At the time, the list of precautions was warranted.
The Joyce Foundation hired a security consultant who recommended installing cameras and a locked door between the lobby and the Foundation’s working offices. Staff participated in active shooter drills.
It was the early 1990s, before mass shootings and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 brought sweeping changes to Americans’ sense of security.
The reason for caution? In 1993, at the urging of President Deborah Leff, the Foundation’s board agreed to begin funding research into the causes and solutions to gun violence, at a time when Congress wouldn’t. By making more than $13 million in research grants through the 1990s – and more than $33 million to date – Joyce established itself as a leader in the field. And it has complemented the research funding with equal support for policy development, advocacy and litigation, all with the underlying aim of nurturing safe and just communities in the Great Lakes region and beyond.
Reaction to the new initiative in the 1990s was swift. Joyce was featured on the cover of the National Rifle Association magazine, headlining a story about following the money of the gun safety movement. Posts on the web routinely criticized the Foundation. Staff received threatening phone calls and letters.
“I really want to emphasize how brave the Joyce Foundation was—and to some extent, still is—in this area,” said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, an early and continuing recipient of Joyce funding.
For the next 30 years, Joyce and its leadership have remained steady in their support of gun violence prevention, aiding research and policy development while tracking the incremental yet significant progress of partners and grantees, even against a stubborn backdrop of tragic headlines about deadly shootings.
“I felt it was our highest and best use,” said Ellen Alberding, the Foundation president since 2002. “We were doing great work, we were going to eventually have some victories, and the rewards were worth the risks. We had all the pieces in place to have an impact.”
PUBLIC HEALTH THREAT
In the months leading up to the decision to launch gun violence research in the early ‘90s, Leff and board member Lewis Butler traveled the country talking to leaders in the field and searching for an approach that would move levers to reduce gun violence.
Leff had come to the issue three years earlier, working as a senior producer for ABC News’ Nightline and World News. She had read an article in a medical journal reporting that people in Bangladesh had longer life expectancies than residents in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. The reason: high rates of gun violence.
“That just really shocked and captivated me,” Leff recalled. When Leff was hired as Joyce president in 1992, gun violence in Chicago was surging—Chicago Police statistics reported 940 homicides that year, up from 660 in 1988, in a period of historically high gun violence.
Most people viewed gun violence as a criminal justice issue, and for the most part, still do. But Leff’s conversations led her to believe that framing gun violence as a public health concern would be more effective at producing change. If research could be done to track risk factors, trends, and causes of gun violence through the lens of public health, evidence-informed policies and strategies could be proposed and imposed.
She also thought that the public health prism was a way to build consensus around a new, highly charged issue for the Foundation. And she knew she had “a daring board” unafraid to take on controversial issues. Their approval was immediate and consistent over the years, even knowing that harassment would be inevitable, which she called “remarkable.”
Nina Vinik, director of Joyce’s Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform program from 2008-2021, recalled how the board offered unconditional support for the work, ready to take additional steps to protect her or anyone else who felt threatened.
“When you’re a big fish in a small pond, the target on your back is bigger,” said Vinik, now the founding director of Project Unloaded, a nonprofit aimed at educating youth about gun safety. “But the Foundation stuck with it, and that’s a credit to the leadership of Ellen and the Joyce Board.”
‘SEEING IT THROUGH’
Formal opposition to funding the research only grew. With the NRA flexing its lobbying muscle, Congress imposed the so-called “Dickey Amendment” in 1996, forbidding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and eventually the National Institutes of Health, from “using funds to advocate for gun control.” The result was a chill on grant money at federal agencies and all efforts to gather and analyze gun violence data.
Over the next two decades, the volume of scientific publications on gun violence fell more than 60 percent, leaving Joyce and just a few other philanthropic foundations to keep the research alive.
“I think it was a very difficult time for everybody,” said Paula Wolff, who served on the Joyce board 1989 to 2021. But she said Joyce’s unwavering approach started with the board’s firm belief in solving the policy problem of gun violence.
“And I think the people who joined the board and stayed on the board respected the culture of the organization—its commitment to controversial and difficult issues,” she added, “and board members wanted to see them through.”
A 2021 study found that over the previous two decades, Joyce was cited as a funder in more than half of published articles on firearm research with private philanthropic funding, more than any source but the National Institutes of Health. Since 1993, Joyce has committed more than $33 million to firearm research grants.
To those outside the foundation, Joyce’s commitment to gun violence research was a profound example of its willingness to take on systemic issues.
Julia Stasch, former president of the MacArthur Foundation and a partner with Joyce in Chicago collaborations such as the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities, which was launched in 2016, said Joyce’s commitment to gun violence research demonstrates its leadership.
“There have been plenty of times when Joyce could have said, ‘Oh my God, the forces against this issue are just too strong, and our potential for impact is so narrow and our allies are so timid, there’s an opportunity cost for this focus,’” Stasch said.
“But I think that adherence to the deep value and ethics that surrounds Joyce’s focus on this issue is stronger than that,” she added. “You really have to respect them for staying the course, in an incredible leadership way, on an issue that defines the polarization in our society.”
INCREMENTAL SUCCESS
Over the years, defining and measuring success in gun violence prevention has been elusive. The number of guns has risen, while the percentage of the public owning guns has fluctuated.
Suicide rates have spiked, as has interpersonal gun violence in cities and accidental shootings among kids, all against a backdrop of relentless headlines about mass shootings.
But incremental progress continues to be made, with passage of numerous gun safety laws in a majority of states. And, while short of what gun safety advocates say is necessary, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act signed by President Joe Biden in 2022 was historic, the first major federal gun safety legislation since the early 1990s – much of it rooted in research that Joyce supported.
Among other elements was a provision incentivizing states to approve extreme risk protective orders (ERPOs), commonly known as “red flag” laws, which allow for the temporary removal of weapons from an individual posing a threat to themselves or others. Twenty-one states have now adopted such laws. Research showing that they work is among more than 250 peer-reviewed research publications funded by Joyce that have led to seminal findings on gun violence, laid out here in a 25-year review. They include that:
- The U.S. has 25 times the gun homicide rate of comparable countries.
- Gun availability is correlated to higher rates of gun violence.
- The impact of gun violence is very different between rural and urban areas.
- Firearms are the most lethal means of suicide, with a fatality rate of over 90 percent.
- Self-defense using guns is rare; gun victimization is more likely.
In late 2020, Joyce followed up, commissioning a second report laying out the next 100 questions for a research agenda to end gun violence.
“In the first two decades of the 21st century, over half of the foundation-supported gun research articles found in PubMed was funded by this medium-sized foundation in the Midwest. They’re crucial to us,” said Harvard’s Hemenway.
Joyce also is credited with providing the funding to house the research. “I think to this day,” Leff said, “when people are looking for good data on gun violence, they turn to universities, scholars, and research organizations that Joyce funded early on and in some cases helped establish and grow.”
Tim Daly, current director of Joyce’s Gun Violence Prevention and Justice Reform program, says it’s encouraging that more public funding for gun violence research has been flowing in recent years. That has prompted Joyce to think about using its dollars more strategically, including more effective ways to disseminate research findings to policy makers and engaging more in communities where violence is persistent.
“A huge focus now is how we take the things we are starting to learn, convert those findings to new policy and practice ideas, dive into the new research questions, and ensure that the public stays informed along the way,” Daly said.
BUILDING ALLIANCES, SPREADING THE WORD
Joyce also has supported a substantial amount of non-academic research while helping think tanks, hospitals, and faith groups—organizations that include the Violence Policy Center and the Center for American Progress. The Foundation supported the creation of several important advocacy organizations in the field including what is now known as Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Guns Down America, and built alliances, helping to coordinate a 2006 convening that led to the creation of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In an example of its “inside/outside” approach, Joyce worked with the International Association of Chiefs of Police to compile policies to reduce the risks of violence, stop the flow of illegal firearms, and improve police training in a fair and just way.
And it moved behind the scenes to increase the number of donors supporting gun safety by coordinating the establishment of the Fund for a Safer Future. The funding collaborative started in 2011 with five members and a $1 million budget, and since has grown to 35 members with a nearly $5 million budget. The Fund has since made more than $20 million in direct grants, and leveraged another $172 million—in grants for advocacy, research, education, and community-based organizing to reduce gun violence.
In 1998, under then-program officer Roseanna Ander, the Foundation gave Harvard University funding to start what today is the National Violent Death Reporting System or NVDRS. Run by the Centers for Disease Control since 2002, NVDRS is a crucial resource for violence research that links specific data on violent deaths in each state, offering context and insight on the reason for all violent deaths with the goal of using the data to develop violence prevention efforts. Following nearly two decades of support, NVDRS officially expanded to all 50 states in 2018, and recently celebrated more than 20 years of data collection at a first-of -its-kind research conference focused exclusively on NVDRS.
NVDRS was still gaining momentum in 2023, when Michigan and Minnesota launched dashboards to make violent death data more readily available to the public, researchers and journalists.
“The National Violent Death Reporting System would have died on the vine if it hadn’t been for Joyce, and now it’s still up and kicking and growing,” said Carlton Guthrie, a Joyce board member for more than three decades until 2022. “That’s another example of where Joyce was able to take a leadership position, provide support, and attract other resources. Now it’s an initiative that has widespread support and Joyce is still there, convening, driving.”
Hemenway said Joyce was instrumental in garnering financial support for his work from other foundations. “And that’s really because of Joyce’s behind-the-scenes work to make it safe for other foundations to sometimes put money into gun violence research when those foundations didn’t necessarily want their names directly associated with it,” he said.
Daly said Joyce’s full continuum approach of helping develop, adopt, implement, and evaluate policy grounded in research has made a difference. In the past, he said, a lack of research contributed to gun policy debates ending without action after incidents like the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.
“But now, I think the investments in research and action over the years helped position the policy to be centered when policymakers are open to making change,” Daly said.
JUSTICE AND COMMUNITY INTERVENTION
Years of working on the issue, and the insights gleaned, eventually led Joyce to better appreciate the role of the criminal justice system in the gun violence issue: In areas with weak gun laws and an environment of violence, people carry guns for protection, often illegally. But the law enforcement response to gun crimes has in many places eroded trust in police, contributed to mass incarceration, and perpetuated cycles of violence.
That realization led Vinik to what she saw as an obvious conclusion when she was running the program: The Foundation also needed to support research into criminal justice reform.
“It was almost as if, ‘How can we not go there?’” Vinik said. “This is an impediment to the kind of progress we need to make. We need to go at it head on.”
In 2018, Joyce formally expanded its gun violence prevention program to include justice reform, which Vinik said needs the “patient capital” that Joyce’s board is willing to provide. The Foundation focuses on building police-community trust, including reducing police use of force and increasing accountability; developing alternatives to arrest and incarceration for young people who commit nonviolent gun offenses, and reimagining public safety.
Board Member Tracey Meares, a Yale Law School professor and leading expert on policing and criminal justice reform, sees Joyce’s shift to public safety and criminal justice reform as one of the Foundation’s most noteworthy successes.
“That obviously is something that’s really important to me, given my work,” she said. “But the bigger point is that when an institution like Joyce puts their effort and attention on that, we’re going to make a difference, and we have.”
More recently, Joyce has expanded its program to be even more comprehensive, joining with others to support the growing field of community-based and community-centered violence intervention strategies. Among its approaches is building a research base to support interventions, elevating the practice of intervention through professional development of its practitioners, and supporting policies to secure public sector support.
One element is the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities, a coalition of more than 50 foundations and other funders launched in 2016 to support community-led, evidence-based solutions to gun violence in Chicago, complemented by research and state and local policy development.
The idea emerged from a post-luncheon chat between Alberding and Stasch, then MacArthur Foundation president, both of whom were upset about a spike in violence and wanted to support a police accountability task force in the city. Since then, PSPC has committed $140 million to support police reform, street outreach, and community safety programs during the typically more violent summer and fall in Chicago.
“It was a big success that we expanded our violence prevention portfolio from focusing on restrictions on gun access to a broader public health approach that includes public safety and institutional reform,” Alberding said. “That’s something that really mattered to me.”
NATIONAL AWARENESS
Despite the setbacks, Joyce staff and board members look back with pride on their efforts over the years. At the very least, they hope the recent increase in public and private funding to examine gun violence suggests that a shift is occurring.
“If it hadn’t been for the work that Joyce had done,” said Mike Brewer, a Joyce board member through the entire period of its violence prevention work, “the ability to even make marginal changes in this area would have been impossible.”
Wolff, another former long-time board member, said part of Joyce’s success is simply in helping expand an understanding of gun violence.
“I think there is much more national awareness among the public, as well as elected officials and the media, about the complications and complexities of gun-carrying and gun-use,” Wolff said.
“We’re not talking about ‘gun control’ anymore. We’re talking about sensible gun laws,” she said. “I think there’s been success in creating a national coalition, and a coalition among foundations, but also among people and families who have been touched by gun violence.”
Said Jose Alvarez, the current Foundation chairman: "It would have been easy, twelve, thirteen, fifteen years ago, to say, ‘Screw this. We’re never going to make progress.’ But that patience has been really important. It’s been almost thirty years of patient, steadfast grantmaking with partners who are devoted to this work. But There’s this sense of, ‘We’ve just got to keep marching forward; keep building the base of research and information, finding policies that work and messages that resonate.”
