For a long time now, advocates hoping to reduce gun violence have often been stymied by a deadlocked debate. It’s a familiar story these days: Two sides with conflicting ideologies look at the same news and come to entirely different conclusions. Last year, amid an onslaught of gun violence incidents plastered across the daily news, we overviewed some of the funders brave enough to wade into an issue that can seem hopelessly polarized.
Some 35,000 fatalities a year in the United State are linked to guns. Yet compared to funding for other leading causes of death, gun violence philanthropy is modest, with only a small number of funders going all-in on an issue where the odds can seem stacked against progress. Total philanthropic funding on gun violence is still quite modest, far outweighed by the NRA’s fundraising engine.