Reflections on 2023: NNEDV’s Year in Review

December 14, 2023

Together with our membership of the 56 state and U.S. territorial coalitions against domestic violence, NNEDV has accomplished so much over the past year as we work to create a social, political, and economic climate in which domestic violence no longer exists.

Like any year, 2023 brought us new challenges, and our team again rose to meet these challenges and continued moving NNEDV’s mission and vision forward. We are grateful to our member coalitions, our community of advocates, survivors, and supporters, and to the generous partners who make our work possible, including Airbnb, Amazon/Ring, Apple, Google, the Kering Foundation, the King Baudouin Foundation, Norton, The Allstate Foundation, and Uber.

Public Policy

Advocacy Days Congressional Reception in June (Iris Mannings Photography)

In February, we condemned the Fifth Circuit Court’s ruling in United States v. Rahimi, which overturned federal law prohibiting people under active protection orders for domestic violence from possessing a firearm in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We also participated in a congressional press conference led by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) and co-led an amicus brief in partnership with the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

In May, the Biden administration released the United States’ first National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Strategies for Action. NNEDV played a critical role as a thought leader, contributor, and coordinator of U.S. civil society efforts in the development of the National Plan.

In June, we held our annual Advocacy Days in partnership with the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV), welcoming more than 150 coalition and program staff, advocates, partners, and survivors to Capitol Hill. Securing increased federal funding was our organizations’ shared priority this year.

In September, we hosted a Day of Action for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) cuts. While the 2021 VOCA Fix partially replenished the Crime Victims Fund, funds are not able to keep up with annual appropriations needs. Replenishing the fund and stabilizing VOCA appropriations remain our top priorities for Fiscal Year 2024.

In November, we co-led a rally on the steps of the Supreme Court on November 7 ahead of oral arguments in the Court’s review of United States v. Rahimi. NNEDV, along with advocates, survivors, and Members of Congress, called on the court to overturn the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ dangerous Rahimi decision.

Throughout the year, we continued hosting monthly calls to provide coalitions with updates on federal policy initiatives and priorities. This year’s calls focused on topics like custody laws, abortion restrictions, and anti-LGBTQ+ (particularly anti-trans) bills. We also continued work to with coalitions to develop a consensus-based prevention and restorative practice policy framework, funded through a grant from the Blue Shield Foundation of California.

Capacity Technical Assistance

Annual Meeting & Leadership Summit in November

In October, we hosted a New Executive Directors’ meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, followed a few weeks later by an Executive Directors of Color meeting in Chandler, Arizona.

In November, we hosted our Annual Meeting & Leadership Summit in Chandler, Arizona, with more than 80 attendees and the theme “Building the Future – Making Connections: from Theory to Practice.” During the Annual Meeting, we presented the DREAM Award (honoring someone who incorporates and demonstrates the spirit and promise of true advocacy in all aspects of life) to Norma Rendon of South Dakota.

Throughout the year, we provided more than 600 individual technical assistance sessions to coalitions on a range of issues, including fatality reviews, diversity and equity work, and supporting incarcerated survivors. We also continued to convene regular regional and peer-to-peer meetings for coalition staff and leadership, and continued to update resources like Many Voices Many Traditions: A FVPSA Toolkit for Working with Indigenous Partners.

Collaborative Approach to Housing for Survivors

Housing Roundtable in October

In March, we attended the DV Housing First Research Symposium hosted by the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We are working with our partners to continue implementing the Domestic Violence Housing First approach, in service of survivors and their communities.

Also in March, we submitted a “Housing Needs of Survivors of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking” chapter to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2023 Advocates’ Guide.

In August, in partnership with the National Housing Law Project and NAESV, we created guidance for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)’s expanded housing protections and the new complaint process.

In October, we hosted a Housing Roundtable with partners from the Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services, the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center, and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence to discuss safe housing solutions for survivors.

Throughout the year, we continued to host webinars and trainings, along with monthly DV Coalition Housing calls, with subcommittees meeting three to four times per month. We welcomed more than 300 attendees on these calls during 2023.

Domestic Violence Counts

Domestic Violence Counts Congressional briefing in March

In March, we launched the 17^th Annual Domestic Violence Counts Report in a bipartisan Congressional briefing streamed on Facebook Live (and translated into Spanish), in cooperation with Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Lucy McBath (D-GA), and Gwen Moore (D-WI). The briefing included a panel with Beth Young (South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault), Karen Cheeks-Lomax (My Sister’s Place), and Karimah Dillard (Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence).

In September, we held the 18^th Annual Domestic Violence Counts survey day, where local programs across the country documented the number of people they served, the types of services requested, the number of requests that they were unable to meet due to a lack of resources, and other critical information about their successes and challenges. More than 1,600 programs participated in this year’s survey.

Throughout the year, we continued working to make the survey process more accessible, including holding our informational webinar in both English and Spanish, recording a demo of the survey form, and holding drop-in “office hours” for the first time.

Economic Justice

Economic Justice Summit in April

In April, we held our 6^th Annual Economic Justice Summit in Washington, DC, connecting with more than 190 advocates from across the country and discussing strategies to help survivors stay connected to resources, while creating and maintaining safety plans and staying afloat during these tough economic times.

During a panel at the Summit, we released advocate compensation recommendations from the Economic Justice and Domestic Violence Advisory Council. Domestic violence programs, service providers, and funders should work towards insisting on nothing less than a living wage for all employees, including advocates undertaking the important work of supporting survivors every day.

In October, we joined a Wealth Wednesday broadcast on “Way Up with Angela Yee” to talk about financial abuse and our work to end it. The segment aired live on the radio and was shared with Way Up’s 125,000+ supporters across social media platforms.

In December, we spoke at a Financial Abuse Roundtable on Capitol Hill hosted by the Bipartisan Task Force to End Sexual Violence, alongside colleagues from The Allstate Foundation, Futures Without Violence, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

During 2023, we disbursed 374 Independence Project credit-building microloans, helping survivors of financial abuse on the path toward economic stability. Altogether, 271 borrowers completed their loans during the year, with an average final credit score of 650 and an average credit score increase of 15 points.

We also began collaborating with Temple University to evaluate the Independence Project over the next three years. We are excited for this opportunity to better understand how this program is working for survivors and how we can improve outcomes and borrower experiences.

Throughout the year, we provided webinars and trainings for more than 2,000 advocates to learn about economic justice and financial abuse.

Positively Safe

US Conference on HIV and AIDS in September

In February, we traveled to Kigali, Rwanda to meet with one of our Zeroing In project partners, the Rwanda Women’s Network, as well as numerous grassroots organizers. We returned to Kigali in July to attend the Women Deliver conference and to continue meeting with project partners, build out the new training curriculum that will be presented to the Rwanda Ministry of Health and the Rwanda Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, and prepare for rollout across the country.

In May, we began the first of four listening sessions in partnership with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, SisterLove, Inc., the Positive Women’s Network, and Futures Without Violence. The first two listening sessions focused on Black women living with HIV who have experienced domestic violence; the third included advocates from the HIV field; and the fourth included advocates from the DV field.

Also in May, we launched season three of our Expanding the Continuum podcast in partnership with Futures Without Violence. Topics covered throughout the year’s episodes included harm reduction, health justice, and HIV testing in domestic violence programs.

Throughout the year, we continued to update the Positively Safe Toolkit, presented at panels and conferences, and conducted webinars and trainings for more than 1,600 advocates on the intersection of domestic violence and HIV/AIDs.

Safety Net

Technology Summit in July

In early May, Apple and Google teamed up to jointly submit a proposed industry specification to help combat the misuse of Bluetooth location-tracking devices. NNEDV is proud to have consulted on these developments as part of our continued work to make technology safer for survivors.

In July, we held our Technology Summit 2023 in San Francisco, with more than 300 attendees learning and collaborating around our shared work to address the intersection of technology and domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and trafficking.

In October, we garnered substantial media coverage around the nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, which could have potentially endangered survivors with hidden devices.

In November, through a unique partnership with NNEDV and TechSoup, Norton announced a donation of up to 5,000 free product licenses to help survivors recover from financial or technological abuse. Security tools like these can be a valuable piece of a survivor’s tech safety planning.

In December, in partnership with Ring, we announced the second year of the Ring Donation Program for Domestic Violence Survivors. The program will provide an additional 10,000 video doorbells, security cameras, and Ring Protect Plan subscriptions to eligible organizations supporting survivors.

Throughout the year, we held webinars and trainings on topics like teen dating violence, tech misuse, agencies’ use of technology, and safety planning, reaching more than 10,000 advocates and other attendees. We also released dozens of new and updated materials on TechSafety.org.

Transitional Housing

National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS in May

In February, 253 people completed eLearning courses on voluntary services, safety planning, anti-racism, and other transitional housing topics—a 426% increase from last February. We worked with partners like Freedom Network, DeafPhoenix, and the Society for the Blind to create podcasts and other content tailored toward communities like trafficking survivors, Deaf survivors, and blind survivors.

In May, we translated ten documents from the Transitional Housing Toolkit into Arabic, French, Lingala, and Portuguese. Previously, the toolkit had been available in English, Spanish, and Korean.

Also in May, in partnership with the Positively Safe team, we presented on “Trauma-Informed Safety Planning: Centering Survivors Safety in Real-Time” at the National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC.

In August, we gathered in New Orleans, Louisiana, to host the “Beyond the Basics of Voluntary Services” training, where nearly 100 participants spent two days completing an in-depth assessment of how to engage survivors effectively, centering their voices and agency.

In October, we received final approval for the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Access to Services toolkit, which aims to expand access for sexual assault survivors, who often have different or overlapping needs from domestic violence survivors.

Throughout the year, we presented webinars and trainings on housing-related topics, reaching more than 60 advocates in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, and Korean. Highlights included a webinar and podcast on responsiveness toward Asian American and Pacific Islander survivors (in partnership with the Asian-Pacific Institute for Gender-Based Violence) and a two-part webinar series on supporting Indigenous survivors (in partnership with Indigi-Ripple Connect).

WomensLaw

Spanish WomensLaw Email Hotline volunteer training in October

In March, we hosted a “Navigating WomensLaw.org” webinar in English and Spanish, reaching more than 200 victim service providers interested in learning how to use the resources on our website and how to support survivors in their use of the chat feature we launched in 2022.

In April, we launched the first of our Quick Guides in Korean, as part of our collaboration with the Korean American Family Services. These two guides, on custody and divorce, can be accessed on WomensLaw.org’s new Quick Guides page.

In June, in partnership with Esperanza United, we launched the Reimagining Enhanced Access and Capacity of the Hotline (REACH) Project Hub in English and Spanish. Content included monthly blogs and other resources with the goal of enhancing and expanding WomensLaw capacity for Latin@ survivors of violence.

Throughout the year, we helped more than 6,100 people in English and Spanish on the WomensLaw Email Hotline—nearly double what we shared in the 2022 Year in Review. An increase in single- and multi-year support from new and existing funders enhanced our capacity with the addition of new staff and volunteers, resulting in a dramatic drop in the amount of time we closed the Email Hotline due to capacity. This helped us connect more survivors and their loved ones with the legal information and resources they desperately needed.

Development & Communications

The Kering Foundation’s Caring for Women Dinner in September (Paul Morigi – Getty Images for Kering)

In September, for the second consecutive year, NNEDV was honored to be a beneficiary of the Kering Foundation’s Caring for Women Dinner in New York City. The incredibly generous $1 million we received will benefit the Independence Project, NNEDV’s credit-building microlending program.

In October, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, we launched the third year of the #Every1KnowsSome1 Domestic Violence Awareness Month campaign and the #GiveForDV giving coalition for GivingTuesday. The goal of these joint initiatives is to raise awareness, increase donations and volunteer efforts, and deepen community engagement by connecting our work nationwide.

Throughout the year, our social media content generated more than 2.1 million total impressions and nearly 110,000 total engagements, and our emails reached nearly 26,000 subscribers. More than 5.4 million people visited NNEDV.org, WomensLaw.org, and TechSafety.org to learn about our work.

We were mentioned in nearly 2,200 unique press pieces, with more than seven billion total impressions, at a total advertising value equivalency of more than $76 million. Media highlights during the year included:

Latest Supreme Court-related ruling overturning gun regulations worries domestic violence survivor advocates (CNN, February 12)
Stalkerware Grows 239% Worldwide Over the Past Three Years (Yahoo! Finance, March 14)
US lawsuit takes aim at ‘weapon of choice’ for stalkers (Al Jazeera, March 25)
Apple and Google team up to fight AirTag stalking (The Washington Post, May 2)
White House launches national plan to end gender-based violence (CNN, May 25)
Tina Turner Left Her Abusive Marriage, So They Could Too (The New York Times, June 6)
Letter to the Editor regarding United States v. Rahimi (The New York Times, July 13)
Salma Hayek, Oprah Winfrey and Zoë Kravitz Among Kering Foundation’s Caring for Women Dinner Co-Chairs (Variety, July 18)
How hidden device users can protect themselves ahead of national emergency alert test (Mashable, September 22)
Wednesday’s emergency alert may be annoying to some. For abuse victims, it may be dangerous (USA Today, October 3)
Domestic Violence Victims Warned Over Phone Alert (Newsweek, October 3)

NNEDV is grateful to the supporters and partners who make this work possible, and we look forward to another impactful year ahead. We invite you to sign up if you haven’t already and stay involved in our work to create a world where domestic violence no longer exists.