Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation Awarded $100,000 Grant from The Everytown Community Safety Fund to Sustain Critical Gun Violence Prevention Work in Selma

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

Selma, Ala. — Today, Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF), part of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, announced $100,000 in funding for the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation to sustain their work and better position them to access federal funding. The grant is part of Everytown Community Safety Fund’s $2.35 million investment in funding to 35 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.

Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation (SCNTR) is a violence reduction organization, committed to transforming and healing the drivers of violence in many forms, specifically: housing, mental health, education and employment access,  and racial violence at personal, family, community and systemic levels. The mission of SCNTR is to partner with institutions to promote love, the establishment of justice, and build the Beloved Community. The Selma CNTR’s primary goal is to help people in community to resolve conflict (personal, interpersonal, and systemic) through nonviolent means by the development and implementation of creative ventures, workshops, training models and activities that teach and enhance skills and motivation to identify and address conflicts in ways that promote healing, harmony, compassion and just outcomes.  

“The Selma Center for Nonviolence’s evidence-based violence intervention program directly engages with the people and places most impacted by gun violence, delivering holistic support while fostering conflict resolution skills, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy,” 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. “The Everytown Community Safety Fund is proud to award the Selma Center for Nonviolence a 2023 Support grant to sustain their direct support services to survivors and enhance their staff development through additional training and technical assistance.” 

“I am elated that the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation is part of the latest cohort of Everytown Community Safety Fund grantees,” said U.S Representative Terri Sewell. “I know this funding will go a long way in helping us break the cycle of violence here in Selma. I’m grateful to the Everytown Community Safety Fund for their unwavering commitment to supporting changemakers as we strive to build a future that is free from the scourge of gun violence.”

“The Selma Center For Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation launched our Violence Intervention Program in 2021, and we are have made great strides towards direct positive impacts to Selma’s Beloved Community,” said Nikesha Tilton, director of programs at the Selma Center The Selma Center For Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation. “We are grateful for this support from the Everytown Community Safety Fund, and are eager to use this grant to deepen our survivor support systems, our school-based violence intervention program, and our overall outreach in the community.”

“The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation is implementing a community violence intervention strategy proven to be effective at reducing community gun violence in cities nationwide,” said Dr. Shani Buggs, a member of the Everytown Community Safety Fund advisory board and assistant professor at the University of California, Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. “Sustained funding in this work is critical to its ability to be effective.”

As gun violence continues to devastate communities following an exponential increase in recent years, community-based violence intervention programs (CVI) like Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation 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 latest round of Support Grants, currently CSF’s largest grant offering, will provide grant recipients $100,000, in two disbursements over two years, as well as access to CSF’s quarterly calls, peer convenings, capacity-building trainers, national conferences, as well as support from Everytown, and it’s 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.