Moms for Peace None of us is safe until all of us are safe. Moms For Peace is an emerging national program designed to empower mothers with the intervention skills needed to end the epidemic gun violence in American cities. We are going to leverage the moral authority of moms to get men to put down the guns as we create opportunities for businesses to share in both our mission and our success. The Crisis: Human Suffering On average, 32 Americans are killed with guns each day, and 140 are treated in emergency rooms. Americans are 20 times more likely to be killed with a gun than are people in other developed countries. More than one in five American teens report having witnessed a shooting, and an average of eight children and teens are killed by guns every day. That s like having a Newtown shooting every three days. Sources: The Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety The Crisis: Economic Cost Violent crime in the United States has been estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars per year. That s thousands of dollars for each American taxpayer. While direct costs include police, medical care and criminal justice, the costs of the lost property values and business investments are even greater. Source: The Institute for Economics and Peace
Interventions and Impediments Innovations in the fields of public health and criminology have both shown yearto-year, double-digit reductions in gun violence where they have been applied, in sections of many American cities for many years now. Intervention programs work by reducing the demand for guns with attention to alternatives and to the consequences of violent behavior. Two recent success stories are Philadelphia CeaseFire in North Philadelphia and Focused Deterrence in South Philadelphia. Philadelphia CeaseFire s work in North Philadelphia s 22nd Police District reduced shootings from 188 to 126 annually between 2011 and 2013, and homicides reduced from 47 to 26 during the same period. Focused Deterrence saw shootings drop from 39 to 22 during one year of operations in South Philadelphia, between 2012 and 2013. Homicides reduced from 15 to seven. Unfortunately, intervention programs are seldom scaled or sustained, often due to budget shortfalls, administrative transitions or other political impediments. Funding expired on the South Philadelphia program. A New Solution: Moms for Peace Almost everyone has a mother figure in his or her life. Moms for Peace will develop a curriculum and manual of evidence-based intervention techniques, empowering mothers with knowledge on conflict resolution skills and the physical risks of simply possessing a gun, and demonstrating that shooting one person harms many people and whole communities. During the 2014 Cost of Violence Conference in Philadelphia, one of the nation s leading criminologists with a focus on gun violence reduction, David Kennedy, said: Nobody has the pain or the authority of surviving mothers, and that their
level of commitment is at the highest pitch. He calls it electrifying and humbling. Imagine: A MADD to end gun violence We all know about MADD and how drunk driving fatalities have been cut in half over the past 20 years. Kennedy says that through intervention strategies, we have every reason to think we can cut the national homicide rate in at least half. So, think of Moms for Peace as MADD to end gun violence. Building a National Network Success will depend upon building a network of moms and organizations with a focus on ending gun violence. First, we will build a website to share knowledge and resources and begin to cultivate our community. We will hold training events, bringing people together in the cities that are most impacted by gun violence, and exchange information on effective interventions. We will add more cities as the program develops. We will also produce books in each city, combining our instructional materials with photographs and profiles of women who have been empowered by our program and are working together to make a difference. Economic Returns Fewer homicides would also result in additional economic activity. Governments could reduce taxes to drive stimulus, and invest in infrastructure to reduce transportation costs, and healthcare investments would reduce child mortality rates and chronic health issues, improving individual productivity. Sustaining Moms for Peace
We will seek sponsors to pay for our events, our websites and our books. In return, sponsors will not only receive brand exposure but also be invited to identify and participate in our movement to bring peace, justice, health and safety. Simultaneously, they will be improving their own business environments, and best of all, they will know they are saving lives. Identifying Sponsors We re looking at who s giving to MADD and to CeaseFire, the leading national programs, and we re finding professional sports teams, hospitals and insurance companies as well foundations, governments and individuals. We plan to pursue a similar spectrum of possibilities. Operating Expenses We ve got a $250,000 annual budget plan to cover a program director and a communications manager and to get help with sales. Direct costs will include travel, printing and events. We Need Your Help We are asking for $375,000 to support us for the first year and half of the second year. Once revenue exceeds the budget, we will expand our work to more cities. This creates the potential for exponential growth in both social impact and revenue. One angel investor has expressed interest, and a college student is pursuing a grant to work with us. The Moms for Peace Team Dorothy Johnson-Speight is the founder and executive director of Mothers in Charge, a 10-year-old Philadelphia nonprofit organization that addresses violence prevention, education and intervention for youth, young adults, families and community organizations. Johnson-Speight was named The Philadelphia Inquirer s 2014 Citizen of the Year and was previously named Philadelphia Magazine s Best Philadelphian, among many other honors.
Jim MacMillan is a Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist and journalism professor who was most recently honored with social media and community awards for his work in independent journalism. MacMillan founded the Gun Crisis Reporting Project, a solutions-oriented news organization that addresses gun violence in Philadelphia. In memory of Khaaliq Jabbar Johnson Dorothy Johnson-Speight lost her 24-year-old son, Khaaliq Jabbar Johnson, in 2001. He was shot multiple times near his home in Philadelphia by a man who had argued with him over a parking spot. Johnson-Speight wants people to know that Khaaliq was a peaceful man and a counselor who was dedicated to helping children.