Public Safety Committee
September 30, 2025
AGENDA REPORT
TO: Jestin D. Johnson FROM: Holly Joshi
City Administrator Chief of Violence
Prevention
SUBJECT: Agreement with GreenLight Fund and
Urban Peace Institute for Community
Violence Intervention Academy
DATE: September 2, 2025
City Administrator Approval Date:
RECOMMENDATION
Staff Recommends That The City Council Adopt A Resolution Authorizing The City Administrator To Accept An In-Kind Technical Assistance Award Valued At One Million Dollars ($1,000,000) For The Period Of October 1, 2025, To June 30, 2029, And To Enter Into A No-Cost Agreement With GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute In Support Of The Development Of A Community Violence Intervention Academy In Oakland For A Four-Year Term
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) was selected by GreenLight Fund to receive four years of technical assistance from Urban Peace Institute, valued at $1 million, to develop a community violence intervention academy in Oakland. The proposed resolution authorizes the DVP to enter a no-cost agreement with GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute to document each party’s roles and responsibilities during the four-year engagement.
BACKGROUND / LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
The DVP is charged with reducing gun violence, domestic violence, and commercial sexual exploitation in Oakland. To do this, the DVP invests in immediate crisis response services and near-term interventions that stabilize victims and prevent additional violence, as well as longer- term, intensive support services for individuals caught in cycles of violence. Specifically, the DVP performs three primary functions:
1. Supervise and deploy a team of direct service staff who perform intensive life coaching and violence interruption work with individuals at the highest risk of imminent gun violence as part of the City’s Ceasefire-Lifeline strategy.
Jestin Johnson (Sep 18, 2025 13:59:42 PDT)
09/18/2025
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Agreement with GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute for Community Violence Intervention Academy
Date: September 2, 2025 Page 2
Public Safety Committee
September 30, 2025
2. Fund and coordinate community-based organizations (CBOs) to deliver intervention and healing services to individuals at the center of group violence, domestic violence, and commercial sexual exploitation.
3. Convene and build capacity among community organizations that form the ecosystem of violence intervention services in Oakland.
The DVP’s work is part of a national field of practice known as community violence intervention (CVI), which disrupts cycles of violence and trauma by focusing proven strategies and tailored services on individuals who are most likely to draw or drive violence in the near term. CVI work has gained credibility in the last decade as an effective alternative to policing and incarceration for addressing urban gun violence. CVI programs are tailored to individual communities and delivered by trained professionals with relevant lived experience and deep ties to the communities they serve. Evidence-based strategies that form the basis of CVI work include focused deterrence, street outreach, hospital-based intervention, intensive case management, and cognitive behavioral therapy. In Fiscal Year 2022, the Biden Administration invested nearly $200 million in CVI strategies across the country through its Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI) grant program. The State of California allocates at least $75 million annually to CVI programs across the state through its California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) grant program, which generates revenue from a tax on firearms and ammunition.
GreenLight Fund
GreenLight Fund (GreenLight) is a philanthropic organization based in Boston that seeks to identify, implement, and scale evidence-based solutions to persistent social challenges in cities across the country. GreenLight’s model involves first identifying a city to support and speaking with numerous stakeholders to understand the city’s most pressing challenges related to economic and racial inequity. Once these challenges are identified, GreenLight conducts a national landscape scan to identify organizations that have successfully implemented relevant solutions. Lastly, GreenLight engages local agencies and national experts in a rigorous application and vetting process to select the final social challenge and solution that will be implemented through intensive technical assistance from a national expert organization. Once GreenLight has selected the lead local agency and national technical assistance provider, GreenLight provides a framework for structured collaboration and implementation over four years, as well as funding for the technical assistance provider. GreenLight’s goal is to embed effective solutions in communities that are sustained beyond GreenLight’s initial investment.
Urban Peace Institute
Urban Peace Institute (UPI) is a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles that advances CVI work locally and nationally through capacity building, training and technical assistance, research and evaluation, policy, and advocacy. In 2008, UPI launched the Urban Peace Academy to train CVI workers in standard curricula and provide a professional certification that attests to each individual’s acquisition of knowledge and skills required to successfully perform CVI work.
Topics covered in the academy include mediation and conflict resolution, professional standards and ethics, trauma-informed practices, vicarious trauma and self-care, and street dynamics. The academy professionalized CVI work in Los Angeles and created a pipeline for growing and sustaining an effective CVI workforce. Since 2008, UPI has successfully trained over 3,500 CVI workers in Los Angeles and supported the implementation of similar academies in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Agreement with GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute for Community Violence Intervention Academy
Date: September 2, 2025 Page 3
Public Safety Committee
September 30, 2025
Selection Process
In the fall of 2024, GreenLight approached the DVP to learn about CVI work in Oakland and gaps that could be addressed through technical assistance from an external organization.
Through conversations over several months, GreenLight and the DVP jointly identified the opportunity to enhance local CVI work and create a sustainable pipeline of CVI workers by establishing an Oakland CVI training academy. GreenLight then interviewed several organizations nationally before identifying UPI as the ideal partner to support Oakland’s development and implementation of a CVI academy. Lastly, the DVP and UPI jointly presented to an advisory group composed of GreenLight staff and Oakland leaders that ultimately selected the DVP and UPI’s proposal for funding in April 2025.
ANALYSIS AND POLICY ALTERNATIVES
This proposed resolution would authorize the DVP to partner with GreenLight and UPI from October 2025 to June 2029 to develop and implement a training academy for CVI workers in Oakland. Specifically, the resolution would authorize the City Administrator to sign an agreement that outlines each party’s roles and responsibilities during the four-year term.
General activities anticipated during the four-year term are outlined in Table 1.
Table 1. Activities proposed by year during the partnership between DVP, GreenLight, and UPI.
Year Activities
Year 1
10/1/25 – 6/30/26
• UPI will conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys with CVI stakeholders in Oakland (system leaders, service providers, clients, etc.) to understand the landscape of CVI work in Oakland. • UPI will recommend content and structure for Oakland’s CVI academy content based on information collected from Oakland stakeholders and UPI’s expertise.
• With input from UPI, the DVP will select up to 10 individuals to serve on an advisory committee that will inform the development and ongoing implementation of the CVI academy.
Year 2
7/1/26 – 6/30/27
• The DVP and UPI will identify up to 15 practitioners and paraprofessionals who will deliver training content.
• The DVP and UPI will identify existing curricula used by UPI that are relevant to Oakland and customize the curricula to Oakland’s culture and group dynamics.
• UPI will lead the DVP and its trainers through the process of developing new curricula for topics that address important aspects of CVI work in Oakland, but for which prior curricula do not exist.
Year 3
7/1/27 – 6/30/28
• The DVP and UPI will facilitate two training cohorts (one in the fall and one in the spring) for up to 25 individuals each.
Year 4
7/1/28 – 6/30/29
• The DVP will facilitate two training cohorts (one in the fall and one in the spring) for up to 25 individuals each, with continued guidance and feedback from UPI.
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Agreement with GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute for Community Violence Intervention Academy
Date: September 2, 2025 Page 4
Public Safety Committee
September 30, 2025
The proposed resolution advances the citywide priority of holistic community safety by establishing a mechanism through which to continuously enhance the skills of existing community violence intervention workers and train individuals to become future community violence intervention workers in Oakland.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no cost associated with this agreement for the DVP. GreenLight will pay Urban Peace Institute for technical assistance provided to the DVP as part of this agreement. Table 2 presents the estimated value of services the DVP will receive each year based on projected payments made from GreenLight to UPI.
Table 2. Projected payments from GreenLight to UPI for technical assistance provided to the DVP.
Year Payment amount
1: FY25-26 $225,000
2: FY26-27 $225,000
3: FY27-28 $350,000
4: FY28-29 $200,000
Total $1,000,000
PUBLIC OUTREACH / INTEREST
No public outreach was deemed necessary for the preparation of this resolution and agenda report.
COORDINATION
The City Attorney’s Office and Budget Bureau were consulted during the preparation of this agenda report and resolution. Additionally, the DVP worked closely with GreenLight and UPI to draft the agreement that outlines the roles and responsibilities of each party during the four-year term, as well as the associated workplan.
PAST PERFORMANCE, EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP
Since 2008, UPI has successfully trained over 3,500 CVI workers in Los Angeles. UPI administers surveys to participants at the beginning and end of each cohort to assess increases in knowledge and skills. During the last three cohorts (Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024), surveys demonstrated an average increase in knowledge ranging from 13.2% to 20.2%. All trainees in UPI’s academy are already employed in CVI work and therefore connection to CVI employment has not been tracked as an outcome metric.
SUSTAINABLE OPPORTUNITIES
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Agreement with GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute for Community Violence Intervention Academy
Date: September 2, 2025 Page 5
Public Safety Committee
September 30, 2025
Economic: The partnership between the DVP, GreenLight, and Urban Peace Institute will result in the development of a CVI academy that will train and certify individuals as CVI professionals.
This certification will support their ability to obtain employment with CVI organizations in Oakland.
Environmental: There are no environmental opportunities associated with this report.
Race & Equity: The CVI academy that results from the partnership between the DVP, GreenLight, and Urban Peace Institute will enhance the practices of existing CVI professionals and prepare new, qualified individuals to enter the CVI workforce. This will result in enhanced and expanded services for individuals at the center of community violence in Oakland, who are disproportionately individuals of color.
ACTION REQUESTED OF THE CITY COUNCIL
Staff Recommends That The City Council Adopt A Resolution Authorizing The City Administrator To Accept An In-Kind Technical Assistance Award Valued At One Million Dollars ($1,000,000) For The Period Of October 1, 2025, To June 30, 2029, And To Enter Into A No- Cost Agreement With GreenLight Fund and Urban Peace Institute In Support Of The Development Of A Community Violence Intervention Academy In Oakland For A Four-Year Term
For questions regarding this report, please contact Holly Joshi, Chief of Violence Prevention, at (510) 920-6272.
Respectfully submitted,
Holly Joshi
Chief of Violence Prevention, Department of
Violence Prevention
Prepared by:
Jenny Linchey, Deputy Chief of Grants,
Programs, and Evaluation
Holly Joshi (Sep 15, 2025 20:30:11 PDT)