Convening brings together advocates and policymakers to align on sustaining community-based violence prevention nationwide
CHICAGO, IL (April 28, 2026) — National leaders in community violence intervention (CVI), policy, and public safety convened in Chicago for a two-day gathering focused on strengthening efforts to sustain and scale community-based violence prevention.
“Community violence intervention is a bipartisan issue. What we’re doing right now is a continuation of the national work that began four years ago,” Eddie Bocanegra said, CVI Action Plan National Project Manager. “We believe that public safety is a shared responsibility, and community violence intervention is essential. This convening is about how we collectively sustain this lifesaving work.”
Hosted by Community Justice Action Fund, the convening comes at a pivotal moment as cities across the country experience historic reductions in violence driven in part by the work of community-based practitioners. At the same time, recent incidents of violence, including a fatal shooting involving law enforcement at a Chicago hospital this weekend, underscore the urgency of sustained, coordinated approaches to public safety. Federal funding cuts and ongoing misinformation threaten to destabilize that progress.
Leaders from across the country, including Illinois, California, Georgia, Arizona, New York, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Colorado, Tennessee and Ohio, gathered to align on a unified national strategy to protect and advance investments in CVI. Participants engaged in panel discussions, breakout sessions, and strategy conversations focused on the current political landscape, advocacy infrastructure, and coordinated policy action needed to sustain the field.
The convening builds on ongoing efforts led by the CVI Action Plan Committee, which since fall 2024 has brought together community safety leaders, advocates, and frontline practitioners to advance key pillars of a national CVI strategy.
“Having the right people in the right place is essential,” Toni Rivera said, Managing Director of Communities of Practice at The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention. “The CVI Action Plan Committee is pioneering a path forward—this hasn’t been done before. We have a strong commitment to building a strategy that is long-term and sustainable to protect CVI.”
Throughout the convening, leaders underscored the urgency of aligning advocacy efforts at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure continued investment in prevention strategies that have demonstrated measurable impact.
“There are a million opportunities here to build power intentionally, become more strategic, and mobilize with precision,” José Alfaro said, Executive Director of Community Justice Action Fund. “This is about ensuring that the communities closest to the work are shaping the policies that impact their lives.”
The CVI Action Plan aims to unite local, community-led safety efforts into a cohesive national strategy, centering the expertise of those closest to violence while building the infrastructure needed to sustain and professionalize the field. Leaders pointed to Chicago’s funding model as one example of how coordinated investment across sectors can reduce violence and save lives.
“We’re not reforming, we’re building new systems of safety that have never existed before,” Fernando Rejón said. “The people, the stories and the experiences are essential to maintaining the integrity and spirit of community violence intervention work. The CVI Action Plan convenings over the last year demonstrate our commitment to centering the practitioners who are on the frontlines saving lives and making communities safer every day. It’s been deeply transformational.”
As the convening concluded, advocates emphasized that the path forward will require continued collaboration among funders, policymakers, and community leaders to ensure that recent gains in public safety are not reversed.
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About Community Justice Action Fund
The Community Justice Action Fund (Community Justice), a project of Tides Advocacy, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization building power for and with communities of color to end gun violence. Community Justice works to change the narrative around gun violence in urban areas and advance policy changes that prioritize community-led safety solutions and non-carceral interventions. By centering the voices of those closest to the pain of everyday gun violence, Community Justice builds the infrastructure necessary to save lives and transform neighborhoods. For more information, visit www.cjactionfund.org.
About CVI Action Plan
Published in the fall of 2024, the CVI Action Plan is a community-led strategic framework designed to serve as a blueprint for the national CVI movement. Focused on reducing violence in Black and Brown communities across the country, the Action Plan intends to unite stakeholders across the CVI field, set ambitious goals centered around six key domains, and outline high-priority strategies to catalyze public and philanthropic investment to strengthen the work of frontline practitioners. The CVI Action Plan Committee includes Community Justice, the Community-Based Public Safety Collective, the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, and Urban Peace Institute. For more information, visit cvi-actionplan.org.
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