CCJ Directory

Nina Vinik is Founder and Executive Director of Project Unloaded, whose mission is to create a new cultural narrative that guns make us less safe. Vinik launched Project Unloaded in 2022 after 13 years at the Joyce Foundation where she led the Foundation’s grant making in support of evidence-informed policies and practices to reduce gun deaths and injuries, improve police legitimacy and build police-community trust, and reduce mass incarceration in the United States.

Prior to joining the foundation in 2008, Vinik, an attorney, served as Legal Director of Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV), a non-profit organization providing legal and technical assistance in support of gun violence prevention policy efforts nationwide. Her other experience includes serving as Director of the Litigation Assistance Partnership Project of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation, Fair Housing Project Director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc., and Legal Director of the ACLU Foundation of Florida, Inc. She also practiced law at the firm of Jenner & Block in Chicago.

Vinik earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and received her law degree from the University of Chicago.