The Hear Foundation Programs
Bridging the Badge
is a full-scale public safety Career & Technical Education (CTE) pipeline embedded within Pittsburgh Public Schools and housed at Westinghouse High School. While the lab is physically located at Westinghouse, the program serves students from across the district. Students from other PPS schools are bused daily to participate. This is not an after-school exposure program. It is an integrated career pathway.
Community Safety Innovation Fund
Launching soon.
The Community Safety Innovation Fund is a new Hear Foundation grantmaking program designed to strengthen violence prevention across Pittsburgh by investing directly in community leaders and grassroots solutions. The Fund provides flexible support to trusted local leaders, builds an interconnected network of violence prevention workers, encourages collaboration across community zones, and backs community-led projects that advance safety, healing, and resilience.
Leaders in each police and community zone will be chosen through an open nomination process, with community members, peers, and organizations nominating people who have a proven track record in violence prevention, deep community trust, innovative ideas, and a commitment to collaboration. Each leader will carry out a community-based project tied to violence prevention and public safety, with technical assistance from THF and encouragement to pool resources for joint, zone-based initiatives.
Beyond funding, THF will bring grantees together from across the city, offer capacity-building workshops in areas like storytelling, grant writing, trauma-informed practice, and conflict mediation, pair each leader with a local mentor, and share grantee stories to lift up their work.
The goal is a stronger, better-connected network of frontline leaders, improved trust and collaboration between communities, institutions, and law enforcement, and lasting progress on the factors that drive violence. Over time, THF plans to grow the Fund, develop multi-year support for high-performing leaders, and build a citywide council of alumni to help shape public safety strategy.
Full details, including how to nominate a leader and get involved, will be announced soon.
The Hear Foundation Programs
The Hear Foundation is centered on bringing residents, activists, organizations, community groups, and Public Safety Professionals together to collaborate, build trust, and create solutions for public safety. We hold events where people work in partnership to identify clear and actionable strategies that address three key areas:
As consensus is reached on the approaches that are the most urgent and appropriate for Pittsburgh, The Hear Foundation’s grantmaking provides funding to support local initiatives that engage public safety professionals and residents around these three focus areas.
