REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
Gun Violence Prevention Research, 2026

Updated May 18, 2026
A downloadable PDF of this RFP is available here.
Answers to frequently asked questions are available in this FAQ Document (updated June 4, 2026).

Fund for a Safer Future hosted an optional informational webinar about the RFP details and process. View the recording here. Passcode: ^#0J5Lju

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 public health problem. Based on CDC data, every year, nearly 47,000 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. Data from the CDC has found widening racial and ethnic disparities in firearm injury and death, with the greatest increase among racially minoritized groups. Furthermore, over the past five years, two distinct trends have emerged, whereby we have experienced steep reductions (-40 percent from 2021 to 2025) in firearm homicides, while firearm suicides remain persistently high (+3 percent), necessitating research on how to both sustain and improve these trends, respectively.

The Fund for a Safer Future is a donor collaborative committed to ending firearm violence the United States. It makes grants to support policy, research, communications, and community-led efforts that save lives by lifting evidence-informed solutions and backing the organizations working every day to keep communities safe.

The Fund is announcing this competitive funding opportunity to support research projects that will inform the effectiveness of firearm violence prevention, intervention, and response-related policies, programs, and practices. Previous Fund for a Safer Future research grant recipients are available on the Fund’s website here and here. For this 2026 RFP, we expect to support research grants totaling at least $2 million.

Grant Awards

The Fund will support projects with total budgets of between $25,000 and $250,000 and up to three year timelines. Research funded by the Fund for a Safer Future must be shared with impacted communities and submitted for publication in open access, peer-reviewed journal(s) within the grant period.

Eligibility

Individuals associated with institutions of higher education, research institutes, 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 between researchers and diverse stakeholders, such as practitioners, survivors, and/or Offices of Violence Prevention. We encourage researchers from communities that are underrepresented in the sciences to apply.

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 a grant 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, Fund for a Safer Future intends to allocate at least 20 percent of this RFP’s grant funding (at least $400,000) for early career researchers (ECRs). The Fund defines ECRs as those who earned a terminal degree within the past five years. These projects must feature an ECR Principal Investigator but can also feature non-ECR Co-Investigators.

Research Priorities

The Fund welcomes a wide spectrum of research proposals, spanning various firearm death and injury intents (e.g., homicide, suicide, non-fatal assault, intimate partner violence, unintentional shootings, shootings by law enforcement, mass shootings, school shootings); impacted populations (e.g., children, elderly, black and brown communities, veterans); geographies (e.g., national, state, cities, rural communities); areas of focus (e.g., federal regulations and funding programs, Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, state policies, programs, trainings, technologies, risk factors); disciplines (e.g., public health, criminal justice, psychology, sociology, epidemiology, medicine, social work, education, economics); methodologies (qualitative, quasi-experimental designs, randomized controlled trials, Participatory Action Research, implementation science, survey research); 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 shared with impacted communities via 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 14, 2026, 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. Applicants will also complete a brief form describing the Principal Investigator and project, which will be used to assign reviewers and determine ECR and underrepresented in the sciences statuses.

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? Why are they most appropriate for answering the research question(s)? 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—both research and lived— of the proposed 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.).

LOIs will be reviewed by a research advisory committee on the following basis:

CRITERIA	WEIGHT (%)
Summary	15%
Outcomes	20%
Methodology	25%
Dissemination plan	15%
Experience	10%
Capacity building	5%
Timeline	5%
Budget	5%
Total	100%

 

The Fund for a Safer Future will host an optional Q&A webinar on June 1, 2026 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 1. Responses to frequently asked questions are available here. A recording of the webinar is available here (passcode: ^#0J5Lju).

Selected applicants will be invited to submit full proposals, at which point they will have access to light-touch technical assistance to support their grant writing. Note that the project budgets may include up to, but no more than, 10 percent in indirect costs and subcontracts to other institutions/community organizations are permitted. It is expected that projects will commence on or before January 1, 2027, and be completed within three years.

Full Proposals

Applicants will receive a response to their LOIs by August 13, 2026, with full proposals due no later than September 30, 2026, and grants announced in December 2026. 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/login/2026research

Please contact info@fundforasaferfuture.org with any questions about the RFP.