Baltimore Ravens invest $1 million in the city's gun violence prevention initiative

The Baltimore Ravens are investing $1 million in gun violence prevention initiatives in Baltimore.

The announcement coincided with Tuesday's "Baltimore Together: A Violence Prevention Summit at M&T Bank Stadium," an event supported by the Ravens as part of this investment.

"There isn't a more important threshold, piece of work, that really the community is engaged in right now other than saving lives," Baltimore Ravens President Sashi Brown said. "We had to educate ourselves and have a lot of conversations on how to engage as a football team because this is a really difficult issue for anybody to dive into. For us, it was really about, it's life-saving work. Reducing from 300-plus homicides to 133. It's 200 Baltimore citizens alive today."

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott applauded the investment.

"They are not just a sports team in the city of Baltimore but of the city," Scott said. "They're involved in something as critical as reducing violence in the city of Baltimore. We would  not be where we are without their investment."

Partnerships curb gun violence in Baltimore

Here are the grant recipients:

• The Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE): The funding supports technical assistance from the University of Pennsylvania's Crime and Justice Policy Lab to expand the Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS). This research-backed model has already demonstrated significant success in Baltimore, reducing homicides and shootings by roughly one-third in the Western District.
• MedStar Health Hospital Violence Responder (HVR) Program: Funding provides emergency assistance to victims of gun violence, domestic violence, and human trafficking treated at local MedStar Health hospitals to help cover costs for shelter, clothing, food, and other essential needs. This support also expands community education efforts, including Stop the Bleed, Hands-Only Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training for students, and a broader reach for gun violence prevention programming across Baltimore.
• Everytown for Gun Safety: This investment will be used to finance a series of conflict resolution and gun violence prevention training tours across Baltimore high schools. This sustained investment has already demonstrated measurable impact, reaching hundreds of local students and generating nearly one million social media views to foster long-term safety within the community.
• Roca Maryland: The Ravens' multi-year investment will be used to advance Roca's evidence-based violence intervention work in Baltimore, where the organization currently serves more than 350 of the city's highest-risk young men annually. Roca's proven model combines relentless outreach, Rewire CBT – a non-clinical adaptation of cognitive-behavioral therapy – and transitional employment to help young people turn away from violence, heal trauma and accomplish long-term behavior change.
• University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center: This investment has allowed Shock Trauma to create and host collaborative forums, such as the Baltimore Together: A Violence Prevention Summit, which brings leaders from across city, state and federal government, healthcare, universities and community organizations together to foster stronger alignment of goals and forge partnerships. These efforts leverage each organization's unique strengths, perspectives and expertise toward developing long-term solutions to gun violence.
• Healing Through Storytelling: Johns Hopkins Medicine: This commitment supports the strategic expansion of the "This Is My Story" (TIMS) initiative across Johns Hopkins trauma units and the creation of the Johns Hopkins Medicine "Champions for Change" Fellowship, a paid leadership program that engages Baltimore youth impacted by violence in storytelling, advocacy and healing practices. 

Baltimore Violence Prevention Summit

Baltimore leaders said cracking down on gun violence takes teamwork and conversations, looking at the city's history of violence and collaborating on ways to keep crime levels down.

 "The numbers in the last six weeks are not as good as they have been in the more recent past," said University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center Physician-in-Chief Tom Scalea. "We need to double down."

Baltimore Police have recorded 44 homicides so far this year. Around this same time last year, the city marked 58. 

Recent data show a 60% reduction in homicides between 2022 and 2025, with non-fatal shootings down by 50%, reflecting the impact of coordinated efforts among community groups, public agencies and healthcare partners.

"This year, we want to be better,"  Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said. "The only way we can continue to do that … is by working together to cure Baltimore of gun violence."

During Tuesday's summit, city and community leaders gathered to address the root cause of violence and connect on ways to reduce it across the city.

"Think about what life is like now that you've been in this work," Scott said. Think about what you can do to take it to the next level."

"Having these types of resources allows us to think about how we invest upstream within our communities to form partnerships within the community that can help in the conversation around how we drive prevention," University of Maryland Medical System President & CEO Mohan Suntha said.