“Violence is not the root problem. Instability is. When communities are stabilized, safety becomes sustainable.”
— Dr. Tirenzy Wilson, Founder & Executive Director
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation
Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™
Building safer, more resilient communities through systems-level prevention.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Why Stabilization Comes Before Safety
Violence is a symptom. Stability is the solution.
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation was created on a simple truth: violence is a symptom, not the root problem. Communities become safer when instability is reduced across key life domains—economic security, behavioral health, leadership development, and successful reentry. Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™) addresses these conditions before crisis--creating the foundation for lasting safety.
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation
Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation
Community Stabilization & Economic Mobility in Englewood, Chicago
Lead • Educate • Develop • Guide • Empower
Stabilizing Communities. Expanding Opportunity. Reducing Violence at the Root.
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation is a community-based nonprofit rooted in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side. We strengthen individuals, families, and neighborhoods by addressing the root causes of violence and instability through workforce readiness, behavioral health, youth leadership development, and reentry support.
👉 Violence reduction is not our starting point—it is our outcome.
Support Our Work
Programs
Our Integrated Community Stabilization Model
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation delivers an integrated community stabilization model designed to address the root causes of violence and instability in high-impact communities. Our programs operate as a coordinated system that strengthens economic mobility, behavioral health, youth leadership, and reentry outcomes—producing measurable improvements in community safety and long-term well-being.
Core Program Areas
* Economic Mobility & Workforce Readiness Workforce training, job placement, credentialing, and employer partnerships that increase income stability and reduce reliance on emergency systems.
* Behavioral Health, Healing & Reentry SupportTrauma-informed counseling, reentry navigation, and wraparound services that support successful reintegration and reduce recidivism.
* Youth Leadership & Prevention Pipelines Mentorship, leadership development, and entrepreneurship exposure that strengthen school engagement and long-term opportunity pathways.
*Community Stabilization & Violence Reduction Outcomes Credible messenger–led engagement, mediation, and support services embedded within a broader stabilization strategy—not as standalone crisis response.
Impacting Youth Through Leadership & Prevention Pipelines
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation strengthens long-term community stability by engaging youth in leadership development, mentorship, and purpose-driven programming. Our youth initiatives are designed to improve school engagement, build leadership capacity, and reduce future justice-system involvement by connecting young people to positive adult networks and opportunity pathways.
Mentorship as a Leadership & Stabilization Strategy
Our mentorship model pairs youth and young adults with trained mentors who support academic persistence, leadership development, and personal growth. Mentorship is delivered as a structured intervention that strengthens resilience, decision-making, and long-term readiness for education, employment, and civic participation.
Education for Economic Mobility & Future Readiness
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope integrates digital literacy, financial capability, and life-skills education to prepare youth and young adults for today’s workforce and economic systems. These initiatives strengthen problem-solving, adaptability, and long-term economic participation—key drivers of community stability and violence reduction.
Our Integrated Community Stabilization Model
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation delivers an integrated community stabilization model designed to address the root causes of violence and instability in high-impact communities. Our programs operate as a coordinated system that strengthens economic mobility, behavioral health, youth leadership, and reentry outcomes—producing measurable improvements in community safety and long-term well-being.
Community Impact
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation delivers measurable community impact by strengthening leadership capacity, economic stability, and long-term community resilience. Our integrated model focuses on upstream prevention and stabilization—addressing the root causes of violence, economic insecurity, and social harm through coordinated youth development, workforce readiness, reentry support, and healing-centered interventions.
Key Impact Outcomes Include:
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Increased leadership capacity and emotional intelligence among youth and adults engaged in L.E.D.G.E. programs
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Reduction in conflict and community-level harm, supported by mediation, credible engagement, and stabilization strategies
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Improved workforce readiness and successful reentry outcomes, including job placement, skill development, and economic participation
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Stronger family and neighborhood stability, reflected in sustained engagement, reduced system involvement, and community trust
Impact is tracked through participant engagement data, workforce placement outcomes, program completion rates, and community stabilization indicators aligned with funder and public-sector priorities.
What's Ahead
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation is actively building the next phase of its community work. As part of its Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™) framework, upcoming initiatives will include expanded leadership development cohorts, community-based conflict mediation efforts, workforce readiness programming, and strategic partnerships designed to strengthen long-term stability in the communities we serve.
Initial pilot activities and partnership engagements are planned for the upcoming program cycle, with a focus on coordinated, prevention-oriented approaches that address the underlying conditions contributing to community instability.
Organizations interested in learning more about partnership or pilot alignment are encouraged to connect with L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation. Program updates, pilot launches, and partnership announcements will be shared as initiatives advance.
Leadership Team
Senior leadership guiding strategy, operations, and accountability to deliver evidence-based community safety and stabilization outcomes.
Leadership Anchored in Systems, Stability, and Measurable Impact
Founder & Executive Director
Dr. Tirenzy Wilson provides strategic leadership grounded in lived experience, systems navigation, and deep community trust. He is the author and originating architect of the Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™) framework, a systems-based approach that reduces violence by addressing the underlying conditions of instability across economic, behavioral health, leadership, and reentry domains.
Dr. Wilson specializes in designing and stewarding integrated, cross-sector models that align community-based organizations, public institutions, and funding systems around shared stabilization outcomes—producing measurable, long-term improvements in community safety and well-being.
As Founder and Executive Director of L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation, Dr. Wilson leads framework development, strategy, partnerships, and model integrity—ensuring that SDVR™ is implemented with fidelity, equity, and sustainability as it scales.
Director of Operations & Lead Systems Implementation Specialist
Anthony Lash serves as Director of Operations and Lead Systems Implementation Specialist for L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation. He brings extensive training and certifications in violence prevention, community safety, trauma-informed engagement, and crisis de-escalation across multiple service environments.
Anthony is a co-originating practitioner of the Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™) framework, playing a central role in translating SDVR™ from systems design into effective, real-world implementation. His expertise ensures that SDVR™ is delivered with operational integrity, implementation fidelity, and alignment to evidence-informed best practices in community stabilization and public safety.
In his role, Anthony leads operational strategy, partner training, implementation readiness, and quality assurance—ensuring that L.E.D.G.E.-aligned programs operate cohesively, sustainably, and in service of long-term community stability.
“We specialize in a stabilization-driven approach to violence reduction that integrates workforce development, behavioral health, youth leadership, and credible messenger engagement.”
About the Founder
Dr. Tirenzy Wilson is the Founder and Executive Director of L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit advancing community stabilization, violence prevention, and leadership development in neighborhoods most impacted by systemic disinvestment.
Raised in Englewood, Dr. Wilson brings decades of lived experience, street-level leadership, and community credibility to his work. In the early 1990s, he played a leadership role in historic initiatives such as 21st Century V.O.T.E., United in Peace, and the 1993 Urban Peace Summits, which sought to redirect street influence toward civic engagement, peace-building, and economic opportunity. These efforts contributed to some of Chicago’s earliest community-led approaches to violence reduction and youth mobilization.
After serving more than 25 years in the federal system, Dr. Wilson returned home committed to transforming lived lessons into structured, accountable, and scalable solutions for today’s challenges. Drawing from experience across incarceration, reentry, and community rebuilding, he developed Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™)—a proprietary, systems-based framework that reduces violence by addressing the upstream conditions of instability.
Through SDVR™, Dr. Wilson advances coordinated strategies that strengthen leadership capacity, economic stability, trauma recovery, family reintegration, and reentry readiness, producing measurable, long-term improvements in community safety and well-being.
Dr. Wilson’s work bridges lived experience with institutional standards, offering public agencies, funders, and community partners a credible, trust-based pathway to durable violence reduction and community resilience.
“I’ve lived the conditions that lead to violence—and I’ve seen what happens when stability replaces chaos. SDVR™ is built on that truth.”
— Dr. Tirenzy Wilson, Founder & Executive Director
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation
Our Mission
Our Purpose
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation is a community stabilization and economic mobility organization committed to building resilient, self-determined communities. We integrate economic opportunity, trauma-informed care, youth leadership pathways, and reentry support to produce measurable improvements in public safety, employment outcomes, and long-term community well-being.
WHY ENGLEWOOD
Englewood is often defined by challenges—but it is also a proving ground for innovation, leadership, and systems repair. Persistent violence in high-impact communities is driven by unemployment, untreated trauma, justice-system involvement, and limited access to opportunity.
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope was founded in Englewood to address these root causes head-on and to demonstrate what is possible when communities are stabilized through coordinated, long-term solutions rather than crisis response alone.
WHAT WE DO
A Community Stabilization Model Built for Impact
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope operates as a Community Stabilization Hub, delivering integrated services across four core outcome areas:
Economic Mobility & Workforce Readiness
We prepare justice-impacted adults and opportunity youth for sustainable employment through workforce training, credentialing, job placement, and employer partnerships—reducing dependency on emergency systems and increasing long-term income stability.
Behavioral Health, Healing & Reentry Support
We provide trauma-informed counseling, reentry navigation, and wraparound services that address untreated trauma, reduce recidivism, and support successful reintegration into families, workplaces, and communities.
Youth Leadership & Prevention Pipelines
We engage youth through mentorship, after-school leadership programs, and entrepreneurship exposure that strengthen school engagement, leadership capacity, and future readiness.
Community Stabilization & Violence Reduction Outcomes
Through credible messenger–led outreach, mediation, and support services, we reduce violent conflict as an outcome of increased economic participation, access to care, and youth engagement.
About SDVR™ and L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation
SDVR™ is a systems-based stabilization framework that reduces violence by aligning economic, behavioral health, leadership, and reentry systems—so safety becomes sustainable, not reactive.
SDVR™ is not a standalone program, service, or intervention model. It is a systems framework designed to coordinate and stabilize existing community-based efforts into a durable structure that can mature into long-term public safety infrastructure.
Rather than replacing Community Violence Intervention (CVI), workforce programs, or reentry services, SDVR™ organizes and aligns them around shared stabilization outcomes—ensuring that investments work together instead of in isolation.
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation is the originating and lead implementation organization of the SDVR™ framework. Based in Chicago and rooted in community trust, L.E.D.G.E. advances stabilization-driven approaches to violence prevention, leadership development, workforce readiness, behavioral health, and reentry support. Founded and led by Dr. Tirenzy Wilson, the organization brings lived experience, historic credibility, and systems-level vision to the work of long-term community transformation.
Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™
"Building safer, more resilient communities—by stabilizing the conditions that make safety possible."
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT
Most violence-reduction efforts focus on interrupting incidents without stabilizing the conditions that produce them. SDVR™ addresses this gap by coordinating economic stability, behavioral health, leadership development, and reentry systems so communities can sustain safety rather than cycle through crisis.
Root-Cause Focused: We reduce violence by stabilizing lives—employment, health, and leadership pathways—not by relying solely on crisis intervention.
Lived-Experience Leadership: Our work is guided by leaders with direct experience navigating poverty, trauma, and system involvement, ensuring trust and effectiveness.
Scalable & Replicable: Our integrated model is designed for replication across high-impact communities nationwide.
Outcome-Driven: We track employment placement and retention, reentry success, youth engagement, and community-level safety indicators.
"We don’t just interrupt violence—we interrupt instability."
IMPACT
Through our integrated model, L.E.D.G.E. of Hope aims to:
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Increase workforce participation and job retention among justice-impacted adults
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Expand access to behavioral health and healing-centered supports
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Engage youth annually in leadership and prevention pathways
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Reduce community-level violence through stabilization and economic participation
From Community to Institutions
Aligned Leadership in Action
Representation with roots. Healing with purpose. Leadership with memory.
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope Foundation, born in Englewood, Chicago, was honored to stand alongside national credible messengers, academic leaders, and institutional partners at the University of Central Florida’s Center for the Study of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery.
This convening reflects what Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™) is designed to do: align lived experience with institutional accountability — so community truth informs systems-level change.
Deep gratitude to Coach Ruben Saldaña and the Healing the Healer initiative, to Tomas Lares of United Abolitionists, and to Dr. Jessica Wickey, Executive Director of the UCF Center, for stewarding a space where education, research, and community-based leadership confront exploitation and violence at their roots.
From Englewood to Orlando — from the streets to the institutions — this is what aligned leadership looks like.
This is not symbolism.
This is infrastructure for change.
Recognition of community leadership and systems alignment during institutional convening.
Interested in aligning with a stabilization-driven approach to violence reduction?
Partner with L.E.D.G.E. of Hope to advance SDVR™ through coordinated, community-rooted systems.
PARTNERSHIPS & ALIGNMENT
Our work aligns with public and private funding priorities across:
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Economic mobility and workforce development
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Behavioral health and trauma-informed care
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Reentry and justice system reform
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Youth development and prevention
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Community safety through systems stabilization
L.E.D.G.E. of Hope is positioned to partner with funders, institutions, and community stakeholders committed to sustainable, measurable impact.
This alignment informs how our work is designed, implemented, and evaluated.
Through our Stabilization-Driven Violence Reduction™ (SDVR™) framework, L.E.D.G.E. of Hope translates shared priorities into coordinated, prevention-focused strategies that strengthen family stability, improve economic mobility, and reduce violence by addressing underlying systems of instability.
OUR APPROACH / OUR MODEL
The SDVR™ framework below illustrates how our approach translates upstream stabilization across key life domains into durable, long-term community safety outcomes.
“SDVR™ reframes violence reduction as the outcome of stabilization across interconnected systems.”
Invest in Stability. Build Opportunity. Create Lasting Change.
Whether you are a funder, institutional partner, employer, or community ally, your partnership helps transform high-impact neighborhoods into engines of stability, wellness, and economic participation.
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