REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
Gun Violence Prevention Research, 2025
The Fund for a Safer Future, a fiscally sponsored project of Global Impact, is pleased to announce this request for proposals to support research that will help answer the question: What works to prevent firearm-related death, injury, harm, or trauma, and promote healing?
Background
Firearm deaths and injuries and their toll on communities continue to be a significant and growing public health problem. Based on CDC data, every year, nearly 46,000 people in the United States are killed by guns and nearly 97,000 more are shot and wounded. We are increasingly confronted with the widespread and long-term trauma this issue creates and its impact on our nation’s emotional and mental health. The CDC has found widening racial and ethnic disparities in firearm injury and death, with the greatest increase among racially minoritized groups.
The Fund for a Safer Future is a donor collaborative committed to achieving and implementing effective public policies and practices to reduce firearm-related harms in the United States including fatal and nonfatal assault, intentional self-inflicted, legal intervention, and unintentional shootings. The Fund supports local, state, and national-level projects that inform and advance evidence-based policy reform.
The Fund is announcing this competitive funding opportunity for academic institutions, researchers, and nonprofits to support projects that will inform the policy and practice of firearm violence prevention and response effectiveness. The goal is for grant recipients to produce applied research that can advance the development and/or implementation of prevention, mitigation, or intervention policies or strategies within three years.
Previous recipients of a research grant from the Fund for a Safer Future are available on the Fund’s website here and here. For this 2025 RFP, we expect to support research grants totaling at least $2 million.
Grant Awards
The Fund will support projects with a total budget of between $25,000 and $250,000 that will result in peer-reviewed, published articles by grant recipients within three years. Note: research funded by the Fund for a Safer Future and appearing in peer-reviewed journal publications must be made open access.
Eligibility
Institutions of higher education, individuals associated with institutions of higher education, and non-profit organizations (including but not limited to community-based organizations, civic groups, think tanks, or direct service organizations at any stage on the research-readiness continuum) are eligible to apply. We encourage partnerships that bring together diverse stakeholders, particularly those that operate locally.
Please note that primary investigators who currently have an active research grant from the Fund for a Safer Future may not apply. There is no restriction on applications from affiliated universities or researchers, those affiliated with a Fund for Safer Future grant in a non-primary investigator role, or other non-profit organizations that have agrant from the Fund for a non-research purpose (i.e. to provide CVI technical assistance or state-based coalition building).
Early Career Researchers
This year, at least $400,000 of the overall funds will be reserved for projects led by early career researchers (ECRs). As defined by the National Institutes of Health, ECRs are those who earned a terminal degree within the past 10 years. Researchers who wish to apply specifically for ECR funding should indicate this in their letter of intent (LOI). These projects must feature an ECR Principal Investigator but can also feature non-ECR Co-Investigators. Proposed projects under the ECR designation will be eligible for awards between $25,000 and $100,000. ECRs wishing to apply for an award between $100,001 and $250,000 will be considered along with the full pool of applicants.
Research Priorities
The Fund welcomes applied or policy research proposals in topics that cut across multiple areas of firearm-related death and injury, including suicide and suicidal ideation, homicide and assault, intimate partner violence and homicide, unintentional shootings, use of lethal force by law enforcement, issues that particularly impact rural communities, armed political violence, and the trauma to individuals and communities that results from these events.
We encourage submissions in traditional areas of public health and criminal justice as well as in other critical areas essential to violence prevention. These can include communications and media, economics, legal scholarship, mental health, clinician training and involvement, historical perspectives, multidisciplinary partnerships across these domains, and more.
The Fund supports projects using a broad range of methodologies or a mix of approaches: qualitative, quantitative, Participatory Action Research, evaluations, implementation research, econometrics, primary and secondary data collection and analysis, cost/benefit, case research, comparative analyses, and more. We are particularly interested in projects that center the experiences and/or voices of survivors and communities with high burdens of firearm violence.
Dissemination of findings is a critical component of this research project. The Fund is looking for findings from this research to be published both in open-access academic journals and in broader, accessible channels. This could include, but is not limited to, activities such as public talks in impacted communities and policymakers, presentations to community organizations, editorials to media outlets, technical reports to collaborating partners, and other efforts to share the research with stakeholders relevant to the proposed research.
How to Apply
Applicants should submit a brief LOI no later than June 20, 2025, via an online portal, Zengine, linked here. Formatting requirements include a maximum of 4 pages (single-spaced, size 12 font, and one-inch margins), including the budget and excluding references, with hyperlinks allowed.
The LOI should address the following questions:
- Summary: What question(s) will the project seek to answer? How will it build on and differ from existing knowledge on this topic?
- Outcomes: What are the expected impacts for this project? For example: How will the project advance the field of firearm violence prevention or intervention? How will the project seek to understand solutions for firearm violence prevention among communities and groups most affected by this problem?
- Methodology: What is the proposed research methodology/ies? How does this approach incorporate an equity lens and/or center the voices of affected communities?
- Dissemination plan: How will you disseminate the results, especially to impacted communities? Who will be responsible for this dissemination?
- Experience: What are the qualifications and experience of the proposed research team?
- Capacity building: How will the project diversify the pool of researchers working in the field of gun violence prevention?
- Timeline: What is the expected completion date?
- Budget: What is the budget for the project? For the LOI, we expect a brief (under one-page, to be counted as part of the 4-page LOI) budget only listing major budget categories (personnel; non-personnel such as stipends for participants, indirect, etc.).
- Funding sources: Are there other funders for this project? Do you have any proposals pending or do you plan to submit other proposals to support all or a portion of the project?
LOIs will be reviewed by a research advisory committee on the following basis:
| CRITERIA | WEIGHT (%) |
| Summary | 15% |
| Outcomes | 20% |
| Methodology | 20% |
| Dissemination plan | 15% |
| Experience | 10% |
| Capacity building | 5% |
| Timeline | 5% |
| Budget | 5% |
| Funding sources | 5% |
| Total | 100% |
The Fund for a Safer Future will host a Q&A webinar on June 4, 2025 at 3:00 pm ET, where prospective applicants can learn more about this funding opportunity and bring any questions about the process. To register for this webinar, please do so here. Prospective applicants can also submit questions in writing to the email address listed below through June 4. Question responses, along with the webinar recording, will be posted by June 11 on the Fund’s website, linked here.
Selected applicants will be invited to submit full proposals. Note that the project budgets may include up to, but no more than, 10% in indirect costs and subcontracts to other institutions/community organizations are permitted. It is expected that projects will commence on or before January 1, 2026, and be completed within three years.
Full Proposals
Applicants will receive a response to their LOIs by August 1, 2025, with full proposals due no later than September 19, 2025, and grants announced in December. Full proposals will require:
- Project narrative: Up to 10 pages, single spaced, exclusive of references;
- Description of the organization: Including its background, purpose, objectives, and experience in the area for which funds are sought;
- Itemized project budget with narrative, We recognize there are costs associated with the requirement to make peer-reviewed research publications open access, typically $2,000–$5,000 per manuscript. Accordingly, these costs can be included in the budget, as well as any additional costs related to broad dissemination;
- Names and qualifications: Of people involved in the project;
- Organizational expenses: And income for previous, current, and coming fiscal year;
- Most recent audited financial statements;
- Internal Revenue Service: Form 990 for the most recently completed fiscal year; and
- Internal Revenue Service verification: That the organization is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization and qualifies as a public charity as defined in IRS Code section509 (a)(1), (2), or (3). or W9 if the applying organization is not a 501(c)(3) entity.
Contact Information
Letters of intent should be submitted electronically via Zengine. Click this link or copy and paste the URL to be taken to the submission portal: https://webportalapp.com/sp/2025research.
Please contact info@fundforasaferfuture.org with any questions about the RFP.
Date issued: May 21, 2025.