Help develop smart policy, mobilize supporters, summon the best available research, and contend with opposition to common sense gun violence prevention policies.
What Membership Means
Membership in Fund for a Safer Future means becoming part of a pooled fund. This approach encourages donor organizations to combine resources into a single dedicated grantmaking fund that is distributed based on shared goals and coordinated strategies. This allows members to collaborate in the pursuit of a common goal. All members contribute into the fund and derive the benefits of shared strategy.
Benefits
- LEARNING: Program officers, trustees, individual donors, and advisors can utilize their membership in FSF to learn about gun violence prevention alongside leaders with deep expertise in the field.
- LEVERAGE: FSF allows smaller investments to be leveraged into support for a larger strategy, giving every donor at the table a chance to participate in high-impact initiatives.
- SIMPLICITY: The pooled fund allows foundations new to funding gun violence prevention to do so without making administrative changes to guidelines or staffing.
- SHARED RISK, SHARED IMPACT: The group can afford to place a share of its portfolio in new efforts to push the field beyond its traditional boundaries.
The Fund for a Safer Future was The Kendeda Fund’s on-ramp into funding gun violence prevention work. FSF is a collaborative in the best sense of the word — a true network of smart people and aligned interests where foundations can learn about the complexities and opportunities of funding in a critical and urgent set of issues. Our participation in FSF has made us a more strategic and discerning funder of gun violence prevention.
– David Brotherton, Kendeda Fund
The Joyce Foundation is among a very small number of foundations with a distinct program on gun violence prevention. Early on, we realized that to significantly reduce gun injuries and deaths, we needed to diversify and grow our partnerships within the philanthropic community. We needed partners with expertise in public health, in community development, in criminal justice reform and more, in addition to those with expertise on firearm policy. That’s where the Fund for a Safer Future came in.
– Ellen Alberding, The Joyce Foundation
One of the first grants Langeloth made when it starting funding gun violence prevention was to the Fund for a Safer Future. As funders then new to the space, we felt being part of FSF would give us exposure to field trends, field leaders and organizations, and other funders. FSF has delivered on all three counts, and more. Rather than feeling we are on our own, we very much feel we are part of something bigger where we are able to support organizations and work that we would otherwise not be exposed to. And, conversely, we are able to bring to the Fund our perspective and funding strategies. It is a reciprocal relationship that we have found to be beneficial and meaningful. Being part of FSF is a critical grant within our gun violence prevention funding strategy.
– Scott Moyer, Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation
The Johnson Family Foundation sees its FSF grant as an effective way to invest in gun violence prevention and also as an investment in a learning community that has informed our understanding of the movement.
– Dylan Hoos, Johnson Family Foundation