Stop the Shooting: Calling Foundations to Arms

By JOSHUA HORWITZ and KHALID R. PITTS

As last month’s Million Mom March amply demonstrated, rising concern about gun violence has galvanized a diverse range of Americans to take action.

The Mother’s Day march was the largest gun-control demonstration in history, drawing more than 500,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of parents and others who came together in Washington and in cities across the country represent countless others who see gun violence as an issue of civil and human rights, as well as a major threat to child safety.

With the exception of a few intrepid grant makers, however, America’s philanthropies have been curiously absent from the movement to eliminate gun violence. Now is the time for foundations to rise to the challenge and support this life-saving movement.

America has experienced two other moments when it seemed that the country would, once and for all, take the kind of serious action that would reduce gun violence. The first was in 1968, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The second occurred in 1981 after the murder of John Lennon and the attempted assassinations of President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.

Today, we stand at another seminal moment. More than 75 percent of Americans say they believe that gun laws need to be tougher. But lack of resources could cause us to squander this opportunity to stop senseless killing and maiming.

To challenge the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun advocates, to promote strong and effective gun-control legislation, to eliminate the flow of firearms to criminals and young people, and to protect our children, foundations must directly support the work of national, state, and local gun-violence-prevention organizations.

Traditionally, the violence-prevention movement included gunshot survivors, community activists, and public-health advocates, but today the movement has grown far beyond those groups. Those additions represent a diversity of interests: civil-rights organizations (like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), consumer-protection groups (like Public Citizen), social-justice organizations (like the Alliance for Justice), and parents (like the Million Mom March).

That new alliance has provided a spark to the gun-control movement, creating a formidable, energized force. Yet this force must be mobilized to act. That is a role that violence-prevention organizations are ready to assume and have the capacity to undertake, but they lack the money they need to succeed.

For decades, the pro-gun lobby has prospered from the view that it is too powerful a force to confront. The public once had that same impression about segregationists in the South, heavy industry that pollutes our air and water, and many other influential actors. Irene Diamond, founder of the Funders’ Collaborative for Gun Violence Prevention, put it best when she said: “Some people say the gun lobby is too powerful to fight. But we used to say the same thing about tobacco companies, and look how much has changed.”

The balance of power in the gun debate shifted in the past 18 months, as 30 cities and counties, along with the N.A.A.C.P., took the gun industry to court and achieved victories that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.

Those lawsuits represent only the tip of the iceberg. In large cities and small towns across this country, events are unfolding that are revitalizing the call for common-sense gun-control legislation and policies that save lives. Among the evidence that the movement is now too serious for foundations to ignore:

• New efforts to influence public policy are changing the face of the violence-prevention movement. National gun-control organizations, community leaders, local activists, and others across America are speaking in one clear voice and calling for firearm licensing and registration.
• A recent retreat outside Minneapolis brought together social-justice activists and leaders from across the country with representatives from national and state gun-control organizations. The result was a bonding of spirit and mission among people dealing not only with gun control but also with human rights, hate crimes, juvenile justice, and a wide range of other issues. Alliances were forged and the groundwork laid for a new effort to build a diverse and unified movement.
• A broad array of community-based organizations are using programs based on public-health principles to save lives by reducing gun violence in communities across the country. Those organizations include the Omega Boys Club, in San Francisco, the Ulich Children’s Home, in Chicago, and the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia. The success of such programs is evident in those cities, which have seen youth homicides decline significantly.
• Gun-control organizations, such as the Trauma Foundation, in San Francisco, and our organization, the Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence, are tapping the potential of children and teenagers by sponsoring youth-development programs to deter violence. That work has done much to reduce the level of gun violence among young people.

Unfortunately, little of that work has been supported by America’s foundations. Many grant makers say the gun issue falls outside the parameters of their mission. However, the truth is that gun violence directly affects many of the issues philanthropic institutions are most concerned about: academic enrichment in poor neighborhoods, child welfare, criminal-justice reform, community development, and civil rights.

The people disproportionately harmed by gun violence are the same ones who have been left behind, denied opportunities, and underserved by our society. Grant makers routinely finance programs that deal with issues such as poverty and access to education, and we applaud those efforts. Yet, those who are committed to lifting people out of poverty and ending oppression must also recognize gun-violence prevention as part of a strategic and holistic approach to achieving their goals.

What ensured the victories for the civil-rights movement was the mobilization of thousands of supporters by non-profit organizations that received money and other support from forward-thinking foundations and other philanthropists. The gun-violence-prevention movement can achieve the same success and save lives with similar support.

Every day, 89 people in the United States lose their lives to gun violence. That fact spurred many to march on Mother’s Day, but their crusade was too late to save an 18-month-old girl from Massachusetts. She was shot and critically wounded the night before the Million Mom March while her father was cleaning his handgun. Incidents like that continue to make it clear why foundations cannot sit idly by and watch from the sidelines. It is time for more than a handful of foundations to step in and support one of the most important social-justice issues of our time.

Joshua Horwitz is executive director of the Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence, in Washington. Khalid R. Pitts is the organization’s director of state programs.