News

March 12, 2025
For Immediate Release
Media contact: Talia Wright, talia@fundforasaferfuture.org

 The Fund for a Safer Future Announces $1.2 Million in Research Grants to Prevent Gun Violence and Create Safer Communities

Boston, MA (March 12, 2025) – The Fund for a Safer Future (FSF), a national network of funders, announced $1.2 million in new research grants to better understand how to protect communities from gun violence.

Through grants to four universities and one think tank, this funding will: develop new financing models for Community Violence Interventions; better understand how gun-violence-related risk affects human capital investments; evaluate the impact of Project Unloaded, an organization creating a new cultural narrative that gun ownership makes people less safe; explore how to prevent firearm thefts from automobiles; and explore ways to reduce veteran suicide, and intentional and unintentional firearm injuries among veterans, through training and counseling in community healthcare systems.

“We are excited to support all of this essential, new research that will close vital gaps in our knowledge of how to protect communities from gun violence,” said Talia Wright, FSF’s Executive Director. “All of this research has direct implications for a wide range of gun violence prevention measures. We will continue to follow the evidence to inform our efforts and encourage policymakers and others in the violence prevention field to do the same.”

Details of the five research grants are as follows:

Grantee	Grant Purpose, Principal Investigator, Amount and Term
Milken Institute	Leveraging the Milken Institute’s expertise in philanthropy and finance, this project will develop the evidence base for innovative financing models to make community violence intervention strategies fiscally sustainable using a mix of methodologies including qualitative, cost/benefit, case research, and financial modeling. Principal Investigator: Emily Musil, PhD Grant Amount: $250,000 Grant Term: November 2024 — October 2025
University of Chicago Health Lab	This project explores how gun-violence-related risks to a healthy future for inner city-young adults—particularly men interacting with the trauma system at the University of Chicago—may reduce the effectiveness of investments in these individuals’ development and influence how such investments are made, and to use insights from those explorations to consider how interventions may provide these young men with safer futures that promote such investments. Principal Investigators: David Meltzer, MD, PhD; Selwyn Rogers, MD, MPH; and Harold Pollack, PhD Grant Amount: $198,196 Grant Term: November 2024 — December 2025
Yale School of Public Health	The researchers will conduct a rigorous evaluation of Project Unloaded, with a focus on community program interventions and changes in urban Black and Hispanic adolescents’ attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control regarding firearm ownership and use. Principal Investigator: Sarah Lowe, PhD; Megan Ranney, MD, MPH; Nina Vinik, D; and Hassan Saleheen Grant Amount: $249,996 Grant Term: November 2024 — December 2027
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston	The goal of this project is to prevent firearm theft from automobiles by using quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to develop evidence-informed interventions and policy recommendations. Principal Investigator: Alexander Testa, PhD Grant Amount: $249,982 Grant Term: November 2024 — October 2027
University of Colorado, Anschutz, Medical Campus	This project aims to reduce veteran suicide, and intentional and unintentional firearm injuries, through the creation of an implementation package that supports the spread of veteran lethal means safety policies, training, and counseling in community healthcare systems. Principal Investigator: Bryann DeBeer, PhD Grant Amount: $250,000 Grant Term: November 2024 — December 2026

 

These grants were selected by a committee made up of Fund for a Safer Future members and key stakeholders in the field. The Request for Proposals (RFP) that applicants responded to is available here. The committee included: Sarah Burd-Sharps, Everytown for Gun Safety (Chair); Erica Atwood, First Degree Consulting; Spencer Cantrell, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Tim Daly, The Joyce Foundation; Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, UC Davis; Lauren Levin, Sandy Hook Promise; Brother Lyle Muhammad, The Circle of Brotherhood, Miami; Grayce Niles, Sandy Hook Promise; Shilpa Patel, GWU Asthma Clinic; Angelina Ruffin, Kaiser Permanente Center for GV Research & Education; Joseph Simonetti, Colorado School of Public Health; Sheldon Watts, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Johnnie Williams, Gang Rescue and Support Project; and April Zeoli, University of Michigan.

The Fund expects to release a new research-focused RFP in Spring 2025. For alerts when the new RFP will be released, please subscribe to our mailing list here. For more information about the upcoming RFP or about the Fund more generally, visit www.fundforasaferfuture.org or follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fund-for-a-safer-future/

Founded in 2011, the Fund for a Safer Future is a funder collaborative that works to reduce gun violence in the United States by aligning funders around four approaches to reduce gun violence: policy and legal strategies, research, communications and narrative change, and building a stronger gun violence prevention movement. Since 2014, the Fund has granted more than $8 million to support 41 different research projects. Overall, the Fund has made more than $25 million in grants and leveraged another $203 million in aligned grantmaking by its more than 30 members.

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