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Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens across all racial categories in the U.S. The Hope and Heal Fund is working to prevent all forms of gun violence, so children can lead healthy and safe lives. Innovative solutions are formed by those closest to the issues and can become models that dramatically change systems. That’s why the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) partners with community-based efforts and leaders like the Hope and Heal Fund.
WKKF’s communications staff Javon Dobbs and Kari Carlson, recently spoke with Refugio “Cuco” Rodriguez, chief strategist and equity officer at the Hope and Heal Fund. They talked about the Funds’ community-centered approach to dramatically reduce gun violence in the state of California and beyond through culturally responsive and trauma-informed healing practices.
Javon: The Hope and Heal Fund was formed in 2015, in the wake of the San Bernardino mass shooting. Can you tell us why it was important to start this fund and what you’ve learned along the way that’s informed your work today?
Cuco: Hope and Heal Fund was formed from a recognition that there wasn’t a philanthropic organization in the state of California that focused on gun violence prevention, comprehensively. Consequently, a diverse collective of community leaders and funders came together to launch the collaborative fund that we know of today as the Hope and Heal Fund.
When I joined the fund in 2019, one of the things that we shifted is that we became unapologetically an equity fund as well. Racial equity is a big part of our work. We look plainly at the intersections of reducing gun violence, equity and systems change. So, our approach has shifted considerably. We still do support a lot of on-the-ground work. In that perspective, our biggest wins have been primarily supporting grassroots organizations and researchers with technical assistance to help them really be competitive in accessing public dollars to accelerate their work in the community.
One of the things about this field that a lot of folks don’t realize is that this is probably the one area in human services where data is very difficult to access.
There’s also a concerted effort to ensure that we don’t get data. So, we’ve been able to utilize our resources to expand opportunities and develop strategies to add data, but also expand the field in the way they’re looking at this issue, especially beyond legislation.
A lot of legislation that these organizations held as quintessential wins were actually huge losses for a lot of our communities of color. I think we’ve been serving in that role even though we are a state fund, we do work nationally, especially around some of these issues. So, in a nutshell, I like to think that even though we’re a fund, we’re more like an R&D (research & development) philanthropy. Our focus is really to try the stuff that nobody’s trying and invest in some pilot projects and proof of concepts.
As far as I know, we were one of the first organizations to begin to map some of the data that was previously not included. It fits into some of the narrative change work that we do as well. People believe that gun violence in many states is driven by large urban areas, and certainly those rates are super high, but one of the things that we wanted to do with the GIS mapping was to illustrate that rural communities were actually driving the rates of gun-related homicides in the state of California.
Javon: The U.S. surgeon general recently declared gun violence a public health crisis. Over the last five years, gun violence rose to become the leading cause of death for Black children and teens — and minors across all racial backgrounds. From where you sit, how did we get here as a country and what are you doing in California to bring more awareness to the innovative solutions that combat this issue? So, children can lead healthy and safe lives.
Cuco: We look at this from a systems approach. From our standpoint, when you look at what’s led to the increase in gun violence — the most obvious is the increase in the availability in firearms. Even if they are sold legally in communities of color, we see large incident rates of legally purchased firearms that are illegally sold, they’re trafficked. The anecdote that I share is how long would it take for me to get arrested if I trafficked, not even guns, anything illegally in an affluent White community? Not very long. And yet guns have been a persistent issue that have been trafficked in our communities.
Refugio “Cuco” Rodriguez, chief strategist and equity officer, The Hope and Heal Fund
When we look at the fact that in too many communities young people have greater access and easier access to firearms than they do a therapist, I think this is a big problem.
More importantly, it speaks to how inept our approaches have been. We’ve been very targeted and focused from a law enforcement standpoint on addressing the end user — somebody who purchased the weapon — versus the root cause of that particular phase of this, which is who is trafficking these weapons? If you decreased access, then you would see significant shifts in gun violence.
Now we’re seeing the horrific trend in terms of mass shootings, which again, only account for about 1% of total gun deaths in the country. However, we are seeing a significant increase. We’re also seeing significant increase in hate-related mass shootings in terms of race, religion and sexual orientation. Those trends, I think are really troubling. I’m an engineer by training. So, I’ve learned: If all the factors remain the same, then please don’t expect any change.
In Spring 2024, the Hope and Heal Fund hosted the National Latino Leadership Convening on Gun Violence. Lauded as the first-of-its-kind, the event brought together more than 100 visionary leaders from across the country to further efforts to address firearm deaths, injuries and trauma in the Latino community.
Javon: Can you talk about your narrative change efforts and why accurate and true narratives are so important to systemic change for gun violence prevention?
Cuco: The way we frame gun violence is a really important issue and the way our communities are viewed when we are victimized or when violence exists is really important. The data is helpful because it casts a different light on what’s occurring and how it’s occurring, but it also begins to paint a fuller picture of the implications of gun violence.
When you start digging deeper into the data, what you find is that it’s very expensive to investigate a homicide. The clearance rate is very low, especially in communities of color. So, not only are we paying a significant amount of money to investigate, but law enforcement isn’t solving many cases. In the general public, gun violence is often scrutinized with a racialized lens, as if one life is not equal to another.
Gun violence is gun violence. If it’s a veteran, a gang member, a woman who’s experienced intimate partner violence or a mass shooting, it is all connected. When we combine that data and we create a solution to gun violence in all its forms, I think it shifts the conversation very differently.
There was a lot of concerted effort to consider this issue as marginal, that it doesn’t affect everybody. But, I think slowly we’re beginning to realize gun violence is a health issue. We have to realize that this was a significant blind spot for a lot of us in this work in different sectors. Even for me, like I said, I was very focused on trauma, impact and healing and accepted the notion that gun access was something I couldn’t control. When in reality it’s one thing that I can control if I advocate appropriately.
Kari: You mentioned that over the past few years, Hope and Heal has taken on a more comprehensive approach. What’s changed?
Cuco: We’ve applied more of a systems approach to the work and been very methodical about how we look at systems. I’ll give you an example: We are working with the behavioral health system here in California right now, developing strategies with them. When we did the systems analysis, we identified a critical control point: not one county in the state of California screens for firearm ownership or access during behavior health visits. This is the system that has the highest contact with people that are vulnerable for suicide. This is where people go because they’re bipolar or they have PTSD or another mental health condition that would put them at risk for harm to self.
If treatment started with simply asking the question, “Do you own or have access to a firearm in your home?” that could change the disposition of a treatment plan or crisis plan. In California, we can issue gun violence restraining orders. Which means, you can actually institute a restraining order if you feel that somebody has made threats to hurt themselves or hurt other people, to have those firearms removed temporarily. We’re working to ensure that more residents of California understand that these policies are in place and they have the agency to use them for the safety of their loved ones and communities.
Kari: You mentioned that there’s been a gun violence prevention movement since the ’70s or ’80s that’s been largely White-led and that many of the policy “wins” were actually harmful to communities of color. Can you elaborate a little bit on what’s been done in the past that has been harmful to communities of color?
Cuco: What we call the movement is after Columbine or after the shooting of Ronald Reagan, depending on what you look at. However, the movement existed even before these consequential events. My mentors were doing work in the ‘60s and ’70s around gun violence. Fast forward to the ‘90s. The quintessential example that I share with people is during the Clinton administration in ’94, there was the assault weapons ban.
What people forget is that that was part of a larger crime bill. So, when we talk about the impact of incarceration, increased law enforcement presence and prosecuting minors as adults, all of that was part of the crime bill, along with the assault weapons ban. We are still dealing with the impact of that, which happened in ’94. So again, I think that there’s a lot of different examples like that where when you look behind the legislation, you will see these negative impacts on communities of color.
Kari: In 2035, what do you hope communities will look like for children as a result of your work?
Cuco: I’m fortunate that my kids don’t have to suffer a lot of the things or be exposed to the things that I was in my community. That’s really what I want for all children in the country, that they live in a world where they can just thrive. They don’t have to worry about surviving.
Violence is one of those things that so embodies and takes over as a child. After working in mental health for a long time, one of the things that I committed to myself in terms of my work is that I don’t normalize abnormal stuff. I don’t normalize dysfunction.
Lives of Black and Brown kids and other kids of color are not valued the same as others. And that is what I’m hoping shifts in all of this.
Javon: What role does philanthropy have in helping to accelerate change on this issue?
Cuco: I think that philanthropy plays a significant role in how to solve this because I think that the systems, when you look at traditional systems across the country, they’re not equipped to address this other than to throw law enforcement at it. Therefore, if all you have is a hammer, then everything’s going to be a nail. And I think that hasn’t worked. I think philanthropy is pivotal in creating different strategies, like what we’re trying to do and saying there’s a better way, there’s a cheaper way, there’s a more humane way of doing this.
Learn more about the Hope and Heal Fund by visiting its website.
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