Mission Statement
Emerging from the movement to end violence against women, the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium is dedicated to eliminating domestic violence and ensuring the basic rights of safety, self-determination and well-being to victims and survivors of domestic violence and their children.
Background
The San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium (aka SFDVC and/or DVC) founded in 1982, is a network of seventeen domestic violence service agencies that come together with the goal of providing high quality, coordinated and comprehensive services to San Francisco's victims of domestic abuse. The services of the individual agencies include emergency shelter, transitional housing, crisis lines, counseling, prevention programs, education and legal assistance. Services are available in the many different languages of San Francisco's diverse populations. One of the main activities of the SFDVC is networking. SFDVC agencies share information, learn about issues that impact their work and coordinate their services and activities with a particular focus on public funding, specifically coordinating grant proposals and conducting advocacy/lobbying of government departments as to the importance of funding domestic violence services.
The SFDVC is a nonprofit organization and a project of the Tides Center. The SFDVC is led by its co-chairs and committees. The SFDVC recognizes that San Francisco is a diverse city and domestic violence is a problem in all communities regardless of ethnicity, race, class, physical ability, religion, age, immigration and economic status, sexual orientation and gender identity. Therefore, the SFDVC reaches out to all communities in order to insure a broad representation in its membership. To provide accessible services for all individuals and communities, the SFDVC strives to eliminate social, institutional, language and physical barriers to its agencies' services.
Mayor London Breed at a rally during Domestic Violence Awareness Month in 2019. Photo courtesy of APA Family Support Services.
Values and Beliefs
Violence is used to maintain power and control over those who are perceived as less powerful in domestic relationships. Therefore, we focus primarily on battered women from all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds and their children. We also include domestic violence victims in gay/lesbian relationships. Children are severely impacted by violence in the home.
Violence is a learned behavior and is not an acceptable way to achieve power and control. Therefore, one way to prevent violence is through working with children to learn healthy ways to be powerful. Although, batterers must be held personally accountable for their actions, society is responsible for the existence, continuation and elimination of domestic violence. In accepting this responsibility, society, including all individuals and institutions must also work to eliminate other forms of power imbalance, including racism, sexism, homophobia and economic injustice. In order to equalize power imbalances which perpetuate domestic violence, we must change institutions which benefit from and promote those imbalances.
The SFDVC is dedicated to eliminating domestic violence and ensuring the basic rights of safety, self-determination and well-being to victims and survivors of domestic violence and their children. The alliance among members of the SFDVC is a model for coordinating the public, private and corporate communities with the major domestic violence service providers, thus bringing together the diverse resources of the City in response to this tragic issue. The work of the SFDVC is critical to meet the increasing need in San Francisco for direct services and to continue to increase the involvement of San Francisco's diverse communities to end domestic abuse.
Beverly Upton (center) of the Domestic Violence Consortium at a press conference 2012. Photo by Luke Thomas.
Leadership and Structure
The Executive Director coordinates the implementation of the SFDVC's long-range and fundraising plans. The Executive Director is supervised by the SFDVC co-chairs and legally is a staff member of The Tides Center. Position duties of the Executive Director are:
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Coordinates the implementation of the SFDVC's long-range plan, including: convenes, attends, documents SFDVC monthly and committee meetings; follows-up with relevant people on action steps developed at the meetings; executes special projects like member surveys, City funding talking points and documents policies, updates written material.
Hires and manages other staff and consultants.
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Provides leadership and support for fundraising activities, specifically around the following: administrative support for special events, Domestic Violence Awareness Month activity and year-end appeal; maintains database of contributions, mailing lists, contacts; convenes, attends, documents meetings; provides prompt donor acknowledgment; writes and manages grants for the SFDVC operating budget.
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Develops and monitors the SFDVC operating budget, secures funding for the SFDVC operating budget, reports quarterly to the Finance Committee, maintains financial records.
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Assists in public relations activities, including representing the SFDVC as a spokesperson in the community as appropriate. Produces SFDVC brochures and other collateral material. This may include overseeing graphic designers and printers.
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