2025 Everytown Community Safety Fund Recap

At the end of 2025, the number of shootings and gun deaths had fallen for the third year in a row in many cities across the country, sustaining a historic decline in gun violence. Early data indicate that 2025 marked the lowest number of shooting deaths in the U.S. since 2015. That progress reflects sustained local leadership and state, city, and philanthropic investment in community safety as part of a comprehensive approach to violence reduction.

But as we head into 2026, that progress remains fragile.

In April 2025, the Department of Justice cut $800 million in gun violence prevention grants nationwide, $158 million of which was going to community-based violence intervention (CVI) organizations. Everytown Community Safety Fund’s grantees alone had been awarded $22.7 million of that CVI funding—and across the country, the impact of the funding cuts was immediate.

Among other things, the federal funding had allowed grantees to:

• Hire more staff to mediate conflicts or mentor community members,
• Maintain physical office space in communities where CVI work was happening, and
• Conduct studies on the public health efficacy of their work.

The April federal funding cuts created an urgent crisis for the CVI field and a direct threat to our grantees. Dozens of organizations were placed at risk, with some forced to reduce up to 100% of their staff.

In response, the Everytown Community Safety Fund moved quickly to stabilize critical CVI infrastructure and protect the progress communities have fought to achieve. We refused to let politics come before people—or dismantle what works.

Read the rest of the post on Everytown Support Fund: https://everytownsupportfund.org/everytown-community-safety-fund-2025-cvi-organizations-federal-funding-cuts/