Like many of you, I was struck earlier this summer by the sheer magnitude and the inhumanity of the gun violence in Uvalde, Texas. As Americans we have grown increasingly numb to the headlines of mass shootings and the subsequent lack of action that is underlined each time. But with the shockwaves of gun violence ripping through so many of our communities – not just in Uvalde, or Buffalo, or Highland Park, but in thousands and thousands of other cases – we can’t wait for federal action. It stands to reason that hyperlocal, community-based responses are needed as well.
That’s why we launched The Resolve Fund to End Gun Violence earlier this summer.
There are many local community-based organizations addressing gun violence and public safety across the U.S. The Community-Based Public Safety Collective estimates that there are approximately 200 local groups doing community violence intervention (CVI) work. However, most are operating on small budgets, and the majority have not received significant philanthropic investment to date. With no centralized collaborative donor fund focused primarily on supporting local intervention work, there was a gap in the philanthropic landscape.
At Panorama we realized that we were in a unique position to fill that gap and take action. In fact, we already had partnerships and relationships with more than 100 organizations tackling gun violence prevention from different angles – through hosting Hyphen’s work on community-based violence in major cities nationwide, and our support for community-based mental health organizations. We also already had access to national experts and strategic advisors for this work.
Built around this existing infrastructure, The Resolve Fund offers an efficient, effective, and coordinated mechanism for channeling investments from philanthropic institutions, major donors, and the private sector to a vetted list of local nonprofits that urgently need increased funding to meet the growing demand for their programs.
While we quickly stood up this new fund in order to facilitate rapid disbursement during the crucial summer months, it’s intentionally designed to support longer-term needs over the next three to five years. Multi-year support is essential for helping small organizations reach their fullest potential by strengthening organizational stability and expanding programmatic capacity. And as we’ve been hearing in learning networks we convene, sustained investment through flexible core support dollars can move contributions from transactional to transformational.
To ensure we’re not duplicating efforts or diluting this space in philanthropy, we designed The Resolve Fund to co-exist alongside other philanthropic efforts addressing gun violence. As a complement to other funding efforts, we are supporting gun violence intervention and prevention in three areas:
While the full range of solutions to gun violence includes federal action, policy change, strategic litigation, data and research, advocacy, and national-level initiatives, the local work in cities and communities throughout the U.S. is an important part of the path to progress. And much of that path is being paved by proximate leaders with lived experience.
Many of the leaders and staff who are now working in community violence intervention came directly from the communities they serve. They understand the impacts of gun violence on a core level and engage in this work to honor family, friends, peers, and loved ones. It’s important to note that investment in CVI work not only supports proximate leaders with lived experience, but also multifaceted efforts to address racial inequity, and in lifting other community-based solutions as well.
We invite you to partner with The Resolve Fund to End Gun Violence to help support the types of hyperlocal philanthropy that community-based groups across the country say they need most.
Questions? Contact us at Resolve@PanoramaGlobal.org.
