The Challenges and Opportunities Foundations Face in a Post-Newtown World
The shootings in Newtown, prison overcrowding, disproportionate minority confinement and Attorney General Holder’s recent advocacy for increased judicial discretion for “low level” offenders have placed increased pressure on community foundations to respond to new community and policy realities. Three leading foundation executives and the director of San Diego’s Commission on Gang Prevention and Intervention will spotlight the wide range of routes the foundation community can take into the violence prevention/gun violence reduction arena during the 2013 Fall Conference for Community Foundations.
Led by Jack Calhoun, Senior Consultant to the National League of Cities and to the U.S. Department of Justice and former U.S. Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families, the panel will discuss why many foundations have been reluctant to support work in this area, and what has overcome their reluctance. Foundations supporting such initiatives as mentoring, after school programs, early childhood education, family support, job training, and community development now realize that their investments are vitiated by fear of or actual presence of violence. The audience will have the opportunity to provide recommendation to the foundation community as a whole, and to the Council on Foundations.
Highly interactive, the session will conclude with audience-led breakout sessions in three areas:
- Challenges violence prevention presents to community foundations
- Going forward, what roles community foundations can/should play?
- Going forward, what role should the Council on Foundations play?
Participate in the conversation before, during, and after the conference by leaving your comments here.
Jack Calhoun is a Senior Consultant to the National League of Cities.
