Our Mission

The Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence enhances safety and justice by changing the beliefs and behaviors, and dismantling the systems that perpetuate sexual and domestic violence, human trafficking, stalking, and other forms of violence.

Our Vision

We believe our world and all who live in it are sacred.  We envision a world where violence is a distant memory and healthy relationships prosper for people of all identities.

Our Values

The Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence embraces twelve core values that provide definition and direction for the work of the Coalition and network of programs.  These values guide our beliefs and actions.

Safety

Every person has the right to live without fear of violence in all forms in their personal and professional life.  We put safety at the heart of our interactions and strive to do no harm.  We promote best practices and policies that improve survivor safety, which includes providing trauma-informed care, maintaining confidentiality, and informing survivors of the limitations of confidentiality when it exists.  We acknowledge that safety is different for each person and community.  We choose to support individuals and communities as they foster safety in the way that is best for them. 

Prevention & Social Change

We strive to stop violence before it occurs by investing in comprehensive, long-term primary prevention strategies that address the root causes of violence (such as racism, classism, sexism, climate change, and other inequities).  We work to replace the beliefs and behaviors that support violence with beliefs and behaviors that promote safety and equity for all.  We believe in trauma-informed action to promote accountability.  We model non-violence in our interactions with each other, within our network, in communities, and with survivors.  We know that to build a world free of violence, we must first dismantle the systems that allows it to prosper.  We commit to changing the many structures within our society that uphold violence through social change.   

Anti-oppression  

We recognize the complexities of societal power and privilege as a root cause of violence.  To build a more just and equitable society, we must dismantle the systems that have harmed, excluded, and silenced individuals and communities.  We know that we must start from within as we work to create inclusive and anti-oppressive policies and practices.  We choose to build an organization that includes multiple identities and values all lived experiences within our staff, board, network, and community partners.

Anti-racism  

We believe that there is no passive option when it comes to racism.  Silence is complicity with the oppressor.  We commit to working within the organization and within ourselves to prioritize anti-racism work.  We know that this work includes each of us centering efforts to understand our own privilege as individuals and as an organization, and making an ongoing commitment to dismantling that privilege.

Equity & Inclusion 

We must strive to create a world where everyone is treated fairly and respectfully to truly create a world without violence.  Not everyone needs the same thing to heal and flourish; to create a more unprejudiced world we must seek equity.  To do this, we must respond to bias, both within ourselves and within the systems we navigate, on a daily basis.  We commit ourselves to intentionally creating a space where all lived experiences are heard and celebrated.  We acknowledge that the goal of our movement is not simply to include people with many different identities, but rather to hear all voices and center those who our movement and society have historically silenced.

Accountability 

We value holding those who harm accountable for their actions.  We choose to be accountable to each other, to our network, to communities, and to survivors.  Although we have made commitments to our own learning and change, we know that we are imperfect. We choose to be accountable to each other so that we may do our best to create a world free of violence.  We must also hold systems we interact with accountable for the harm that they cause.

Transformative Justice  

We acknowledge that – as a movement – we have relied too heavily on the criminal justice system to bring safety and healing, when instead it has brought harm to many.  We recognize that there are alternative approaches to accountability outside of the criminal justice system that allow for self-agency and individual experience.  We choose to embrace transformative justice so that we may respond to violence without creating further harm.  We also recognize that those who harm may have also been harmed.  We seek to foster healing so that our world can become a place without violence.

Collaboration

We recognize that we must work with a variety of people, agencies, communities, and movements in our efforts to prevent violence and increase safety and healing.  In this collaborative work, we model our values of equity, inclusion, and accountability.  We must continuously build relationships on local, state, and national levels, while also remembering to bring survivors’ voices into these efforts for truly effective partnerships.  We will work with all who are committed to creating a world without violence, assuring we maintain our core values. 

Education  

Educating communities about sexual and domestic violence, human trafficking, stalking, and other forms of violence lays the groundwork for social change.  To end violence, we must first learn to recognize violence and understand how it thrives in our communities.  We believe that survivors are the true experts on their experiences and we can learn from them.  We choose to foster curiosity and reflection within ourselves and others, to increase our capacity for growth.  We acknowledge that new learning will create change within ourselves, our network, our communities, and our movements, which will directly benefit the survivors and the communities in which we work. 

Empowerment & Autonomy

 We strive to empower survivors, communities, and movements to make choices about their own lives, and to embrace each person’s value system without imposing our own beliefs and biases upon others.  We support an individual’s increased spiritual, political, social, educational, gender-based, or economic strengths, in order for them to make informed and un-coerced decisions.  We engage people in ways that promote individual empowerment, understanding that each person is the expert of their own experience.  Just as we support survivors’ decisions, we also choose to respect the decisions of other movements who are working for non-violence.

Leadership

We recognize that leadership is not a position or title; it is our ability to lead in an intentional and authentic manner.  We seek to advance our capacity for thinking and our ability to look at complex challenges, while embracing kindness and rejecting fear.  We choose to extend grace to ourselves and to others.  We value leading with choices in ways that support our leadership intentions, and being true to our value.  We recognize the harm of white supremacy culture and how it is embodied in how we define leadership.  We welcome the opportunity to create change and grow forward into our values outside of white supremacy culture.  

Intersectional Feminism

We believe in the rights of all people – not regardless of, but because of all of their identities.  We recognize that all forms of violence are inextricably linked to each other.  To seek justice for survivors of sexual and domestic violence, human trafficking, and stalking is to seek justice for all who experience violence.  We choose to examine those intersections of oppression and work to better understand people and all of their experiences.