Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on The Chronicle’s website on April 20 and has been updated for its February issue.
In the post-#MeToo world, leaders are now being called to a greater level of public accountability when it comes to sexual harassment and assault.
The nonprofit world is coming to terms with its own contributions to a culture that permits sexual violence to take place within its own walls and in the communities it serves. While the volume of the conversation may be at an all-time high, the quality of the conversation is just beginning to evolve.
One challenge is that few people in the nonprofit world grasp the depth of the problem, its far-reaching consequences, or the fact that it contributes to so many other social ills, including homelessness, a lack of education, and mental and physical ailments. Compounding the problem, money for sexual-assault programs has always been in short supply, and now some of the most vital government funding for this cause may be at risk.
Many nonprofits and foundations still view sexual violence as simply an internal policy issue or a “women’s issue,” which couldn’t be further from the case. In my conversations with leaders of a variety of nonprofits over the past decade — and even in recent months — it’s surprising how little most know about sexual violence, its victims, and its impact. This basic lack of knowledge perpetuates a culture of silence and, even worse, missed opportunities.
Every nonprofit leader needs to understand three things when it comes to sexual violence.
First, it is pervasive, among both men and women. In the United States, one in four women and one in six men will be sexually abused or assaulted in their lifetimes. In some foreign countries, the rates are even higher. To put this in terms of more commonly discussed social issues, consider these statistics: One woman in eight will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime. One in five U.S. children lives in poverty.
While sexual violence is unacceptably high across all demographics, it disproportionately affects Native Americans, people with disabilities, and transgender individuals.
Every nonprofit and foundation interacts daily with survivors who are clients, donors, board members, and employees.
Second, sexual violence affects a range of other issues that connect directly to nonprofits’ and foundations’ broader missions. For example, being sexually abused as a child has long-term implications for physical and mental health. Survivors of sexual trauma can experience a multitude of short-term and long-term challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, eating disorders, depression, and suicide. According to Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experience Study, survivors also face higher rates of chronic health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Organizations that work on juvenile justice might also benefit from more knowledge about sexual abuse. Studies cited in “The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline,” a 2015 report by the nonprofit Rights4Girls, found that 31 percent to 81 percent of incarcerated girls said they had been victims of sexual abuse and violence.
Further evidence suggests that sexual abuse is actually a predictor of whether a girl will become involved with the juvenile-justice system. Many adolescents enter foster care or become homeless as a result of sexual abuse at home — and then face a greater risk of sexual violence while homeless or in foster care.
Unsurprisingly, sexual violence affects educational achievement. Victims are more likely to drop out of school, and 39 percent of sexually abused girls have academic difficulties. For the many nonprofits and foundations focused on high-school graduation rates and academic performance, preventing sexual abuse could be a key strategy for success.
Third, despite the fact that rape and sexual abuse result in enormous tangible and intangible costs to society, nonprofits that deal with this issue are tragically underfunded. A search of the Foundation Center’s online Foundation Directory turns up only about 35 grant makers that use “sexual abuse” or “sexual assault” as keywords to describe their focus.
Links to Other Missions
There are now more than 1,000 local sexual-assault providers across the country, ranging from programs run by broader organizations to comprehensive rape-crisis centers that offer free counseling, hotlines, medical and legal advocacy, and specialized resources for survivors. These groups receive a significant portion of their funding through public sources.
As is the case with many nonprofit causes, grants support critical services but don’t necessarily help organizations expand beyond basic programs.
In the rapidly evolving political environment, where even stalwart programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts are now at risk, it’s unclear how government funding for rape-crisis centers and other services for survivors will evolve. That uncertainty, combined with small staffs and already tight budgets, leaves these groups too short on time and money to educate other nonprofits and foundations about sexual violence and develop comprehensive partnerships and strategies.
Even nonprofit and foundation leaders who do begin to understand the depth and breadth of the issue struggle to find ways to incorporate this awareness into their missions and strategies.
The best approach is often to start small and build up to more comprehensive strategies over time.
For example, leaders can start by simply talking within the organization about sexual violence. The truth is, most men and women are uncomfortable dealing with such a taboo and sensitive topic. But if they cannot talk about it with their staff and board members, how can they develop strategies to join with other groups and build programs that serve survivors and advance prevention?
Those leaders can also begin a more public conversation by working in a few references to sexual abuse and assault in written materials or on their websites.
Discussions about sexual violence are themselves a powerful tool when it comes to prevention and response. By talking about this issue, nonprofits and foundations can reduce shame and stigma, giving survivors a better chance to reach their potential while making it harder for the perpetrators of these crimes to hide in our midst.
Beyond conversations, nonprofits and foundations can prepare staff, volunteers, and even clients to respond effectively to disclosures of sexual violence. A recent study found that many college-age sexual-violence survivors do tell people close to them what happened, even if they don’t report it to authorities. With millions of staff members, volunteers, and mentors deployed in communities around the country, the broader nonprofit world represents a chance for those victims to seek help and healing sooner.
With that in mind, the staff at Mentor: The National Mentoring Partnership worked with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center to adapt a training document to help mentors understand how to respond to people they serve who have been sexually abused or assaulted. This simple resource, which can be incorporated into any mentor-training program, outlines how to establish a sense of physical and emotional safety, encourage others to believe and sympathize with the survivors, and empower the victims to make their own choices about reporting incidents and seeking support.
This document can now be found on the National Mentoring Resource Center’s website and is available to the 5,000 programs in all 50 states that are affiliated with the Mentor network.
Beyond Background Checks
Depending on the size, focus, and level of awareness within an organization, there may be other ways to advance a variety of missions through a more thorough consideration of sexual violence. Groups that serve youths can think beyond background checks and develop policies that ensure safe boundaries between children and staff or volunteers. Community-based foundations and nonprofits can invite experts on preventing sexual violence to participate in panels or conferences, even if the event is on another topic.
Any organization of considerable size or reach can consider sexual-violence survivors as a constituency that deserves a voice and make resources available for them on their websites. Or it can organize a staff team to attend a fundraising event for a local rape-crisis center.
A nonprofit focused on health, education, housing, or homelessness can write a blog post that helps others understand the connection between sexual violence and its mission. Foundations can explore how to make sexual-violence prevention and response an explicit part of their grant-making strategies.
In a moment when the nonprofit world is exploring its purpose and commitment to defending and supporting marginalized groups, it’s time to move beyond the discomfort sexual violence creates and recognize an important constituency we encounter every day.
By doing so, America’s more than 1 million charitable organizations and foundations can advance their own missions related to health, mental health, education, and countless other issues while creating a world in which survivors of sexual violence are offered an opportunity to be seen, heard, and believed.
Sarah Beaulieu is founder of the Uncomfortable Conversation, a nonprofit that works to promote conversations about sexual violence, and a former board member of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.
