Project Design to Support Capstone

Shakitha Leavy

Capstone Situation Analysis: Suggested Revisions

Project Title: Establishing a Community-Based Organization Incubator to Strengthen Grassroots CVI Efforts

Advisor: Kheperah Kear\se

Recap of the Issue

Community-based violence intervention organizations in Wards 7 and 8 face critical funding barriers that threaten their operational sustainability despite documented violence reduction effectiveness. The Trump administration's elimination of $158 million in Community Violence Intervention grants demonstrates how political volatility creates unpredictable funding environments, with 69 of 145 federal grants abruptly terminated in April 2025 (Flowers, 2025). Organizations like Think Outside Da Block in Chicago were forced to lay off five staff members, while Memphis-based HEAL 901's executive director used personal savings and life insurance policies to maintain operations after losing a $1.7 million grant. These funding disruptions occur despite measurable success, with Baltimore achieving 23% homicide reductions and Columbia, South Carolina experiencing shootings at 10-year lows through CVI programming (Moreno, 2025). The core challenge centers on systematic exclusion of grassroots organizations from sustainable funding streams through complex administrative requirements that favor professionalized nonprofits over community-based providers with proven cultural competency and violence reduction impact.

Relevant Information & Causes

Direct Causes (5 Whys applied):

First, grassroots organizations lack dedicated development teams and specialized administrative infrastructure required for competitive grant applications. Pha'Tal Perkins of Think Outside Da Block had to lay off five team members when federal grants were terminated, demonstrating how organizations without professional fundraising staff cannot maintain operations during funding transitions (Flowers, 2025). Community-based groups operate with lean staffing models where leaders focus on direct service delivery rather than developing grant writing expertise, donor cultivation, and compliance systems required for accessing federal streams, local funding, and private dollars.

Second, inadequate storytelling capabilities prevent organizations from effectively communicating their impact to institutional funders. Despite documented violence reduction effectiveness, grassroots organizations cannot articulate community-based approaches using standardized evaluation frameworks that federal agencies and foundations require for competitive applications (Flowers, 2025). Organizations like HEAL 901 demonstrate measurable community impact but lack professional communications capacity to translate cultural competency and community trust into compelling funding narratives that resonate with diverse donor audiences.

Third, compliance infrastructure deficits create systematic barriers to securing and utilizing available funding streams. Executive Director Durell Cowan of HEAL 901 exemplifies this challenge, using personal finances to cover payroll after losing federal funding due to inadequate financial management systems for grant transitions (Flowers, 2025). Organizations lack sophisticated accounting procedures, audit capabilities, and reporting mechanisms necessary for managing federal grants, foundation awards, and unique financing mechanisms like social impact bonds.

Fourth, political interventions allow executive override of congressionally approved funding streams, creating external barriers beyond organizational control. The DOJ eliminated CVI grants because programs "no longer effectuate agency priorities," demonstrating how political changes eliminate established funding without warning regardless of organizational capacity (Moreno, 2025). This political volatility particularly impacts southern cities like Memphis, Selma, and Baton Rouge that depend heavily on federal support due to limited state-level funding and private philanthropic presence.

Fifth, systemic funding preferences favor professionalized nonprofits over community-based organizations through application processes designed for substantial administrative infrastructure. The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act created direct access opportunities, yet 25 of 136 community-based organizations working with Everytown for Gun Safety were impacted by subsequent cuts, illustrating how external barriers persist even when policy changes address structural access issues (Flowers, 2025). Nearly 94 grantees required implementation guidance, indicating that funding access alone cannot overcome capacity gaps without comprehensive technical assistance.

Underlying/Systemic Causes:

Inadequate organizational preparedness impedes grassroots organizations from being in a position to be competitive when winning major grants, even though their efforts have proven to have an impact locally. Most community organizations may not have special capacity in grant writing, financial management, compliance with regulations, and data collection systems (Moreno, 2025). These gaps in technical infrastructure disadvantage culturally grounded nonprofits with track records of effectiveness relative to larger ones with greater access to technical infrastructure. Lack of budgeting and reporting capacity requires many organizations to block access to available funding even when the programs had results (Flowers, 2025). Technical assistance funded through Incubators is the key to developing organizational infrastructures needed to sustain operations and win grants competitively.

The lack of a strategic communication challenge prevents the translation of the grassroots style of organization into a language that institutional funders identify. For instance, CVI groups have difficulty explaining culturally customized intervention propositions regarding standardized evaluation criteria and measurement frameworks that funders prefer (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). Such a disconnect establishes a systematic inequity as per professionalized nonprofits at the expense of community-based organizations that make violence reduction realities. Grassroots organizations cannot discuss their effects regardless of using evidence-based practice tailored to local communities (Moreno, 2025). Therefore, Incubator support is essential in offering communication training and proposal development support to assist organizations in articulating their effectiveness.

The operational realities encountered by CVI leaders are incompatible with the cultural disconnection in capacity building and delivery of the traditional concept of technical assistance programs. These programs presuppose organizational structures and community settings that do not reflect grassroots leaders' lived experiences (Flowers, 2025). Such misalignment implies that the available training does not provide leaders with viable tools to work effectively in the community settings. The outcomes of such cultural differences are capacity-building strategies disregarding the community-based implementation of violence reduction and trust building (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). Specialized incubator programming is required to support the cultural sensitivity and responsiveness that will add to the community-based preventive practices.

Past, Current, and Planned Strategies

Past Strategies:

Past violence intervention initiatives in D.C. focused on policing methods rather than a prevention-based approach that had community involvement. Earlier federal programs run by previous administrations had offered insufficient funding to grassroots groups with a preference for institutionalized nonprofit organizations (Flowers, 2025). Such historical efforts did not address the causes of violence or have cultural competency regarding community requirements. Alternative programs in the past have shown that there is no place for punitive approaches as the sole methods of evoking changes in the reduction of violence in communities with structural inequities (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). Past initiatives' failure indicates the need for incubator support to establish community organizational capacity and learn from past shortcomings.

Current Programs:

Washington, D.C., has two major CVI programs that deal with community violence via distinct administrative frameworks that lack coordination mechanisms. Cure the Streets is run under the supervision of the Attorney General, whereas ONSE is run under the Mayor's administration and implements various intervention methods (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). In both programs, credible messengers and outreach professionals play a mediating role in the cases of conflicts, preventing individual acts of retaliation, and referring the individuals to service opportunities. Nonetheless, both programs fail to fill basic organizational capacity gaps that prevent grassroots groups from going beyond transitory results (Flowers, 2025). These already established programs show potential to reduce violence, but do not include organizational development pieces that would enhance community implementation capacity.

Funding Sources:

Many federal funding streams support CVI programming, including DOJ programs and congressional appropriations statutes supported by Democrats and Republicans. Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative and the ONSE Empowering Communities awards give program-specific funding (Moreno, 2025). National advocacy organizations such as GIFFORDS advocate on behalf of federal investments and greater investments in community-based violence prevention functions. However, these investment vehicles do not allow organizational development elements needed to help establish competitive capacity and sustainability within grassroots organizations (Flowers, 2025). The existing funding models are program-based and infrastructure-based, which would support long-term organizational sustainability.

Evidence of Impact:

The ONSE-monitored communities proved to reduce the levels of violent crimes measurably in 2023, whereas the national studies showed that CVI programs have tremendous impacts on homicide reduction. The evidence indicates that when community-based intervention strategies are conducted well, homicides can be lessened by up to 60 percent in specific locales (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). These favorable results reveal the usefulness of culturally rooted violence prevention in situations where organizations provide sufficient support. Nevertheless, this effectiveness is at risk due to organizational instability, which results in poor program continuity and family lack of trust in the work of the organizational efforts (Moreno, 2025). Proven success justifies the need for support from incubators to reinforce organizational structure and support effective programming.

Planned Strategies:

D.C. Council members propose consolidating duplicative CVI programs, while DC Councilmembers offer to merge redundant CVI programs with the creation of unified oversight mechanisms to enhance coordination and accountability. Billing Senators and Representatives would seek new local funding sources to protect the community-based programs against federal political fads (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). These proposed restructurings understand the necessity of systematic reforms that would include administrative inefficiencies while developing bottom-up capacity. The proposed strategies do not directly explain how organizational infrastructure should be established to help the grassroots groups compete effectively (Moreno, 2025). Planned initiatives indicate that there is awareness of the failures in the current system, as well as the key role an incubator would be able to fulfill in helping the successful implementation of reforms.

Gaps:

Funding Landscape (Federal, Local, Private, Unique Mechanisms): Critical funding landscape gaps prevent grassroots organizations from accessing diverse revenue streams despite proven effectiveness. Federal CVI funding through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act totaled over $300 million but required administrative capacity that community-based organizations lack, with "very few state legislatures passing funding" making federal cuts particularly devastating (Flowers, 2025). Local D.C. funding through ONSE and attorney general programs offers more accessible requirements but insufficient amounts for comprehensive programming, with potential consolidation creating additional uncertainty (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). Private dollars from foundations and individual donors remain largely inaccessible due to grassroots organizations' inability to cultivate donor relationships and meet philanthropic sector expectations for board composition and strategic planning. Unique financing mechanisms including social impact bonds, pay-for-success contracts, and community development financial institution loans exist but require sophisticated financial management and outcome measurement systems beyond current organizational capacity.

Internal Barriers (Development Teams, Storytelling, Compliance): Organizational capacity gaps include absence of dedicated development teams, inadequate storytelling capabilities, and insufficient compliance infrastructure necessary for competitive applications (Flowers, 2025). Organizations demonstrate inadequate financial sustainability through executives using personal resources during funding disruptions, with Memphis-based HEAL 901 exemplifying the consequences of lacking professional fundraising staff and diversified revenue planning. Storytelling capability deficits prevent organizations from articulating community-based effectiveness using evaluation frameworks that institutional funders require, despite documented violence reduction impact (Flowers, 2025). Training and technical assistance gaps exist even among funded programs, with specialized organizations providing implementation guidance to nearly 94 grantees, indicating widespread inexperience with compliance requirements and grant management systems.

External Barriers: Administrative system gaps create inefficiencies that waste limited resources and reduce organizational competitiveness in securing and utilizing available funding. The lack of coordination between federal agencies and local programs results in duplicative efforts and conflicting priorities that undermine systematic violence prevention approaches (Moreno, 2025). These combined gaps demonstrate the need for comprehensive incubator support that addresses both internal organizational capacity building and external advocacy for sustainable funding policy changes.

Opportunities for Intervention

Examples of How Organizations/Ecosystems Have Addressed These Barriers

Successful organizational capacity building models demonstrate how barriers can be overcome but reveal the need for systematic incubator support. The Community Based Public Safety Collective in Los Angeles provided implementation training to nearly 94 CVI grantees, illustrating that even funded organizations lack basic program development capacity. This widespread need for technical assistance across 94 different grantees demonstrates why a dedicated incubator is essential to provide consistent, specialized support rather than ad-hoc training (Flowers, 2025). The fact that organizations with federal funding still required extensive implementation guidance shows that access to money alone is insufficient without comprehensive capacity building infrastructure.

Emergency funding responses reveal both successful strategies and the critical need for proactive incubator support. HEAL 901's crisis response of securing out-of-state nonprofit funding and emergency city grants succeeded only after the executive director used personal savings and life insurance policies to maintain operations. This reactive approach demonstrates why grassroots organizations need an incubator that provides proactive financial planning, diversified revenue development, and emergency fund strategies before crises occur (Flowers, 2025). Columbia, South Carolina's cross-sector police partnerships achieving 10-year low shooting rates show potential for sustainable approaches, but these relationships developed organically rather than through systematic capacity building that an incubator could facilitate for multiple organizations simultaneously.

Collective advocacy efforts highlight the need for coordinated incubator programming that combines individual organizational support with systems change. The Community Violence Legal Network's coalition work to reinstate grants and law enforcement support from 18 departments demonstrate that advocacy can address external barriers, but these efforts remain fragmented without centralized coordination (Moreno, 2025). An incubator could systematically organize such advocacy while simultaneously building internal organizational capacity, creating comprehensive solutions that individual organizations cannot achieve independently. Baltimore's sustained 23% homicide reduction and Johns Hopkins $7-$19 ROI documentation provide powerful advocacy tools, but grassroots organizations need incubator support to effectively utilize this evidence in funding proposals and policy advocacy.

The limitations of current solutions justify comprehensive incubator intervention. While the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act eliminated structural access barriers by allowing direct grassroots applications, the subsequent need for extensive implementation support among 94 grantees reveals that policy change alone cannot address capacity gaps (Flowers, 2025). Similarly, successful models like emergency funding diversification and cross-sector partnerships remain isolated examples rather than systematic solutions available to all grassroots organizations (Gathright & Flynn, 2025). An incubator is essential to scale these successful approaches, provide consistent technical assistance, coordinate advocacy efforts, and ensure that funding barrier solutions reach the grassroots organizations most in need of support while maintaining their community-based effectiveness.

References

Flowers, B. (2025). Exclusive: Trump administration slashed federal funding for gun violence prevention. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-administration-slashed-federal-funding-gun-violence-prevention-2025-07-29/

Gathright, J., & Flynn, M. (2025). D.C. lawmaker's "peace plan" would merge dual anti-violence programs. The Washington Post. https://css.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/03/24/dc-council-violence-interruption-plan-pinto/

Moreno, J. S. (2025). DOJ must restore life-saving grants to Community Violence Intervention; Congress has a duty to act | Friends Committee On National Legislation. Friends Committee on National Legislation. https://www.fcnl.org/updates/2025-05/doj-must-restore-life-saving-grants-community-violence-intervention-congress-has