Grant Makers Urged to Put More Dollars Into Research to Prevent Gun Violence

By Noelle Barton

Grant makers were urged to step up their support of research on what works to eliminate gun violence at a session held Monday at the Council on Foundations annual meeting here.

The conference session was added to the agenda after the shootings of students and faculty members at Virginia Tech University last month.

Greg Nickels, mayor of Seattle and a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition of more than 200 mayors, told grant makers that he hoped they would support more research so policymakers will have the information they need to make good decisions.

Gary Yates, president of the California Wellness Foundation, in Woodland Hills, said foundation spending on research can influence public policies. Since 1992, he said, California has enacted a series of gun-control laws that he said cut the number of shooting deaths in half. Mr. Yates said the research that foundations in the state financed on the subject had been used to help lawmakers figure out what was likely to work best.

David Hemenway, author of Private Guns, Public Health, said he agreed more research was needed, but that he was frustrated by how few foundations support such work.

The Joyce Foundation, in Chicago, which has supported his studies, is "the only game in town" in terms of providing consistent support on efforts to reduce gun use, said Mr. Hemenway, who is a professor of healthy policy at Harvard University's School of Public Health.

Roseanna Ander, who oversees grants to prevent gun violence at the Joyce Foundation, said that organization has spent $42-million on the topic in past decade. She said foundations do not necessarily need to set up special grant-making programs on the topic. Instead, she said they could design grants that deal with the the connections shootings have to other the problems they seek to solve — such as domestic violence, suicide, and the troubles of young people.

Ms. Ander called gun violence preventable, and said "far beyond the dollars you invest" new attention to the cause from grant makers would make a big difference.