We build life-saving evacuation technology for schools, places of worship, and community spaces — and support families impacted by gun violence.
In an emergency, the difference between safety and tragedy is measured in seconds — not minutes. Most people don’t know where to go, which exit is safest, or who to listen to.
Schools and houses of worship were not designed for what they now have to prepare for. Families left behind carry the cost long after the news cycle moves on.
Emergency outcomes in public spaces are often decided in the first ninety seconds — before professional responders can arrive on scene.
Many schools and houses of worship have written emergency policies but have never rehearsed an evacuation for anything other than fire.
Most U.S. houses of worship, community centers, and gathering places lack the dedicated emergency guidance systems available to larger institutions.
Survivors and family members carry the long-term costs of public tragedy — and the support available to them often ends when the news cycle does.
We will publish sourced figures from independent research and government data here as our research partnerships come online.
These are not freak occurrences. They are a recurring pattern at the places communities trust to be safe — schools, places of worship, and the gathering spaces of public life. Every Second Count exists because we refuse to keep treating each one as a surprise.
Two teenage gunmen — radicalized online by Islamophobic content — opened fire outside the largest mosque in San Diego, killing a security guard and two long-time staff members before fleeing and dying by suicide nearby. Authorities are investigating it as a hate crime.
Mosques face a growing threat from online-radicalized attackers. Perimeter awareness and rehearsed response now matter as much as locked doors.
A gunman rammed his truck into the front wall of a Latter-day Saints chapel during Sunday service, opened fire on the congregation with a rifle, and set the building ablaze. The FBI later confirmed the attack was motivated by hatred of the Mormon faith.
Worship spaces face an evolving threat — vehicular ramming combined with firearms and fire. Preparedness now means more than one drill.
A gunman opened fire through the stained-glass windows of Annunciation Catholic Church during a school-wide Mass, killing two children — eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and ten-year-old Harper Moyski — and injuring seventeen others. Federal authorities investigated the attack as anti-Catholic domestic terrorism.
Schools and houses of worship are not separate problems. The buildings that hold both — and the people who fill them — need preparedness for both.
A 20-year-old FSU student opened fire near and inside the Student Union just before noon, killing two university employees — campus dining director Robert Morales and Aramark vice president Tiru Chabba — and wounding six others. The attack lasted about three minutes.
Universities are open campuses with thousands of students, staff, and visitors. Preparedness has to scale to that openness, not pretend it away.
A 14-year-old student opened fire in a classroom on the second day of the school year. Two students and two teachers were killed. FBI agents had visited the suspect's home over school-shooting threats more than a year earlier.
The pattern continues. Every year that passes without a national preparedness floor is a year more communities join this list.
Every Second Count exists to put life-saving tools and human support where they are needed most — in the everyday places where Americans live, learn, and worship.
Open, accessible, audited tools that deliver real-time evacuation guidance to anyone inside a building during an emergency.
Direct relief, counseling support, and community programs for the people whose lives are reshaped by gun violence.
Practical preparedness for schools, places of worship, and gathering places — at no cost to the communities that need it most.
Our work focuses on three categories of life-saving technology — each developed with input from the communities that will use them, and reviewed by independent safety experts.
Tools that turn the spaces people are already in — phones, posted screens, classroom devices — into clear, calm instructions when seconds matter.
Pre-mapped routes and exit guidance reviewed by school safety officers, first responders, and the people who know each building best.
Practical, low-cost preparedness systems for houses of worship and community gathering spaces that have historically been left out.
We prioritize the communities most often overlooked by commercial safety products — and we never charge them for the work we do.
Public, private, and after-school programs serving children and educators — especially under-resourced districts.
Congregations of every tradition — churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and gurdwaras — spaces that deserve to remain safe places of refuge.
Libraries, community centers, food pantries, and small venues — the everyday infrastructure of public life.
Donations to Every Second Count are directed across five focused programs. To make a contribution, or ask where your support would go, please reach out to us directly.
Engineering, accessibility audits, and security review for our evacuation guidance tools.
Putting safety technology into the hands of schools and places of worship at no cost to them.
Training materials, drills, and printable guidance for staff and volunteers.
Direct assistance and long-term programs for families impacted by gun violence.
Listening sessions, partnerships, and on-the-ground program coordination.
Your contribution funds the five program areas listed here. To make a one-time or recurring gift, or to ask how your support would be directed, please contact us directly.
The work doesn’t end when the headlines do. It begins there.
— A founding board member, Every Second Count
Technology can only do so much. The families we work with have told us what they need most — and we built our family support programs around their answers.
Emergency funds for families in the immediate aftermath — without paperwork, without proving worthiness.
Connections to trauma-informed counselors and community mental-health partners, with long-term follow-up.
Spaces for families to be in conversation with one another — on their own terms, at their own pace.
Long-term outreach in the months and years after, when the rest of the world has moved on.
We hold ourselves to the standards we’d want any nonprofit holding our money to follow — and we publish them here so you can hold us to them.
We hold ourselves to a 90%+ programs-to-overhead ratio. Operations and fundraising stay lean.
Our financials are reviewed annually by an independent third-party auditor and published in full.
We publish our Form 990 filings and a plain-language annual report so anyone can review where the dollars go.
You shouldn't have to ask. We proactively publish program outcomes, deployment locations, and what we learned.
We publish what we build, how we test it, and who reviewed it. Our partner spaces always see our work first.
We don’t collect personal information about the people our technology helps. Privacy is a safety feature.
Our board includes educators, faith leaders, public-safety experts, and a survivor advisory council.
We invite partners and the public to challenge our work in the open, through a public feedback channel.
Every contribution, of any size, funds the work above — and lets us reach one more school, one more sanctuary, one more family. Thank you for standing with us.