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We don’t just respond to gun violence. We organize to end it. Youth Over Guns operates from a clear belief: gun violence is not random, and it is not inevitable. It is the predictable result of systems built over generations — economic disinvestment, structural racism, the normalization of firearms, and the criminalization of young people. Those systems can be changed. Through organizing, advocacy, storytelling, and healing, we work to change them at their root. Our framework is grounded in a public health approach and driven by the leadership of young people who are closest to the crisis and most powerful in solving it. |
OUR VISION |
A society where communities, particularly Black and Brown communities, are free from the pervasive threat of gun violence, and where young people have access to the safety, healing, and opportunity needed to thrive across generations.
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Our Goals
These six goals define what success looks like. They guide every program we run, every campaign we launch, and every partnership we build.
01
Build Youth Power and Leadership Young people most impacted by gun violence are recognized, resourced, and positioned as leaders and decision-makers in the movement to end it.
02
Advance Policy and Systems Change Laws, policies, and public systems reflect a public health approach to gun violence, prioritizing prevention, healing, and community investment over punishment and criminalization.
03
Shift Narrative and Culture The dominant narrative around gun violence shifts so that it is understood as preventable, and Black and Brown youth are seen as assets and leaders, not threats.
04
Grow Collective Power and Community Organizing Communities most impacted by gun violence are organized, connected, and powerful enough to drive sustained change in the policies and systems that shape their lives.
05
Expand Healing-Centered Spaces and Survivor Justice Young survivors of gun violence have access to healing-centered supports and are no longer failed or retraumatized by punitive systems ill-equipped to meet their needs.
06
Drive Equitable Resource Allocation Funders, policymakers, and institutions direct sustained, equitable resources toward community-driven, evidence-based gun violence prevention and intervention. |
How We Work
Our six strategies are the engine behind our goals. Each one is distinct, and all six are interdependent.
01
Leadership Development and Youth Organizing We invest in young people as organizers and advocates, training, compensating, and supporting them to lead campaigns, shape policy, and build the next generation of movement leadership. Young people don’t advise our work. They lead it.
02
Policy Advocacy and Legislative Engagement We engage directly in legislative and regulatory processes at the local, state, and federal level, pushing for policies rooted in public health, racial equity, and community investment, and opposing carceral approaches that harm youth.
03
Narrative Change and Strategic Communications We use storytelling, multimedia, and digital organizing to shift how gun violence is understood and who is centered in solutions, building public will for prevention and elevating the voices of those most impacted.
04
Base Building and Coalition Work We grow a broad, organized base of young people, community members, and aligned organizations, deepening partnerships, fostering cross-community dialogue, and building the collective power needed for long-term systems change.
05
Healing-Centered Program Design We design all programs using trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and healing-centered frameworks, creating spaces where young people can process harm, develop identity and belonging, and access holistic support.
06
Institutional Accountability and Field Building We hold funders and institutions accountable to communities by advocating for equitable investment, modeling transparent outcomes reporting, and contributing to a stronger, more coordinated gun violence prevention field. |
Our Approach in Practice
We start with lived experience, not needs assessments.
The young people we work with are the experts on their own communities. We don’t diagnose from the outside. We build from the inside, centering the knowledge, relationships, and insight that comes from being closest to the crisis.
We pay people for their time.
Expertise born from survival has value. We compensate young people for their labor, their leadership, and their participation. Full stop.
We meet people where the grief is.
Before we ask anyone to organize, we create space to process. Healing is not a precondition for participation — it is woven into every program, every meeting, every space we hold.
We build toward our own irrelevance.
Our success is not measured by how many people need us. It is measured by how many young people have the power, relationships, and infrastructure to lead without us.
We move at the speed of trust.
Coalition work, policy advocacy, and community organizing all require relationships that take time to build. We invest in those relationships before we need them, because power built in crisis rarely holds.
We hold the both/and.
Healing and organizing. Grief and action. Systemic change and individual support. We do not ask young people to choose between processing their pain and fighting for their future. We build programs that hold both.