Community Violence Intervention (CVI) Action Plan
Policy Advocacy Convening Recommendations
Hosted by Community Justice
Building the infrastructure to advance community violence intervention.
Community Violence Intervention (CVI) is a community-led approach to preventing and reducing violence. But lasting investment in CVI requires more than effective programs. It requires the policy infrastructure, political power, coordination, and accountability to sustain and scale this work.
The CVI Action Plan brings together leaders across the CVI ecosystem to establish a shared vision for how the field can build power and advance policy at the federal, state, and local levels.
Developed through a series of five national convenings, the Action Plan reflects the perspectives and priorities of CVI leaders, frontline practitioners, community-based organizations, advocates, and other stakeholders working across the country.
Why this action plan?
Programs alone aren't enough.
Across the CVI field, communities are developing innovative approaches to preventing violence and creating safer communities. Yet the systems surrounding this work, from policymaking and funding to advocacy and decision-making, have not kept pace.
The April 2026 Policy Advocacy Convening brought together 36 CVI leaders and advocates from 20 cities and towns to identify opportunities and challenges and begin aligning on strategies to strengthen policy advocacy.
Participants identified several critical needs:
A shared national narrative that clearly defines CVI and strengthens the field's ability to shape policy conversations.
A coordinated policy agenda with clear priorities, positions, values, intended impact, and measures of progress.
Better data and research to demonstrate the effectiveness and cost of CVI.
Stronger capacity and coordination at the national, regional, state, and local levels.
Meaningful participation from frontline practitioners, community-based organizations, directly impacted leaders, and young people.
Greater accountability and an end to gatekeeping practices that limit equitable access to resources and decision-making.
These findings point to a larger opportunity to build a stronger infrastructure for collective action.
Six recommendations for building CVI policy power
The Action Plan outlines six recommendations to inform philanthropy, policymakers, CVI organizations, advocates, and the broader CVI ecosystem.
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Build coordinated national and regional structures that can advance a shared CVI policy agenda across federal, state, and local governments.
This includes a national coordinating body, regional coalitions, policy-tracking capacity, a centralized advocacy resource hub, and rapid-response coordination.
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The people closest to the work must have a meaningful role in shaping the policies that affect it.
CBOs, frontline practitioners, directly impacted leaders, youth leaders, and regional coalitions should be integrated into governance, strategy development, and decision-making—not simply invited to share their stories.
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The field needs stronger policy advocacy training, technical assistance, national and regional convenings, campaign and organizing infrastructure, communications capacity, and professional development pipelines for CVI workers and young people.
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The Action Plan calls for national power mapping, coalition building, constituency engagement, regional organizing, and accountability strategies that can build support for CVI among policymakers and across sectors.
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The Action Plan calls for a federal legislative roadmap alongside relationship-building with policymakers, site visits, roundtables, constituent meetings, policy briefings, and collaboration with congressional staff.
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The Action Plan calls for shared governance standards, equitable resource practices, conflict-resolution processes, and structures that ensure frontline practitioners, CBOs, and directly impacted leaders are decision-makers and collaborators.