Joyce joins violence intervention collaborative

The Foundation is proud to join its philanthropic peers in supporting the Community Violence Intervention Collaborative, aimed at strengthening and expanding community-led, evidence-based violence intervention strategies in Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul and a dozen other places across the country.

The collaborative, unveiled as part of the Biden administration’s strategy to prevent gun crime and ensure public safety, will support both proven and new intervention strategies that reduce violence and strengthen community-based infrastructure to enhance safety for children, families, and communities in an equitable way.

The Biden administration announced last month that a portion of the American Rescue Plan’s $350 billion in state and local funding and $122 billion in K-12 education funds can be invested in violence intervention. The collaborative will convene policymakers, community based organizations and philanthropies in cities and other jurisdictions that have committed to using that public funding to pilot and scale up their intervention capacities beginning this summer.

"The creation of the collaborative is an important step forward in reducing violence in America,” said Joyce Foundation President Ellen Alberding. “The need for these interventions has never been more urgent, particularly in communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by violence and its systemic causes.”

The initiative is being launched amid a spike in gun violence in cities across the country and a protracted surge in gun-buying that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Violence intervention strategies are a pillar of the Foundation’s Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform program, which for more than a quarter century has supported research, education, and policy solutions to reduce gun violence and help make communities safer.

Those strategies include focused deterrence, cognitive behavioral therapy, hospital-based intervention and street outreach – all designed to break cycles of violence, minimize justice system involvement for young people and reduce gun violence in struggling neighborhoods.

Intervention programs have been shown to reduce violence by as much as 60 percent. They work directly with individuals most likely to commit gun violence, intervene in conflicts, and connect people to health, wellness, and economic services to reduce the likelihood that violence is seen as an answer to conflict.

Other philanthropies participating in the violence intervention collaborative are: Arnold Ventures, The California Endowment, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Emerson Collective, Ford Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, Open Society Foundations, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.