A Message from Our CEO
Dear friends,
Welcome to the first edition of our quarterly newsletter, Respect Together in Action. We created this newsletter to keep you connected to the work you make possible as our supporters, partners, and community. In each issue, we’ll share stories from across our statewide and national work that bring our mission to support survivors and prevent sexual assault to life.
For our first issue, we take on a difficult but urgent topic: the funding challenges that threaten essential services for sexual assault survivors and the organizations that support them.
Currently, our statewide division, the Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect (PCAR), is confronting a crisis. For more than 110 days, the state budget impasse has created financial havoc for our 47 rape crisis centers across the Commonwealth, compounding years of chronic underfunding. Through our national division, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), we see how these local struggles mirror national trends. Federal funding shifts are negatively impacting us and our partners across the country — especially those providing culturally specific services in underserved and often overlooked communities. The uncertainty surrounding the ongoing federal government shutdown adds to this instability, as potential impacts on programs like SNAP and WIC further strain survivors and the organizations that serve them.
In this issue, you’ll hear directly from a Pennsylvania rape crisis center grappling with how to continue doing more with less, gain perspective on national funding challenges, and find hope in resources and stories of resilience from across our network.
Thank you for standing with us in these difficult times, and for continuing to uplift Respect Together’s work and the broader movement to end sexual abuse, assault, and harassment. Our voices are stronger together. Survivors deserve better — and we cannot settle for less.
Warmly,
Yolanda Edrington
CEO, Respect Together
