Agency Gaps During Budget Cuts

NCCASA’s goal is to always center the experience of survivors as we drive our work forward and prioritize strategies to assistance the community agencies, including rape crisis centers, that provide response to sexual assault survivors.  As the effects of VOCA cuts continue to be felt across the country, NC is not immune to the impact.  NCCASA wants to be able to step in and fill gaps that might begin to arise for the agencies across the state. When budgets are thin, training budgets and memberships to organizations are more difficult to pay for and/or justify when needing to keep the folx on the front line who are serving survivors.  In order to assist agencies during this time, the NCCASA team wanted to make folx aware of three benefits we are working to make more known to local rape crisis centers.  

The first program is our Membership Hardship Waiver program.  When the pandemic began, NCCASA began offering this program as agencies struggled to bring in donations and hold fundraising events.  To access this program, your agency administrator can click this link and fill out a waiver application. The waiver is good for 12 months after the approval date.  In this program, folx have full access to all the membership benefits the agency would have if they were to pay, including access to free training.

The second program is our self-paced online training, Advocacy Fundamentals Course.  With an active membership, paid or waived, your agency has access to the 20 hour course. The course covers the basics of sexual assault response and provides the 20 hour of training that advocates (staff or volunteers)  at local rape crisis centers to obtain Advocate Privilege in the state of NC.  Agencies can not only utilize this training to train new staff, but also their volunteers.  This training does not serve as a replacement for your volunteer training, but can be used to cover the basics and allow staff time to be spent on covering specific agency/community knowledge.  If you are interested in utilizing the Advocacy Fundamentals Course for your volunteer program, please contact Deanna, Director of Statewide Capacity, at [email protected]. 

Lastly,  NCCASA has been working diligently to move all of our webinars that are older than a year to our Youtube channel.  These trainings are free and do not require any type of membership to access. Check out and subscribe to our Youtube channel, here.  

NCCASA wants all agencies to know that we are here to support you through tough budgetary times.  If there are other gaps your agency is struggling with, please let us know. You can contact our Executive Director, Monika Johnson Hostler at [email protected] and/or Deanna Harrington at [email protected].