City announces final round of anti-violence community expansion grant program awardees

The City of Philadelphia announced Wednesday the fourth and final round of the Anti-Violence Community Expansion Grant Program awardees. The final round of awardees includes 18 additional organizations that will collectively receive more than $7 million in funding, bringing the total amount distributed through this program to the total $13.5 million allocated for the Community Expansion Grant program.

The final awardees are: Put It Down Philly; Unity in the Community; Men Who Care of Germantown; Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia; Guns Down, Gloves Up – Epiphany Fellowship Church; 100 Black Men Philly (in partnership with Father’s Day Rally Committee); Black Muslim Men United for a Better Philadelphia; Nicetown CDC; Mercy Neighborhood Ministries; Youth Outreach Adolescent Community Awareness Program; Impact Services; Restorative Justice Guild Program, Mural Arts Philadelphia; Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity; New Leash on Life; Educators 4 Education; Timoteo Sports; Urban League of Philadelphia; and Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, Inc. (OICA) and the Careers & Academic Institute (CADI). 

In July 2021, Mayor Jim Kenney and City Council announced a $22 million investment in Anti-Violence Community Partnership Grants, including $13.5 for Community Expansion Grant awards. 

To achieve and sustain a reduction in gun violence and improve the quality of life in communities most affected by gun violence, the city is investing in organizations with proven track records of delivering quality anti-violence interventions to help them expand and strengthen their efforts.  

“When we launched the Anti-Violence Community Expansion Grant Program — in partnership with City Council — earlier this summer, the goal was to do something bold and different to meet the urgency of this crisis: get funding to community organizations doing anti-violence work on the ground in our neighborhoods quickly and efficiently,” said Kenney. “With this funding, 31 organizations will now have enhanced resources to develop and implement innovative solutions that can help address the city’s gun violence crisis. These investments represent a major step in our ongoing fight to help make our communities safer and save lives.”

“The latest round of grants by the city for community-focused violence prevention work is significant,” said Council President Darrell L. Clarke (5th District). “With each round of funding, more organizations and individuals doing the real work of gun violence prevention in neighborhoods are getting the resources they need to help reduce this unacceptable level of gun violence in our city. Thanks to the Kenney administration for its work here — and to City Council for its vision in crafting this community-focused grant process last spring.”

“Our goal in City Council was to work with the Kenney administration to get this Anti-Violence Community Partnership Grants money out to boots-on-the-ground organizations fighting gun violence as fast as possible,” said City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson (2nd District), chairman of Council’s Special Committee on Gun Violence Prevention. “With Philadelphia already surpassing our all-time one-year murder rate, city government needs to do everything it can and use every resource available to reduce the number of homicides in Philadelphia. We did not get to this moment in our history overnight and it will not be solved overnight, but funding these boots-on-the-ground boots will start a long-needed process to save Philadelphia from gun violence deaths.”