Complex Communications
Beginning soon after the pandemic, the City of Gainesville and its surrounding areas started to see an increase in gun violence. This was part of a national trend. In 2020, 79% of all homicides and 53% of all suicides in the United States involved firearms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled this a serious public health problem.
In recent years, the City of Gainesville has confronted rising gun violence with a combination of programs and initiatives. Listening to the community is one of the most valuable approaches. On Dec. 8, 2021, District I Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker held a telephone town hall on the subject of gun violence in our community. More than 1,000 neighbors dialed in.
On July 20, 2023, the Gainesville City Commission passed a resolution that declared gun violence in our community a public health crisis and challenged us as a city to do something about it.
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My role was to set the communications strategy, identify events and campaigns to fold into our efforts, confer with city leaders and stakeholders, guide production of collateral and develop content for all channels.
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The communications case study below shows that the number of gun-related homicides in the City of Gainesville dropped from 16 in 2023 to seven in 2024. This is a decrease of more than 40% and city leaders believe the communications campaign played a significant part in this success.
Convening the Community
The first step was an assignment from the city manager to coordinate a large conference that would convene stakeholders from local government, law enforcement, the public health community, educational institutions, faith-based organizations and community-based service providers.
Partnering with the city's director of Government Affairs and Community Relations, I led a team that organized a two-day Gun Violence Prevention Summit title, "Choose Peace: Gun Violence Must Cease." The event drew an estimated 400 people to the Hilton UF Conference Center on August 6 and 7 2023. The event had panel discussions, a youth town hall, breakout sessions, mental health seminars and other activities surrounding the search for community solutions.
Summit Reference Materials
Summit News Releases
Educational Campaigns
In May 2024, the city launched a community-based engagement strategy called IMPACT GNV as the next step in citywide efforts to prevent gun violence. The new initiative was designed to connect neighbors experiencing on-the-ground needs with city and community resources that can help. The communications team launched new elements to support the goal of leveraging valuable communitywide collaborations to maximize the program’s impact.
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Each June, we craft a fresh communications campaign to spread important safety and mental health messages as the city observes Gun Violence Awareness Month.
The campaign has grown each year, with the June 2025 effort offering a full slate of events at locations across the community.
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We also coordinated a multi-site video shoot, collecting gun safety and mental health messages from our city commissioners and first responders that were then edited into a public service announcement for city channels and local media.
Youth-Centered Messaging
For two years, the communications team publicized events resulting from the city's decision to allocate $650,000 of ARPA funds in One Nation One Project (ONOP), a national initiative using the arts and culture to promote community healing and well-being. In January 2022, the Gainesville City Commission recognized youth gun violence as a local issue of great concern and chose to dedicate ONOP efforts to this area.
With its own local branding and promotional schedule, we dedicated a graphic design specialist to support ONOP and routinely shared the initiative's progress through news releases and on the city's social media channels.
One Nation One Project News Release (Samples)
Multi-Channel Outreach
News Releases on Gun Violence Prevention
Between February 2023 and December 2024, our communications strategy disseminated information about every initiative and project listed above-- but we also launched social media posts, news items and interviews to promote program components that were less public-facing but strategically crucial in terms of prevention and enforcement.
In addition to the introduction of IMPACT GNV, we also created materials describing the purpose of the Violence Interrupters team. This unit of trusted messengers housed within the larger IMPACT GNV program logged hundreds of hours of neighborhood outreach, conflict mediation and youth engagement.
We managed media requests for the Gainesville Police Department (GPD), lining up interviews to publicize the newly created Gun Violence Unit. Comprised of one sergeant and four officers with the sole focus of reducing gun violence, the unit works with partner agencies, including the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, to cross jurisdictional lines and share resources.
Finally, we were always on hand to spread messaging about gun safety and supported the staff of IMPACT GNV in distributing more than 300 gun locks, enrolling 80 youth and families in the City’s gun safety pledge, and hosting more than a dozen community-based safety and education events.
Measurable Results
As 2024 came to a close, data from GPD showed a striking decrease in gun violence and related gun crime over the course of the calendar year.
For eight months, there had not been a single gun-related homicide reported in the City of Gainesville. City leaders attributed this positive news to a mix of factors-- but high on that list was the increasing quality and reach of city-led initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence.
Through coordinated communications, we were able to amplify the work of IMPACT GNV and partner agencies, and between 2023 and 2024 GPD reported a more than 40% year-over-year decrease in gun-related homicides and a more then 30% decrease in firearm injuries.
