QLatinX Awarded $50,000 Innovation Grant from the Everytown Community Safety Fund to Sustain Critical Gun Violence Prevention Work in Orlando

Everytown Will Also Provide Strategic Support Including Peer Convening, Capacity-Building Training, Data and Research Access and Support from Everytown’s Volunteer Networks

ORLANDO, Fla. — Today, the Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF), part of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, announced $50,000 in funding for QLatinX to sustain their work and better position them to access federal funding. This grant is part of Everytown Community Safety Fund’s $2.35 million investment in funding to 335 community-based violence intervention organizations. The Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, is the largest national initiative solely dedicated to fueling the life-saving work of community-based violence intervention organizations in cities nationwide.

QLatinx is a grassroots racial, social, and gender justice organization dedicated to the advancement and empowerment of Central Florida’s LGBTQ+ Latinx community. It was founded in response to the mass shooting in  2016 at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. 

QLatinx seeks to center and empower the most marginalized members of our community, establish affirming and supportive healing spaces, build a strong and united community, and work towards a society free of fear, violence, and hate. This grant will support their unique services provided to the LGBTQ+ Latinx to promote safety and prevent violence.

“We are proud to announce that QLatinX has been awarded a 2023 Innovation Grant from the Everytown Community Safety Fund. QLatinX’s grassroots efforts to empower Central Florida’s LGBTQIA+ and Latinx communities has made significant progress in fostering meaningful relationships to promote safety and prevent gun violence,” said Michael-Sean Spence, managing director of Community Safety Initiatives at Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and creator of the Everytown Community Safety Fund. “With this new grant, the Everytown Community Safety Fund will support QLatinX’s continued program expansion to allow them to enhance support for at-risk youth across Orlando.”

“In the wake of the tragic shooting at Pulse nightclub in 2016, it became of the utmost importance to develop gun prevention programming that promotes safety and provides support and empowerment to the LGBTQ+ Latinx community in the Central Florida area deeply impacted by gun violence,” said Gabriella Rodriguez, executive director of QLatinx. “With this Everytown Community Safety Fund Innovation Grant, QLatinx will have the capacity to provide participants with critical wraparound services and enhance our gun violence prevention efforts.”

As gun violence continues to devastate communities following an exponential increase in recent years, community-based violence intervention (CVI) programs like QLatinX are working tirelessly to sustain their work, working with individuals at the highest risk of shooting or being shot and helping reduce violence through targeted interventions — including street outreach and hospital-based violence intervention — in the country’s most vulnerable communities. These programs are on the frontlines in the cities with the highest gun violence and communities experiencing the disproportionate impact of gun violence. While historic investments have been made at all levels of government, CVI organizations still struggle to access promised funding and when they do, funding is restricted to programmatic expenses, preventing them from increasing staff, building their capacity or scaling to more people and places in need. 

Since 2019, the Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF) has granted $10.6 million in support of 117 community-based violence intervention organizations implementing promising strategies, like street outreach, hospital-based violence interventions and youth development and counseling, in more than 67 American cities. 

This grant is part of the first round of Innovations Grants awarded as part of the Community Safety Fund’s largest grant offering. Innovation Grants are awarded to violence intervention organizations with an innovative gun violence prevention, intervention or healing strategy, and address an emerging or underserved demographic, drivers of gun violence, or adopt an evidence-based strategy to a new setting for one year. CSF provides grant recipients $50,000, over one year, as well as access to CSF’s quarterly calls, peer convenings, capacity-building trainers, national conferences, as well as support from Everytown, and its grassroots networks Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, and national partners. 

Grantee selection follows a rigorous process administered by Everytown Community Safety Fund staff, as well as Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers and an external review panel of experts from across the country, including the Everytown Community Safety Fund Advisory Board, made up of advocates, academics, survivors and city leaders from diverse backgrounds who recognize the critical role community-based violence intervention organizations serve as a component of a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence.

The full list of community-based violence intervention organizations currently supported by the Everytown Community Safety Fund and more information about the fund can be found here.