NFG's 40 Years Strong – We Keep Us Safe: Advancing Community-led Solutions to Neighborhood Violence

PLEASE REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION AS PART OF NFG'S CONVENING SERIES AT WWW.NFG.ORG/2020SERIES. THIS CALENDAR INVITATION IS NOT A REGISTRATION.

The Zoom information for joining this session will only be sent to those who register for the series at www.nfg.org/2020series.

We Keep Us Safe: Advancing Community-led Solutions to Neighborhood Violence

Violence is the largest of all health disparities. Black people experience violent deaths at six times the rates of whites. As we seek equitable development, we must do it in partnership with neighborhood residents who live at the intersection of both intracommunal violence and police violence. The predominant investments in safety approaches have been in law enforcement and justice systems.

These strategies have been ineffective in solving the problem, while also creating new problems through mass incarceration and its impact on communities. Meanwhile, investments in community solutions for safety and violence prevention have been nowhere near what is needed to match the scale of the problem. Even as community-oriented intervention solutions are working in locales across the country, they have not gained the traction needed for widespread transformative change — from an over-reliance on criminal justice approaches to public health-oriented approaches. Philanthropy has increasingly stepped up to address the structural drivers of violence such as economic disinvestment. These long-term solutions are necessary but not sufficient. By solely focusing on them, it frames community violence as an issue that cannot be directly addressed in the short-term. In fact, long-term policy solutions should be advanced simultaneously with direct approaches that lower deaths and shootings immediately.

The session will lift up the role of local community organizers in DC and Atlanta who have successful advocated for proven, non-police-based violence intervention models, such as violence interruption, and the local and national funders who have partnered to support that work.