07-04-2025
Milwaukee violence prevention groups receive $500,000 with goal to reduce gun violence 15%
What's the price tag of reducing Milwaukee gun violence? How about $500,000?
That's the amount of funding the Coalition to Advance Public Safety, a group of four Black-led organizations which support violence prevention in cities, gave to five Milwaukee community-based violence prevention efforts. The goal is to reduce gun violence in the city by 15% through the funding.
On Friday, representatives from that organization, Milwaukee city leaders and those who lead the organizations which received the money said the funding was critical to reducing gun violence in the city. They juxtaposed the cost to prevent gun violence with what they said was hefty price tags associated with incarcerating those who commit it or with responding to victims and touted the impact it will have.
"Peace is what we seek. Peace is what we don't find always," said David Muhammad, deputy director of the county's department of health and human services, at a press conference announcing the funding. "Peace is what we're gathered here to create."
Milwaukee has struggled with gun violence since the COVID-19 pandemic, though in recent years it has declined. However, groups like those that received the funding attempt to intervene before it happens or prevent it from occurring in the aftermath.
The following groups received funding:
Milwaukee Christian Center, which assists with programs like Violence Free Zones, a school violence prevention program, and Advance Peace, which works with those who have committed violence to prevent them from re-committing.
Uniting Gardens Home Inc., focused on preventing violence in the Garden Homes neighborhood.
WestCare, which focuses on outreach to youth and those struggling with drug abuse, and on crime prevention.
Community Task Force, which has been active in responding to youth violence and other crimes, plus in organizing activism efforts.
The Asha Project, which provides culturally specific domestic violence services for African American women and others in Milwaukee
The Coalition to Advance Public Safety, which provided the funding, also is providing assistance to Project Ujima and 414Life, hospital-based violence prevention programs, said Fatimah Loren Drezier. She is the executive director of The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, one of the four groups that comprises the coalition.
The funding for these groups coming from the philanthropic sectors was important in a time where federal funding is unstable and state funding is lacking, said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump froze grant funding, scaring nonprofits and state agencies, before revoking the memo on that decision amid court challenges.
"Unfortunately, we're seeing those federal cuts," he said. "For our (agencies) to be receiving those funds, it will be a lifeline to many of them and many of them who have been that work without funding."
The funding is critical to The Asha Project, said founder and executive director Antonia Drew Norton. She said it will allow the group to remain independent as an organization in its work.
"It's new life for us," she said. "It's momentum, its validation. It's recognition on the national level of the combining of domestic violence and intimate partner work with (community violence) work."
The grant will be used to pay for the Community Task Force staff and possibly grow it, said Vaun Mayes, who leads the organization that started in 2014.
Mayes recently finished a court case where he avoided jail or probation time for his alleged role in the 2016 Sherman Park riots. That hung over his and the organization's work, where they often wouldn't get funding, bust still be expected to assist, he said.
"Now that the situation is over, that can't be used anymore," he said. "I've done the work all through that."
The Coalition to Advance Public Safety announced plans to work with organizations in Milwaukee in April 2024. The group received dozens of applications for the grant funding, before ultimately selecting the five, Drezier said.
She declined to provide how the $500,000 was divvied among the five organizations.
The coalition hosts an online dashboard offering recommendations for Milwaukee community-violence intervention work. In it, they recommend over $33 million be devoted to these efforts to curtail violence and estimate there to be 377 people in the city at the highest risk for violence in the immediate future.
The Coalition to Advance Public Safety's funding to the Milwaukee organization is part of a broader effort to reduce violent crime between 10% to 20% across 12 cities in the next five years. It's provided funding in other cities already, including Baltimore, Indianapolis and Atlanta, and began giving out grants in 2023.
The group's work also gives continued assistance to organizations and assess effectiveness of programs through data.
The organization said its funding of community violence intervention programs has led to crime decreases in those cities.
The coalition's funding follows the announcement of other Milwaukee violence prevention work. In October, Milwaukee County announced the Advance Peace program, a three-year program of two cohorts of 40 people between the ages of 14 to 24 who are either causing or have been affected by gun violence.
David Clarey is a public safety reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at dclarey@
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee violence prevention groups receive grant to fight gun violence
