Gov. Evers, Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention Launch New $10 Million Grant Program to Reduce Crime and Violence and Keep Kids, Families, and Communities Safe

MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention today launched a new grant program to support initiatives and programs at school districts, law enforcement agencies, domestic violence organizations, firearm retailers, and local governments, among others, to help crack down on crime and prevent violence, including intimate partner and gun violence, across Wisconsin.

The governor kicked off the year by declaring 2025 the Year of the Kid and announcing an executive order creating a new statewide Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention in the wake of a deadly shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison that took the lives of two people and injured six others. Gov. Evers and the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention today officially launched the office’s grant program, supported by about $10 million in federal funding directed by the governor, that will invest in key efforts across the state to reduce crime and violence and keep kids, families, and communities safe. The governor also proposed to provide sustainable, ongoing state funding for the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention, as well as comprehensive gun safety reform initiatives, in his 2025-27 Executive Budget, but all of the governor’s measures—including policies supported by the overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites—were rejected by Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature during the state budget process.

“As a father and a grandfather who’s also a governor, I will never accept violence as a foregone reality or stop working to change it. Violence—including intimate partner violence and gun violence—is a statewide problem that affects Wisconsinites no matter where they live, whether in our most rural areas or in the heart of urban communities. There is much work we can do to help stop violence wherever and whenever it happens—that’s work we must all do together, and that’s why this office and these investments are so important,” said Gov. Evers. “These grants will work to address the cycles of violence and crime that traumatize kids, families, and our communities by providing critical, on-the-ground support for our schools, organizations working to help support domestic violence survivors, law enforcement, and firearm retailers, who are the first point of contact for many gun sales, among others. Through commonsense and evidence-based solutions, we can save and change lives, keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others, and keep our kids, our families, our schools, and our communities safe.”

Among other critical responsibilities, the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention, as created by Gov. Evers, is charged with:

• Connecting the dots between state and local government agencies, including law enforcement agencies, to ensure a whole-of-government approach to prevent violence, including gun violence statewide;
• Supporting and providing technical assistance to local violence prevention and intervention efforts;
• Administering and awarding grants to school districts, firearm dealers, law enforcement agencies, nonprofits, and government agencies to support violence reduction and prevention initiatives;
• Helping develop public education campaigns to promote safer communities; and
• Identifying opportunities to improve statewide policies or laws.

“Through this grant, $10 million will further support critical violence and gun violence prevention efforts in communities across Wisconsin,” said Amanda Powers, director for the Office of Violence Prevention. “These funds will have an impact across the state and ensure that we are focused on interrupting violence, preventing suicide, and reducing harm. We hope to see a broad range of applicants that can make meaningful change in their communities over the next year.”

When the governor signed Executive Order #254 creating the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention, he concurrently announced he would be directing $10 million in federal funding to support the office’s work, including supporting a new grant program aimed at reducing crime, preventing violence, including intimate partner and gun violence, and efforts to improve community safety across Wisconsin. Grants through the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention will be awarded to eligible entities, including school districts, law enforcement agencies, nonprofits, firearm dealers, and government agencies, to support policies, initiatives, and efforts aimed at reducing crime, preventing violence, including intimate partner violence, gun violence, and efforts to improve community safety across Wisconsin.

Interested and eligible applicants will be able to apply across five different categories and subcategories that are designed to respond to various community and public safety needs, including:

• Suicide Prevention and Firearm Storage Grants, with subcategories of:
  • Community focused training;
  • Firearm retailers and range-based programming; and
  • Public awareness and educational campaigns.
• Evidence-Based Violence Intervention and Outreach Programs, with subcategories of:
  • Hospital-based violence intervention programs; and
  • Community-based violence intervention programs.
• Criminal Justice Based Initiatives.
• Domestic Violence Prevention Initiatives.
• School-Based Initiatives.

Applicable entities will be able to apply to receive funding for eligible expenses and initiatives aimed at interrupting, reducing, and preventing violence and promoting community safety. Examples of eligible expenses for relevant entities will include, but are not limited to:

• Supporting multi-agency law enforcement investigations;
• Using crime gun intelligence tools;
• Implementing suicide prevention education to identify individuals in crisis, including at the point of sale for firearms;
• Implementing or improving threat assessment training;
• Promoting and administering safe storage and gun buyback programs;
• Providing technical assistance and support to help design, implement, and/or staff evidence-based community policing, crime reduction initiatives, and gun violence crisis response teams;
• Implementing or enhancing domestic violence prevention programs;
• Implementing school-based programming, including suicide prevention and firearm safety training; and
• Supporting mentoring and after-school programs and other efforts aimed at keeping kids out of trouble and out of harm’s way.

Additional information about the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention grant program, including guidelines and application procedures, is available on the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s webpage here. Applications are due Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, by 2 p.m.

BACKGROUND ON GOV. EVERS’ EFFORTS TO REDUCE CRIME AND KEEP KIDS, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES SAFE
Over his tenure as governor, Gov. Evers and his administration have worked to address the gun violence epidemic and have sought to enact commonsense gun safety reform. In October 2019, the governor called a special session of the Wisconsin State Legislature to address gun violence in the state of Wisconsin and proposed two critical proposals relating to universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders. Despite the fact that a majority of Wisconsinites, including gun owners, support the implementation of commonsense measures like universal background checks (79 percent) and extreme risk protection orders (81 percent), Republicans ignored the will of the people and refused to take up the governor’s special session bills.

Gov. Evers has also proposed commonsense community safety and gun safety measures in all four of the biennial budgets he has introduced to date, and his 2025-27 Executive Budget proposed the most robust and comprehensive gun safety reform efforts to date, including:

• Providing ongoing funding to make the Office of Violence Prevention a permanent office in state government;
• Investing $66 million to support services for crime victims statewide and help critical victim service providers stay afloat after seeing significant recent reductions in federal funding under the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA);
• Closing a loophole to prevent domestic abusers from possessing firearms;
• Promoting and supporting the safe storage of firearms to prevent guns from getting into the hands of kids, people who may be at risk of harming themselves, individuals who are prohibited from possessing firearms, and individuals who are a threat to others;
• Enacting “red flag” laws to give law enforcement and loved ones critical tools to help keep people safe;
• Creating a new program called the Self-Assigned Firearm Exclusion (SAFE) Program, which will help ensure folks who are in crisis have access to the resources needed to keep themselves and others safe;
• Requiring violent history checks for most firearm purchases;
• Requiring a waiting period between firearm purchases and possession; and
• Banning untraceable guns and certain firearm modification devices.

More information regarding Gov. Evers’ comprehensive plan to prevent gun violence and keep kids, families, and communities safe is available here.

Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature removed the vast majority of these proposals in the biennial budget process and have largely declined to take action on commonsense gun safety measures or pass other meaningful investments to make Wisconsin’s communities safer, despite multiple of these provisions having support from a majority of Wisconsinites. Nevertheless, since 2019, Gov. Evers and his administration have been working to keep Wisconsinites and local communities healthy and safe, including taking action to prevent gun violence through commonsense gun safety reforms and working to invest directly in violence prevention and intervention.

In recent years, Gov. Evers has directed more than $100 million of the state’s allocation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds toward community safety and violence prevention efforts. In 2021, the governor announced an initial $45 million investment to address the root causes of violence by investing in programs and interventions being spearheaded by organizations already working in local communities, including investing $25 million into violence prevention efforts and $20 million to support victim services in Wisconsin, such as:

• $6.6 million to the Medical College of Wisconsin’s (MCW) Violence Prevention Project, which is housed in their Comprehensive Injury Center. These funds are being used to support research, data collection, education, and community engagement efforts around violence prevention as a public health issue;
• $10.4 million also to MCW’s Violence Prevention Project to administer a competitive grant process to support violence prevention project efforts statewide. Ten communities and organizations were selected to receive these funds in June 2023;
• $8 million to the city of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, now the Office of Community Wellness and Safety, to respond to the pandemic-related uptick in violence and trauma with projects that take a public health approach to violence prevention; and
• $20 million to support VOCA grant recipients, as the state has seen critical cuts to federal VOCA funding over the last several years and an increased need for services.
  • Gov. Evers later signed 2023 Wisconsin Act 241, which directed $10 million to support violence prevention and crime victim and survivor services, including providing funding for sexual assault victim services, domestic abuse grants, and child advocacy grants.

To continue to build on these efforts to support safer communities, in March 2022, Gov. Evers announced an additional more than $50 million investment of ARPA funds in community safety and crime prevention initiatives, including:

• More than $19 million for a statewide law enforcement grant program that provided an allocation to every local and Tribal law enforcement agency in Wisconsin, enabling agencies to address the unique needs facing their communities, including training, recruitment bonuses, community policing needs, and technology investments;
• $1 million for the Wisconsin Technical College System to support part-time police academy programs in Wisconsin;
• Nearly $20 million to Milwaukee County and the city of Milwaukee for criminal justice system initiatives and community safety projects; and
• More than $16 million toward reducing the pandemic-related backlog of criminal cases statewide.

STATISTICS ON VIOLENCE AND GUN VIOLENCE IN WISCONSIN
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, the rate of gun deaths has increased 54 percent from 2014 to 2023 in Wisconsin, compared to a 33 percent increase nationwide over that same time period. Further, in every year since 2019, there have been more mass shootings than days in the year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that, as of 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death for kids in America—surpassing car accidents and cancer—with gun death rates in this age group increasing by 106 percent over the last 11 years. Additionally, a report from End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin also showed that Wisconsin saw a record number of domestic violence deaths in 2024, claiming the lives of 99 individuals.

In 2023, there were nearly 47,000 firearm-related deaths in America, with more than half of those deaths occurring by suicide. In Wisconsin, nearly 60 percent of all suicide deaths are firearm-related. Gun violence does not just affect only the largest cities and urban areas in Wisconsin. According to a recent analysis on Gun Death in Wisconsin, firearm suicide rates have remained higher in rural Wisconsin compared to urban areas, and the majority of firearm deaths in rural areas of Wisconsin are suicide deaths.

As gun violence in particular continues to persist in communities across the state, especially in Wisconsin’s rural areas and communities, a commitment to comprehensive community violence prevention and robust investments in mental and behavioral health services, crime victim services, coupled with commonsense gun safety reform has never been more important.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.