Developing a Power-Building Model for Community Violence Prevention

Defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), community violence “happens between unrelated individuals, who may or may not know each other, generally outside the home,” and impacts millions of Americans every year. According to FBI data from 2022, an estimated 1,232,428 violent crime offenses were committed in this country, and more than 26,000 people died due to homicide. This represents a significant public health problem, and it is also preventable.  

Prevention programs developed at the local level, with leaders, individuals with lived experiences, community-based organizations (CBOs) and health departments, can center the voices and experiences of the communities that are most impacted by community violence. Community power-building is an organizing approach that focuses on individuals most impacted by a social or systemic issue and empowers those people to take the lead on influencing changes in practices and policies in their local areas.

About the Project

The CDC Foundation is partnering with Human Impact Partners (HIP) and Health Resources in Action (HRiA) to pilot a project to gauge the readiness and applicability of community power-building strategies for violence prevention interventions in four US cities: Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Oakland, California. 

The goal is to co-create a model for this type of program, alongside community members, organizations and health departments. HIP is providing technical assistance and webinars on community power-building strategies, and HRiA is working on a program called WEaving A Violence-prevention Ecosystem (WEAVE). Through this component, HRiA is conducting a landscape analysis of violence prevention interventions in each community and then hosting two-day convenings to further engage these various stakeholders to continue to map the violence prevention ecosystem and make connections across organizations working in this space. Feedback from the webinars and in-person convenings will inform the development of a toolkit tailored to help community violence prevention organizations work together towards their goals with a shared understanding of health equity and community power-building strategies as well as how best to lift up the voices and experiences of the local areas that are most impacted by violence. Then, this model could be collectively used to identify, select and implement appropriate interventions, programs and practices.

This project is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and as part of a financial assistance award totaling $750,000 and is 100% funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. government.