Testimonials

Emily May, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hollaback, on how RALIANCE’s grant helped expand their bystander intervention training to businesses: 
 
“RALIANCE’s grant arrived at a critical moment for Hollaback, and we’re immensely grateful that it did. Our board had just passed a growth plan directing us to focus on a business audience for our bystander intervention trainings, but we had yet to provide a significant amount of training in a workplace environment. Ultimately, RALIANCE’s grant enabled us to expand and test our training programs, and since then our growth has been exceptional. Prior to the grant, we were bringing in between twenty and thirty thousand dollars a year in revenue from trainings, but that has skyrocketed to $200,000 in the last four months alone. We also instituted an exit question at the end of the training, to see whether people found it helpful and would know what to do if they experienced or witnessed harassment. Upwards of 98% of people exit our trainings saying yes.” 

Read more about Hollaback here.

Kerry Sesil, Senior Director of Resource Development at The Arab-American Family Support Center, on a grant project that served the youth community: 

“With RALIANCE’s support, the Arab-American Family Support Center significantly expanded our culturally and linguistically competent young adult and youth initiative services to support the specific needs of Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian youth who are navigating bicultural identities and exploring healthy dynamics. We exceeded the number of youth that we set out to support – more than 180 across all our youth programs – and expanded the number of days that we offer our services. All of our program participants agreed that AAFSC's support helped them better understand themselves, navigate transitions, and foster positive relationships. Our work also served as a critical prevention strategy for some of the challenges that we’re seeing in the community around sexual and domestic violence and child abuse.”

Imelda Esquer Rico, Program Manager of YWCA of Southern Arizona, on a grant project that built community and enabled “survivors helping survivors”: 

“We’re thankful to RALIANCE for making it possible for the YWCA in Southern Arizona to reach out and provide educational resources to women in our community, including many Latina survivors and migrants who face systemic and language barriers to reporting their experiences of abuse or fear reporting because of their undocumented status. Through the grant, we trained 10 community educators who empowered another 100 immigrant women in a culturally responsive manner to learn how to identify signs of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, locate resources and victim services, and stand up for their own rights. In the process, these community educators developed new skill sets and emerged as leaders in building trust among Latinas and the people in our community. One of the most important outcomes we achieved with the grant was the level of engagement, resilience, and support among survivors helping other survivors.”

Josh King, Director of Grant Development at the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA), on a grant project that helped foster kids and families in Kansas City: 

“MOCSA’s partnership with RALIANCE allowed us to expand our counseling and therapy services program to youth in the foster system in Kansas City who had problematic sexual behaviors and didn’t have a place to go for help or treatment. As part of the RALIANCE grant, we shared educational resources with more than 4,000 foster families, offered free in-person trainings to 70 caregivers, and provided treatment to 25 new foster families. We also convened a focus group of foster parents and developed a video series and public awareness campaign for helping foster youth manage their behavior effectively. We thank RALIANCE for embracing our creativity and encouraging us to maximize our impact with foster families.”

Melanie Austin, Assistant Vice President of Programs at the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA) on teaming up to educate coaches on preventing and responding to sexual violence: 

“RALIANCE’s grant allowed MOCSA the opportunity to educate coaches on the issues of sexual abuse and violence on a national and targeted scale through a partnership with United Soccer Coaches. Our work included distributing a toolkit with prevention tips to more than 16,000 coaches, conducting a sexual harassment presentation to more than 350 coaches and soccer club directors at United Soccer Coaches’ annual convention, and creating an online course with educational resources and training programs. Our experience with RALIANCE has also helped our organization grow in new and unexpected ways. We hadn’t done a lot of online programming before the RALIANCE grant so when the pandemic hit, we were able to transition virtually in large part because of our experience with the grant project.”