Support an existing effort
Ask a local organization what it needs and what it has capacity to accept. That may be skills, space, introductions, funding, or reliable volunteers.
For your role / Community members & local leaders
What can I do about gun violence?
You can start by getting clear about the harm you want to prevent and the people already working on it. You may want to learn, support an existing effort, improve a program, seek funding, or change a public decision. Choose the path that fits what you can do now.
← All role paths01 / Understand
Start with the harm, the people, and the place.
“Gun violence” covers different situations: firearm suicide, community shootings, harm involving intimate partners, unintentional injury, and shootings in schools or other public places. The people at risk, the conditions behind the harm, and the response that can help will differ. One headline or national number cannot tell you what your community needs.
Name the harm
What happened, to whom, and in what setting? Separate confirmed facts from assumptions.
Check the local picture
Look at time, place, and trend. Ask what the data leaves out, including nonfatal harm and lived experience.
Find the decision
Who can change a service, practice, resource, or rule that affects this harm?
Example: A report of a school shooting elsewhere may raise a real concern about safety. It does not establish that the same event is increasing locally. Check the facts, hear students and staff, and identify the specific safety decision before asking for a solution.
The research guide lets you explore a type of harm and place, with limits on what each source measures.
02 / Act locally
You do not have to start something new to matter.
A resident, parent, young person, survivor, faith leader, educator, or neighbor can strengthen work that already exists. The useful role depends on the problem and what the people closest to it say they need.
Bring a gap to the right owner
Describe a concrete barrier, such as a route young people avoid after school. Find who controls the service or setting and ask for a dated response.
Join a decision already underway
Read a public agenda, attend a meeting, or talk with people affected. Ask what can still change and who has authority.
Check what followed
Return to the people who raised the concern. Find out whether the promised action happened and whether it helped.
A resident’s first move
Young people say they avoid a route after school. Ask them what makes it unsafe without publishing anyone’s identity. Learn whether the school, transit provider, city, or community partner controls the relevant change. Bring that specific concern to the decision maker, get a response date, and check back with the young people. A meeting is useful when it leads to a decision and follow-through.
03 / Strengthen a program
Show what your program does, for whom, and why.
If you run a community-based organization (CBO), you may already provide something valuable. To strengthen it, explain the specific condition you can affect, how people reach the program, what you actually deliver, and what change you can reasonably check. A worthy activity does not by itself prove a reduction in shootings.
Illustrative example
The basketball coach
A coach says a youth basketball program prevents violence. A stronger account names the young people the program reaches, how often they attend, the trusted relationships and support it provides, and the partners who can help when a young person needs more. Attendance and participants’ experience can show whether the program was delivered and valued. A claim that it reduced gun violence would need additional evidence and a way to account for other changes around the participants.
Who and why
Which young people or families are you trying to reach, and what need did they identify?
What changes
Which risk or protective condition can your activities realistically affect?
What is delivered
Who does the work, how often, for how long, and who accepts a referral when more help is needed?
What you will check
Track access, participation, experience, and an outcome the program can plausibly influence.
04 / Find funding
Build a case before chasing an application.
A grant notice sets the eligibility, allowable work, deadline, and reporting requirements. Check those first. If your group is not eligible, see whether an eligible partner can apply and what each partner would be responsible for; do not assume a fiscal sponsor or partnership satisfies a particular notice. Check city, county, state, and local foundation opportunities as well as federal grants; each funder sets its own rules.
Draft a one-page concept for a real conversation.
This is a planning brief to discuss with partners or a funder, not a grant application.
- 01
The problem
Name the harm, place, people affected, and what your local evidence can actually show.
- 02
The proposed change
Connect your activity to a specific need, risk, or protective condition.
- 03
The delivery
State who does what, with whom, how often, how long, and through which partner handoffs.
- 04
The capacity and cost
List staff time, supervision, facilities, participant supports, partners, and the true cost of delivery.
- 05
The learning
Name what you will record about reach, experience, and change, plus what would make you adjust.
- 06
The fit
Compare your concept with the notice’s eligibility, allowable activities, match, reporting, and deadline.
A funding page lists opportunities; only the full notice tells you whether your organization and proposed work qualify.
05 / Advocate for change
Advocacy turns concern into an ask someone can answer.
Advocacy means making a case for a change: helping people understand a problem, organizing those affected, proposing a different practice or investment, and following the decision. Residents, young people, survivors, CBOs, researchers, and public leaders can all advocate. They bring different knowledge and different authority.
It matters because the people living with a problem often see gaps that a program report misses. A clear ask gives an institution something it can accept, reject, or revise in public. Strong advocacy checks the evidence, listens to those affected, considers tradeoffs, and returns to see what happened.
Learn
Name the harm, current response, and what remains uncertain.
Organize
Work with affected people and existing groups; respect consent when sharing stories.
Ask
Identify who controls the decision and request one specific change with a response date.
Follow up
Record the answer, who owns delivery, and whether the change reached people.
Advocacy and lobbying: what changes?
Lobbying is one form of advocacy. The legal meaning depends on the rule being applied. These examples explain the distinction; they cannot classify every activity in every state.
General advocacy
Educate neighbors about a documented service gap, bring residents’ experience to an agency, or ask how it plans to improve a referral process. You are making a public case for change without necessarily urging action on a particular bill.
Lobbying
Ask a city council member to support a named ordinance, or urge residents to contact legislators about a specific bill. For federal 501(c)(3) tax purposes, attempts to influence legislation are lobbying. State and local lobbying laws can cover other government decisions.
If you work through a 501(c)(3): The IRS permits some lobbying, subject to limits, and bars supporting or opposing candidates on the organization’s behalf. Nonpartisan voter education can be allowed. Before an organized campaign, check the rules for your tax status, funder, and jurisdiction. An individual raising a concern is not automatically a registered lobbyist.
Illustrative next move
From concern to a public decision
A group wants more reliable support for young people after a shooting. It first checks what services exist, talks with affected families and workers, and finds where access breaks down. It may ask an agency to repair a referral practice, ask a budget office to explain its spending, or advocate for legislation. Each ask goes to a different decision maker and may fall under different rules. The group records the response and checks whether support actually reaches people.
Your next move
Choose one problem and one decision you can reach.
Use what you learned here to find the people already working on it. If your organization needs help turning a local problem into a program, funding case, or shared plan, see how Jonathan works with teams.