American Domestic Violence Crisis Line Global Outreach Project

In January 2009, the American Domestic Violence Crisis Line (ADVCL) received an Office Professional Plus 2007, Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Professional, and QuickBooks Premier Editions 2009 from the generous support of TechSoup, which has played a critical and vital role in expanding the organization’s impact. The immediate impact of using the Microsoft technologies is two-fold. The first is that ADVCL was able to produce synthesized materials for a global outreach campaign, which will have the outcome of both increasing the international volunteer corps while concurrently expanding our reach to a globally dispersed domestic violence population. Secondly, we are able to launch an effective marketing fundraising campaign, which resulted in a “Thank You Mother’s Day” campaign for donors to our Minutes for Moms campaign. In addition, the technology we received, specifically MSDN Professional, will allow us to build and simulate the end product of a secure contact and client web based application. This secure online database is a vital link to further growing our volunteer corps base and effectively communicating to advocate for our globally dispersed population. The mission of ADVCL is to provide a continuum of services to American women and children experiencing family violence while living in a foreign country. ADVCL provides domestic violence and child abuse advocacy, resources and tools so that they can navigate the complicated jurisdictional, legal and social international landscapes, to be able to live their lives free of abuse either in the foreign country or back in the United States. ADVCL was established as a direct response to the experience endured by the agency’s founder, Paula Lucas and her children, after fleeing an abusive 12 year relationship while living overseas and the subsequent obstacles they faced upon their return to the United States. Paula initially founded the program based on the services she wished had been available during her time of crisis, both while overseas and upon returning. From the first point of contact, either through the international toll free hotline or an email to an ADVCL advocate, our program offers a continuum of services that support and empower the caller. ADVCL’s international toll free crisis line is accessible from 175 countries and is administered by advocates who provide safety planning, advocacy, research of potential outcomes and options, and on-going case management. As part of the danger to safety planning advocacy, ADVCL works with women on the logistics and relocation to a safe place, be that in the foreign country or back in the U.S. ADVCL also assists with finding emergency financial funding, legal consultation with international family law attorneys, and basic needs, such as housing. The U.S. State Department estimates there are approximately 6.6 million Americans living abroad. Assuming the overseas population reflects the national statistics provided by the American Institute on Domestic Violence, it can be presumed that approximately 113,800 women and their children are experiencing abuse in a foreign country. ADVCL is currently the only organization that serves this disparate population. In 2008, the crisis line received approximately 1182 calls or emails, provided services to 363 families with 448 children in 56 different countries. ADVCL is embarking on a global outreach campaign in October 2010 in six European countries and the Microsoft technologies we received have exponentially helped us optimize the organization’s mission delivery. We were able to create synthesized materials, including a toolkit, which will be used to both recruit and train new volunteers. ADVCL is also in the process of redesigning the website to be more user friendly and streamline. ADVCL, as part of the global outreach campaign, will conduct trainings that will have a binary outcome. First, we want to increase our reach to the globally disbursed American overseas populations. Secondly, we will be training FAWCO club members and other members of the expatriate community to become ADVCL ambassadors. The goal of the ambassadors will be to raise awareness of ADVCL in her host city/country by speaking to local women’s organizations, women’s shelters or other expatriate groups and they will then communicate with ADVCL staff about presentations and provide specific country/regional information or news about domestic violence. Each training session will result in 2-6 ADVCL trained ambassadors. Each ambassador will receive a toolkit and organizational information. We will also invite members of the local embassies and consulates to the trainings. One of the most commonly sought-out resources to Americans experiencing violence abroad is the local U.S. Embassy or Consulate. In cases of domestic violence, however, there is great organizational disparity between embassies in resources, means to address victims’ needs, and knowledge of local resources among individual staff members. Our hope is to provide members of the embassies and consulates with the same toolkits and domestic violence information. Ultimately, by increasing our global outreach and mobilizing a regional volunteer network, we believe we will be able to connect with a greater number of American victims of domestic violence abroad. Our continued challenge as an organization is reaching this dispersed population. Our clients are often isolated, both physically and geographically, to the resources in the United States. With the technologies received through TechSoup, we are able to create the duel outreach effect of increasing both our volunteers and clients. ADVCL is currently applying for funding that will allow us to develop a secure online tracking and communications database that will allow our global volunteer corps to communicate with ADVCL staff on a secure network. This will be possible with MSDN software, which will be used as the development tool to be built by the secure web based network. ADVCL is currently working to diversify our revenue streams, which is extremely important in this difficult economic climate. In this vein, the organization is focusing on increasing the number of individual donations. In October, ADVCL launched it Minutes for Moms campaign. In May 2009, ADVCL reconnected with donors through a Mother’s Day Recognition campaign and created the materials on the Microsoft Publisher software. This campaign helped to further connect donors to the organization and update them on ADVCL developments. We believe this is an effective and successful donor campaign that we hope to duplicate with Domestic Violence Awareness month and other urgent action alerts. All of these activities were possible because of the Microsoft technologies received through TechSoup and the outcome will include both an increase in clients served and increase in volunteers recruited.