovation, evaluation, and refinement in CVI strategies. 

To enhance positive returns on investment from CVI funding and implementation, a multi-stakeholder approach rooted in ground-level realities is essential. Funders, policymakers, researchers, and civic leaders should collaboratively immerse themselves in the day-to-day realities of violence intervention work. This can include conducting regular site visits to gain firsthand insights into frontline challenges, facilitating post-funding debriefs, and leveraging coalitions as intermediaries for honest feedback. These strategies not only align funding priorities with the needs and insights of frontline organizations but also empower CVI programs to shape the funding landscape.

Building on this emphasis on experiential knowledge, funders could consider implementing a “Reverse Pitch” process that invites CVI organizations to directly present their needs and innovative ideas. This approach not only aligns funding priorities more closely with ground-level realities but also empowers CVI programs to shape the funding landscape. Researchers could play a crucial role in this process by helping to translate community insights into actionable data points for policy and grant makers. Chicago Beyond’s guidebook, Why Am I Always Being Researched?, offers valuable guidance on how funders and researchers can address power imbalances in philanthropy by centering community voices, respecting lived experiences, and co-creating solutions.

The Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities in Chicago offers an exemplary model of collaborative engagement. This coalition of over 40 funders has streamlined the funding process by agreeing to a unified reporting and giving process, thereby making it easier for grantees focused on community safety to navigate funding requirements. Since their inception in 2016, the Chicago Fund, which was created under PSPC, has invested $3.3 million in 505 Chicago-based projects. Although some requirements, such as data collection and participation in evaluations, are still mandatory, the collaborative approach has allowed funding providers to delegate much of the implementation of allocated dollars to subject matter experts and intermediaries. Additionally, funders like CRED have taken an active role in staying engaged with grantees to ensure that funds are effectively utilized and adaptable to evolving needs.

To complete this feedback loop, post-funding cycle debriefs should be conducted with both funded and non-funded organizations, leveraging coalitions as intermediaries to gather honest and actionable feedback. Coalitions can provide a trusted platform for organizations to share what is and isn’t working, enabling a more candid exchange of insights that can inform future funding strategies, policy decisions, research agendas, and community engagement approaches. Ideally, this approach would be firmly grounded in practical understanding rather than theoretical assumptions, with each stakeholder contributing their unique perspective and resources. Funders would refine their grantmaking strategies, policymakers would craft more informed legislation, researchers would identify critical areas for study, and community leaders would ensure that interventions remain culturally relevant and responsive to local needs. 

To truly align funding with the realities of CVI work and preserve its core principles, public and private funders should consider integrating field expertise throughout their grantmaking process. This integration begins with the collaborative development of RFPs and actively involves CVI practitioners, subject matter experts, survivors, and community members. By establishing advisory panels or working groups that include these stakeholders, grantmakers can create solicitations that authentically reflect the challenges and opportunities within the CVI field, as well as support the navigation of administrative hurdles that could prevent applying for funding in the first place. Similarly, policymakers can contribute by creating legislative frameworks that mandate the inclusion of community voices in public safety funding decisions, potentially through the establishment of community oversight boards for violence prevention initiatives. 

A participatory model not only promotes a more equitable distribution of resources but also empowers communities to actively shape public safety policies and interventions. When practitioners and community members are genuinely involved in decision-making, it fosters trust and a sense of shared ownership over public safety initiatives. This inclusive involvement drives more innovative, contextually appropriate strategies, reinforcing a commitment to long-term, sustainable violence reduction. By prioritizing field expertise and lived experiences in all aspects of public safety planning, we move closer to creating an ecosystem that is not only responsive and adaptive but also genuinely effective in meeting the unique needs of every community it serves.

CVI organizations oftentimes face constant financial uncertainty and unrealistic expectations to demonstrate rapid, city-wide reductions in shooting and homicide rates. This disparity ignores the complex, incremental nature of violence prevention work and overlooks the multifaceted impact of CVI initiatives, which extends far beyond immediate crime statistics and can lead to a severe undervaluation of CVI programs’ comprehensive contributions to public safety. 

To rectify this imbalance, funding agencies should consider adopting comprehensive, long-term process and impact evaluation frameworks that integrate diverse research methodologies and partnerships to capture the holistic impacts of CVI programs. These frameworks should prioritize broader measures of success, including individual progress, feelings of safety, community cohesion, and quality-of-life improvements, and be informed by input from community leaders and practitioners to capture the complex, incremental progress inherent in CVI efforts. Crucially, funders should commit to multi-year funding cycles, with a minimum of three to five years, to provide CVI programs with the stability and time needed to achieve and measure meaningful, sustainable outcomes.

By involving these diverse stakeholders in developing a more equitable and effective approach to assessing and supporting CVI programs, we can foster a virtuous cycle where CVI organizations produce more robust, contextually appropriate evidence, ultimately leading to better-informed decisions across the public safety spectrum and more effective, sustainable violence reduction efforts at large.

To strengthen the CVI field and enhance its evidence base, private and public sector funders should prioritize significant investments in organizational capacity-building and administrative infrastructure, particularly for grassroots programs. Specifically, government agencies, from federal to local levels, should establish dedicated funding streams and policy frameworks that support internal capability development for CVI organizations. Additionally, private sector entities with expertise in areas such as data analysis, grant writing, and human resources management could contribute pro bono services or discounted rates to support CVI organizations’ infrastructure development.

One way these funding entities can offer support is by encouraging partnerships with vetted intermediaries that have a strong reputation for supporting CVI initiatives. An example of this investment in capacity is reflected in the Department of Justice’s Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI) establishment of a specific funding track for intermediaries, indicating an understanding at the federal level of the value of these entities. Beyond acting as fiscal sponsors, good intermediaries can provide critical technical assistance in areas such as fiscal management, data system development, and evaluation support. In addition, they can also serve as cultural translators to ensure that funding requirements are communicated effectively to community-based organizations and that the unique challenges of these organizations are understood by grantmakers. By alleviating the administrative burdens that frequently hinder CVI organizations, the presence of an intermediary enables these groups to concentrate on their core mission. 

To maximize the impact of these capacity-building efforts, a coordinated approach involving multiple stakeholders is essential. Local government officials can work with community leaders to identify the most pressing capacity needs in their areas. Philanthropic organizations can collaborate with public funders to create complementary funding streams that address different aspects of organizational development. Professional associations in fields such as public health, social work, and criminal justice can develop specialized certifications and best practice guidelines for CVI work, elevating the profession’s standards and credibility. This multi-layered strategy not only strengthens individual organizations but also builds a more unified and effective CVI field.

The stakes for communities affected by violence are too high to allow structural barriers to stall progress, especially when CVI has emerged as a bipartisan solution that complements traditional public safety efforts. Despite unprecedented funding opportunities, this report highlights that there are persistent challenges—particularly for grassroots organizations—that threaten the ability of CVI programs to deliver on their promise. These barriers jeopardize essential resources for safety and healing, leaving the communities most impacted by violence to bear the heaviest burdens.

To ensure CVI programs can fulfill their promise to communities, developing a coordinated, multi-stakeholder approach that removes barriers and creates access is imperative. This approach would require streamlining funding processes, providing robust capacity-building support, valuing diverse forms of community-generated evidence, and aligning grant timelines with the realities of community transformation. Cross-sector collaboration is equally vital, as building pathways for CVI organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and both public and private sectors to work together is key to nurturing community-driven innovation and sustainable outcomes. By engaging in a paradigm shift, all of us who wish to see CVI succeed can contribute to creating an ecosystem of resources that is truly responsive to community needs and realities. The communities at the heart of this work deserve nothing less than our full commitment.

Thank you to the following stakeholders for contributing their insights to this report: 

The authors would like to extend their sincere thanks to the team at GIFFORDS Center for Violence Intervention for their thoughtful review and feedback.

This report’s recommendations are summarized in its executive summary and are listed below.