2024 PROGRESS REPORT
Moving forward with much work to be done, together.
Since 2019, cities across the U.S. have experienced a surge of deadly violence, shattering lives and destroying families. Here in Memphis, 398 people were killed in 2023, including 36 children. This exponential cycle of destruction led Youth Villages to launch Memphis Allies to reduce gun violence and homicides.
Collaboration is critical to success. The plan for Memphis Allies was informed by those trusted partners most invested in a safer Memphis — community groups, pastors, city and county leadership. Community violence intervention models tailored to Memphis were created, aimed at making dangerous neighborhoods safer and helping participants reach their full potential.
In the summer of 2022, we officially began services in Raleigh/ Frayser and have since expanded our SWITCH — Support with Intention to Create Hope — services into Orange Mound, Hickory Hill and South Memphis, with plans to grow further. We also offer SWITCH Youth services citywide.
In FY23-24, we served 512 people through SWITCH and SWITCH Youth. In two years, we want to serve nearly four times that amount. We’ve learned a lot over the past three years as we researched, developed and implemented these models. Together with our partners, we are scaling to meet the unending need. Neighborhoods and families can be trapped in a cycle of gun violence for generations, same as with poverty.
This is a long-term mission, and that means it requires all manner of community commitment, accountability, support and investment. In the following pages, we describe the Memphis Allies initiative, the critical importance of community partners and the necessity of relentless engagement with those most at risk for gun violence. The reality is that 99% of our SWITCH program participants have some affiliation with a gang, clique or crew. Many of our participants either have a previous gun-related charge and/or have been shot or shot at. Despite that, there is hope.
While actively engaged, more than 87% of our SWITCH and SWITCH Youth program participants have not incurred a new gunrelated charge.
Yes, this work is challenging. But already there is evidence this effort is worth embracing. The homicide rate in Memphis is 27% lower than this time last year (as of Sept. 3, 2024), and the work done by our staff, our partners and the participants themselves is contributing to this progress. It takes all of us, and we will keep working because even one life lost to violence is too many.
Susan Deason Executive Director
Memphis Allies staff: More of a calling than a job
Outreach specialists like Aviance
Brown-Austin are on the front lines of
community violence intervention work.
Carl Davis, Memphis Allies’ managing director of operations, was not just looking for good people to hire, but what he calls “RARE” people. Davis breaks it down this way:
R – Relatable to the people most at risk for gun violence
A – Accountable to participants, peers and leadership
R – Relentless because these front-line jobs demand nothing less
E – Empowering participants in the process of changing their lives
Consider Outreach Specialist Antonio Dowdy’s response when a young man in SWITCH called in the middle of the night with a plea: “I need you to come get me or I’m going to shoot my cousin.”
Knowing the two men were in rival gangs, Dowdy grabbed his keys.
“It was a life-or-death situation,” Dowdy said, adding he was able to safely relocate the young man.
These “RARE” people tend to view what they do as a calling. Life Coach Briant Kelly, also known as B Radical, is as relentless as he is relatable. He calls his guys frequently just to take a temperature check: “At any given moment, they can run into a place of crisis.”
Case managers and clinical specialists bring that same attitude to the work, as do supervisors. Many are from the neighborhoods served and have lived similar lives to those in the program. All keep in contact to help participants stay on task with a program plan and to deal with challenges — both expected and unexpected.
Aviance Brown-Austin started at Memphis Allies as an outreach specialist, then became a life coach, and is now a regional supervisor. She operates with
a “participants-first” mindset, and Davis says she has a “heart of gold,” but that does not mean she is an easy touch.
“You give me goals, and I’m going to push you to meet those goals,” she said of program participants, adding that she never forgets the first goal: keep them safe, free and alive.
Aviance Brown-Austin Regional Supervisor
You give me goals, and I’m going to push you to meet those goals.
The SWITCH model
On the streets, a “switch” is a dangerous accessory: a cheap piece of metal that can turn a semi-automatic gun into an even more deadly automatic weapon.
In contrast, the Memphis Allies SWITCH — Support with Intention to Create Hope — model is designed to transform lives, helping those involved in gun violence choose a better, safer path.
First, SWITCH is about timely intervention with the people most at risk for gun violence as a victim, perpetrator or both. The population is roughly ages 17 to 35.
SWITCH engagement lasts 12-18 months and includes individual and group clinical sessions and programming, family involvement, employment training, educational support, basic needs resources and the opportunity to earn a stipend. Memphis Allies counts on partners, many of whom you’ll meet in the following pages, to provide some of these crucial services.
As SWITCH participants work their way through the program, they pass through four stages (see opposite page). Throughout, they have access to an outreach specialist, life coach, case manager and a clinical therapist.
It is truly 24-7 work.
“The streets don’t close, so we don’t close,” said Carl Davis, managing director of operations for Memphis Allies. Many of these adult SWITCH participants already have been incarcerated, sometimes on gun-related charges. For some, this program represents a last chance at making transformative change.
Community violence intervention research repeatedly has shown one or more of the following factors can place a person at high risk for gun violence:
• Involved in a gang/group
• Recently shot/shot at
• Has had a family member/friend recently shot/shot at
• Has a history of criminal justice involvement
• Has not completed high school
• Not currently employed
IDENTIFY CONNECT SERVE
Identify prospect Active outreach
Stage 1 Engagement & alignment
Stage 2 Self-management
Stage 3 Relationships & community connection
Stage 4 Vocational & educational connection
PRE-ENROLLMENT
To get a participant fully engaged, it can take about three months depending on their readiness.
PROGRAMMING AND INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS
Once engaged, participants spend three to four months in each of the program stages, meeting goals and requirements.
The streets don’t close, so we don’t close.
Memphis Allies brings resources, support to partners
Imagine a stone thrown into a pond. Ripples spread out from where the stone entered.
It is that way with partnerships in the effort to reduce gun violence. There simply cannot be too much energy or urgency.
The name “Memphis Allies” is intentional and meaningful. The initiative is about bringing community organizations together with resources to reduce gun violence and homicides so all our families and neighborhoods can thrive.
When Memphis Allies and partners began boots-on-the-ground outreach in Raleigh/Frayser in 2022, two organizations partnered with Memphis Allies to provide SWITCH programming to adults at highest risk of involvement in gun violence. Since then, Memphis Allies has expanded its adult SWITCH program to Orange Mound, Hickory Hill and South Memphis and more organizations became allies.
In the coming months, Memphis Allies’ SWITCH programs will expand to reach the seven neighborhoods most disproportionately affected by gun violence, adding services in Binghampton, North Memphis and Whitehaven. It is a larger ripple rolling across the community. As Memphis Allies expands, the capacity and strength of our partners grows.
In the following pages, you will learn more about these vital Memphis Allies partners. Each has deep community roots. Each has a distinct role to play. That these partnerships are growing is as encouraging as it is necessary.
“As we continue to expand to meet the need,” Executive Director Susan Deason said, “partners are crucial.”
As we continue to expand, partners are crucial.
NCC supports SWITCH with city-wide case management services
When Memphis Allies first began offering SWITCH in 2022 in Raleigh/Frayser, Neighborhood Christian Centers, Inc., was alongside as a partner, as a canvassing and outreach team.
Ephie Johnson CEO and President
This was a good opportunity to work where we’re most effective.
It represented a significant expansion of NCC’s traditional role. “I saw, and see, a benefit to how we started with Memphis Allies because it allowed us to understand what they were trying to achieve,” said Ephie Johnson, CEO and president of NCC. Going forward, NCC will serve people across the city as a SWITCH direct services/case management partner.
NCC will be in its historical lane as an essential services agency — including providing direct, stabilizing services such as food, clothing, entry-level counseling, obtaining vital records, entry-level job training, emergency housing assistance and referrals for other services.
“Ephie and her team have been with Memphis Allies since our inception, and they are fully aware of how best to serve and support our participants” said Susan Deason, executive director of Memphis Allies.
“They truly grasp all the layers to this work.”
Said Johnson: “We wanted to stay connected because we believed this was a good opportunity to work where we’re most effective. We’re a natural fit with the work we do as a backbone case management partner.”
PARTNER SPOTLIGHTS
‘I Shall Not Die But Live!’ growing its impact Different
locks require different keys. This is also true when trying to reach those in our city most at risk for gun violence.
Renardo Baker Founder
“Someone has to have the combination to unlock their heart and turn it from being hard to being soft,” said Renardo Baker, founder of “I Shall Not Die but Live!” in Orange Mound.
As a Memphis Allies partner, Baker and his team began providing SWITCH outreach in Orange Mound. Now, they’ve expanded their work to Hickory Hill. It’s a good example of a partner growing its role and capacity as Memphis Allies extends its reach throughout the city.
“We want people who are rooted in their community, but who also can be a city connector,” said Carl Davis, Memphis Allies’ managing director of operations. “One neighborhood doesn’t define them.”
Baker grew up in Orange Mound and says, “My part in destroying my community was being a drug dealer.”
One thing we do know is a gun doesn’t pull a trigger on its own.
But for two decades, he has been working for positive change. He owns a lawn service that creates jobs for those he is trying to help. He also knows the way to influence lives in the long term is to work from the inside out, on hearts and minds.
“One thing we do know is a gun doesn’t pull a trigger on its own,” Baker said. “Someone has to make a psychological decision.”
PARTNER SPOTLIGHTS
‘TWINS’ on the ground in Hickory Hill
When you join a gang at age 10, as twins Brandon and Bryan Mathis did, you start to believe violence and gang life are normal.
Brandon and Bryan Mathis
“You got a color, a letter, a family, a name,” Brandon said. Today, Brandon and Bryan have their own nonprofit: ‘TWINS’ (Together We Impact Neighborhoods and Nations).
The brothers became part of Memphis Allies in 2022, implementing SWITCH at the initiative’s first location in Frayser as part of the Neighborhood Christian Centers’ team. They now provide SWITCH life coaching and case management in Hickory Hill through TWINS. They have an older brother who is also a life coach for Memphis Allies.
Life coaches may help identify the issues, but clinical helps them address it.
Bryan says the partnership “gives us the freedom to do what has been successful and have the resources of Memphis Allies, including data.” Meanwhile, TWINS can build capacity through the initiative’s support. As part of SWITCH, each individual helped by TWINS receives clinical therapy and other programming.
“One thing I teach with our team,” Brandon said, “is life coaches may help identify the issues, but clinical helps them address it.”
Said Memphis Allies’ Executive Director
Susan Deason: “They’ve been on this journey for a long time now. And through this partnership, they are maintaining their voice and identity.”
Red Door Urban Missions on front lines in South Memphis
Eric Watkins is the founder and president of Red Door Urban Missions, but he is not much on formal titles.
Eric Watkins Founder
“I’m just a dude that God called back to the streets to engage with these precious individuals,” Watkins said.
As a Memphis Allies partner, Red Door is doing outreach in South Memphis, identifying individuals at highest risk and helping them get started in SWITCH. As Memphis Allies expands, Red Door may provide services in other areas.
Watkins says he was never gang-affiliated but was “poison-affiliated.” The gun violence he sees now, he says, can be as much a response made out of fear as intention. “If everyone you know in the concrete jungle is carrying a gun, you’re gonna carry a gun.”
It’s not just about bringing people in and putting a name on a sheet of paper.
The laying down of arms, he adds, often starts with getting young people to understand the danger of imitating violent lyrics and posting social media videos that portray them as hardened gangsters when they really are not.
“That plays into a whole lot of the foolishness we see now,” he said. But Watkins is encouraged.
“This is holistic help,” he said, speaking to the outreach his ministry is doing with Memphis Allies. “It’s not just about bringing people in and putting a name on a sheet of paper.”
The name “Memphis Allies” is intentional and meaningful.
The initiative is about bringing community organizations together with resources to reduce gun violence and homicides so all our families and neighborhoods can thrive.
Our Supporting Partners
Africa in April Cultural Awareness
Festival, Inc.
BJ’s Heart Inc.
Big Homie
BLOC Squad Memphis
Bluff City Express
The Braid Foundation
The Brotherhood B2M
BSOYOU Foundation
Carnival Smile
The Check In/TNT
The Christopher Pugh Center
City of Memphis
Guns Down Orange Mound
Heal 901
Heal the Hood Foundation
HopeWorks
Hope and Healing
Collaborative Group
Juvenile Court
KIPP Collegiate Schools
Kingdom Community Builders
Leading Life Enterprise
Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital
Legacy of Legends
Lifeline 2 Success
Love Works, Inc.
City of Memphis Housing and
Community Development
City of Memphis Parks and Neighborhoods
City Year Memphis
Cynthia Daniels Urban Elite
Elite Performance Foundation
Food for Thought
For The Kingdom, Inc.
Frayser Connect Center
Frayser PTSA
Greater Love Baptist Church
Grind City Cares
Melrose High School
Memphis Athletic Ministries
Memphis Police Department
Memphis Rox
Memphis Shelby County Schools
Memphis Shelby Police Activities League
Millionaire Grind
Mississippi Boulevard
Christian Church
One Glory Athletic Association
Operation Taking Back 901
Orange Mound Collaborative Group
Orange Mound Parade Committee
The Original Project Team
Pentecostal Charismatic Churches of North America
Playback Memphis
Porter-Leath
PURE Academy
Pursuit of God Church
Redzone Ministries
Regional One Health
S & K Gaming Center
School Seed Foundation
Shelby County Health Department
The Shelby County Links
Shelby County Office of Reentry
Shelby County Sheriff’s Office
Simone Face Painting
Soulsville Foundation
Southern Security Federal
Credit Union
SOW Community Outreach
Stop The Killing Cut The Beef
Westside Middle School
Young Actors Guild
Young Man University
SWITCH Youth = earlier intervention
Gun violence does not discriminate based on age. For that reason, Memphis Allies has made a strong commitment to its county-wide SWITCH Youth program for ages 12-18.
The program largely follows the SWITCH model for adults: engagement usually lasts at least 12 months and participants have access to an outreach specialist, a life coach, a case manager and a clinical specialist. SWITCH Youth is community-based, with life coaches and specialists meeting with participants face-toface many times a week and staying in touch by phone and text. As participants progress through stages, they work on practical matters such as education and employment and on ways to overcome trauma, modify behavior and make better decisions in the moment.
In weekly SWITCH Youth consultation sessions, which include
life coaches and clinical specialists, participants’ situations are discussed from multiple angles, and the youth’s current risk for gun violence is assessed.
“The level of collaboration is so high that everyone has a pulse of what’s going on with that young person,” said Brittney Ragin, director of clinical programs for Memphis Allies. “Information is being shared well. And the right strategies are being put in place.”
Often, the young person is living in a one-parent or grandparent-led home. Almost always, the young person has gang affiliation. And there is a trail of trauma that manifests itself as anger, says Jernica McNeil, who is a licensed program expert and leads consultation sessions.
“The anger could be in reference to their family system being broken,” McNeil said. “It also could be anger about losing friends they grew up with in the same neighborhood, and they were either killed or are in juvenile detention.”
Memphis Allies also partners with organizations that provide positive social and athletic outlets for SWITCH Youth participants. These range from Randy Dixon’s Elite Boxing in Hickory Hill to Ladell Beamon’s Heal the Hood Foundation, which offers instruction in music, dance and filmmaking.
Briant Kelly
SWITCH Youth
Community Outreach: Coming together to reduce gun violence
In the spring of 2024, Memphis Allies and partners hosted the second Breakthrough Conference, with the theme “Recharge, Realign, Reimagine.” The conference brings together local experts, community groups and national leaders with key voices in the movement to reduce gun violence.
One of those voices belonged to Arne Duncan, founder of Chicago CRED, the noted gun violence reduction initiative, and a former secretary of education to President Obama.
Duncan said gun violence reduction is the most challenging thing he has ever done. The work Memphis Allies and its partners are doing, Duncan added, will require patience, humility and, yes, urgency: “It’s like trying to run a marathon at a sprinter’s pace.”
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and Memphis
No one achieves anything alone. This is especially true in community violence intervention work.
Mayor Paul Young each spoke at the conference along with Youth Villages CEO Patrick Lawler. Along with keynotes, there was time for informal working groups that allowed local nonprofit leaders to get to know one another better.
Ephie Johnson, president and CEO of Neighborhood Christian Centers, Inc., a 2023 conference co-sponsor and a SWITCH supporting
partner, was encouraged that other programs including Heal 901, the City of Memphis’ Violence Intervention Program and BLOC Squad were represented.
“Because major community violence intervention programs are trying to make something happen, there’s hope,” she said. “If
nothing is happening, there is no hope.”
Hope was also the operative word at the Ninth Annual Walk Against Gun Violence organized by the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission and held on a Saturday morning in Orange Mound. Many of those walking wore orange shirts bearing the words: “Keep Our Kids Safe. End Gun Violence.” It felt like
a moment when everyone was aiming toward the same goal, together.
“What today reminds us is that people truly care about community,” said Jevonte Porter, community relations director for Memphis Allies. “Humanity is not dead.”
Where we serve
Even a long journey starts with a single step. Followed by another, and then another. Memphis Allies and its community partners are on such a journey to reduce gun violence in the city.
As the initiative expands, there will be more lives saved, more individuals redirected toward more hopeful futures — but also a need for more resources. Reducing gun violence in Memphis will require broad and dedicated investment.
Current SWITCH service area Future SWITCH service area SWITCH Youth service area
RALEIGH
DOWNTOWN
BINGHAMPTON
SOUTH MEMPHIS
ORANGE
MOUND
PARKWAY VILLAGE
HICKORY HILL
Join us for a safer Memphis!
In two years, Memphis Allies has grown from words on paper — a detailed and researched strategic plan — to more than 150 committed professionals providing life-changing services to hundreds of individuals, ages 12-35, who are involved in gun violence. We’re grateful to our partners and the private philanthropy and public funding from the city, county and state that is making this possible. We know a safer, stronger Memphis where children, families, businesses — all of us — can thrive is achievable. It will take longterm investment and true commitment from all of us. If you believe in the power of community and the promise of a better Memphis, join us!
— Patrick Lawler, CEO, Youth Villages
Learn how you can be a part of a safer, stronger Memphis. Visit memphisallies.org
