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TOGETHER WE CAN REDUCE
HOMICIDES IN DC BY 60% IN
5 YEARS
A 60% reduction in homicides would save 300 lives.
So let's get to work.
Launched in 2021, Peace For DC galvanizes community-based organizations, philanthropy, experts, and policymakers in a collective effort to reduce gun violence in the District neighborhoods with the highest rates of violence.
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We are:
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Fueling the network of under-resourced front-line peacemakers and grassroots organizations best positioned to reach individuals driving the violence, and providing ongoing coordination and strategy.
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Launching proven, evidence-based programs using data and science, local &national experts.
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Driving collective impact as we align our funding collaborative around a shared vision for community-powered public health and safety.
Our approach sharpens existing efforts, while filling gaps in the current landscape of DC violence intervention. We are focused on a comprehensive plan to use every resource available and address reducing violence with the same intensiveness with which we tackle other systemic issues like housing, hunger, and education.
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Peace For DC is building a coalition of funders, inspired by similar efforts in Chicago and Philadelphia, to work alongside community and government in the fight to end gun violence in DC. Together we can end gun violence and build thriving peaceful communities in DC.
THERE IS NO RACIAL OR ECONOMIC JUSTICE WITHOUT
TACKLING GUN VIOLENCE
While gun violence continues to spread throughout the District, it most deeply impacts our Black and Brown communities. These same communities have been locked out of opportunity as they endure structural and systemic marginalization, trauma, and poverty. DC cannot increase economic mobility, close the wealth gap, or achieve equity in education without meeting the basic need for personal safety and freedom from violence.
Compared to all states, DC has the highest homicide rate in 2021 in the US – with 226 deaths and 1330 gunshot wounds treated at emergency departments in 2021. Each fatal shooting costs DC more than $1.53 million in direct costs. Gun violence cost DC taxpayers $1 billion in 2021.
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But gun violence is not an intractable problem. 70% of DC's gun violence is driven by approximately 500 identifiable individuals. Most of this violence is cyclical and retaliatory: therefore, it is predictable and preventable. By working together to scale proven solutions, we can save lives right now.
WHAT WE DO
Direct Interventions for Rapid Results
Building Scale in Community
Peace For DC is shifting power and resources to community-based organizations and co-creating a new system of public health and safety that operates with as much training and strategic coordination as traditional systems of public safety.
By investing in community-based organizations and providing strategic collaboration, training, and sustained action, we can change longstanding dynamics and save lives.
ISSUE ADVOCACY & AWARENESS
We conduct research, inform and engage the public, and advocate for policies and government funding where it is needed most.
TRAINING
We strengthen the violence intervention workforce by providing personal and professional development and increasing the capacity of the community organizations that are best positioned to interrupt violence.
HEALING TRAUMA
We make culturally relevant trauma care more accessible to individuals and communities. We focus squarely on reducing trauma in order to accelerate healing and access to opportunity.
TRANSFORMING LIVES
We provide long-term wraparound care and healing for those most at risk of shooting or being shot.
The District is at a crossroads, and the pieces of the puzzle can only come together with robust philanthropic and community support. We cannot let DC remain one of the most deadly places in the U.S. Eliminating gun violence is key to establishing racial and economic equity. Until we make every street safe, for every person, we are not living up to the promise of a civil society.
Something’s got to change.
Together, we can create and maintain Peace For DC.
OUR STORY
TURNING ADVOCACY INTO ACTION, PAIN INTO PURPOSE
Founded by gun violence survivors and community activists, Peace For DC is dedicated to amplifying and accelerating evidence-based community-led efforts to stop shootings and homicide and heal trauma in Washington, DC.
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Peace For DC is committed to building up philanthropic investment in community violence intervention, in order to provide sustainable funding, and capacity and skill-building resources, to the small Black-led organizations providing this life-saving intervention work in the DC neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence.
STAY IN TOUCH
