Breaking down barriers to regional gun violence collaboration
Project: The Government Alliance for Safe Communities (GASC)
Clients: State of Illinois, Cook County, City of Chicago
The State of Illinois has declared gun violence a public health crisis. The City of Chicago, Cook County, and State of Illinois pledged a combined $350 million to reimagine their approach to public safety and quell the violence. However, reimagining public safety at the local and state level requires unprecedented collaboration between dozens of entities. Civic Consulting Alliance responded to their request to coordinate across these civic entities and maximize the collective impact of public funding.
“Civic Consulting Alliance’s exceptional project management skills and expertise in collaborative violence prevention efforts kept us aligned and focused on our shared violence prevention goals. We are grateful for your service to the residents of Greater Chicago.”
In 2021 we conducted data analysis of current investments, and designed and facilitated three workshops with the City, County, and State to catalyze coordination on investments to prevent or reduce violence, including the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding. The first workshops aligned the parties around (1) core principles for initiatives to support violence prevention and reduction, and (2) coordinated geographical investments to serve communities of greatest need. We recommended the launch of two intergovernmental working groups to focus on: (a) aligning strategies for funding opportunities that support interventions for those at highest risk of violence; and (b) developing an integrated approach to capacity building for violence prevention/intervention organizations.
The City, County, and State launched these two working groups in fall 2021 and are actively working together. One direct outcome was a “Readiness Summit” for nonprofits, community organizations and vendors to learn more about funding opportunities to support violence prevention, youth programming, public health, community development, and infrastructure.
As each entity now awards funding based on common principles for community violence intervention, integrated strategies are being developed to measure impact through common grantee reporting metrics, long-term evaluative approaches, and capacity-building initiatives for community-based violence prevention and intervention service providers.
