Inside the Survivor Advocacy in Virginia 2025 Report
The Survivor Advocacy in Virginia 2025 report, published by the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, documents a year of lifesaving work delivered under mounting financial strain. In 2025, Virginia’s 70+ Sexual and Domestic Violence Agencies served 27,898 adults and children, answered 70,136 hotline contacts, provided 229,020 nights of emergency shelter, and delivered 309,922 hours of crisis response and advocacy, despite federal VOCA funding having fallen by 54% since State Fiscal Year 2020. This post is the first in a seven-part series that explores the findings from the report.
What Is the Survivor Advocacy in Virginia 2025 Report?
The Survivor Advocacy in Virginia 2025 report covers sexual and domestic violence crisis support services and prevention programs delivered across the Commonwealth between January 1 and December 31, 2025. It documents who sought support, what services they received, what SDVA advocates made possible, who is causing harm and how, and what preventionists across the Commonwealth are doing to interrupt violence before it starts. The data featured in the report come from VAdata, a secure, web-based data collection system that SDVAs use to import data about the services they provide and to whom. It is maintained by the Action Alliance.
The report tells two simultaneous stories: one of remarkable, life-changing work and the other of a traditionally unbowed system on the brink of financial implosion.
The Scale of the Work in 2025
Every day across Virginia, professionals in the Commonwealth’s SDVAs work on the front lines supporting survivors at some of their most vulnerable hours and doing the long work of interrupting violence by changing cultural norms.
In 2025, that work added up to:
- 27,898 adults and children received face-to-face crisis response and advocacy services
- 309,922 total hours of crisis response and advocacy, an average of 11 hours per person
- 70,136 hotline calls, texts, and chats answered, a 2% increase over 2024
- 229,020 nights of emergency shelter provided to 5,342 adults and children, with an average stay of 43 nights per family
- 93,312 nights of transitional housing provided to 276 adults and children
Advocates sat beside survivors in hospital rooms and courtrooms, helped families find safe places to sleep, navigated complex legal and immigration systems, and offered hope during some of the most difficult moments of people’s lives.
A System Under Pressure
These services are essential public safety infrastructure, but they are being delivered amid a cataclysmic funding crisis.
Since State Fiscal Year 2020, Virginia’s share of federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding has fallen from $25.1 million to $11.6 million, a 54% decline. Agencies across the Commonwealth have responded by cutting staff, consolidating positions, and managing growing waiting lists, all while continuing to serve survivors who have nowhere else to turn.
The impact is visible in five years of trend data:
| Year | Total Served | Total Hours |
| 2021 | 32,258 | 313,141 |
| 2022 | 32,261 | 305,843 |
| 2023 | 30,996 | 312,102 |
| 2024 | 29,257 | 329,998 |
| 2025 | 27,898 | 309,922 |
Over this period, face-to-face advocacy services declined by 13%, hotline contacts by 9%, and the number of people receiving emergency shelter by 16%. Meanwhile, requests for shelter that went unmet due to capacity rose 63% from 407 in 2021 to 664 in 2025.
When Survivors Access Help, the Results Speak for Themselves
The data make the case for investment in these services with striking clarity. Among survivors who received services in 2025:
- 97% feel more hopeful about their life
- 96% know how to plan for their safety
- 95% know where to find vital resources in the community
- 97% would recommend their local SDVA to a friend
Survivors described what services made possible in their own words:
- “I honestly don’t think I would still be living due to the stress and anxiety from this.”
- “I wouldn’t have considered reporting or taking any legal action for my safety… the information and support I’ve received made it feel manageable.”
Violence Follows Patterns; So Does Prevention
The report also documents what Virginia’s advocates know from their daily work: sexual and domestic violence are not random acts. Perpetrators are overwhelmingly known to survivors, violence most often occurs in the home, and tactics like strangulation, threats, property destruction, and firearms are used deliberately to establish and maintain control.
Among survivors whose advocates assessed weapon use, 44% of domestic violence survivors and 32% of sexual violence survivors said the person who harmed them used or threatened to use a firearm.
Understanding these patterns also points toward where prevention must focus. Two-thirds (66%) of survivors who contacted Virginia’s hotlines in 2025 reported that their earliest experience of violence occurred before age 18, which means the conditions that allow violence to happen are forming long before adulthood.
That is why prevention cannot wait. The attitudes, norms, and behaviors that enable coercion and harm develop early and, too often, go unchallenged, allowing them to become entrenched over time. In 2025, 20 agencies implemented 536 prevention strategies across the Commonwealth, most of them in schools and community settings where young people are, because that is where the data tells us this work needs to be.
What This Report Makes Clear
The 2025 Survivor Advocacy in Virginia Report tells a story of resilience and responsibility. Survivors continue to seek help. Advocates continue to respond. Preventionists persist in their programming efforts.
But resilience is in no way a substitute for resources. Sustaining these essential services as well as expanding the prevention work needed to reduce future demand requires robust, reliable funding from both the public and private sectors and a shared recognition that responding to and preventing sexual and domestic violence is fundamental to the health, safety, and well-being of every community in Virginia.
Read the Full Report
- 📄 Download the full Survivor Advocacy in Virginia 2025 report (PDF)
- 📄 Read the official press release (PDF)
What is the Survivor Advocacy in Virginia 2025 report? It is the Action Alliance’s annual statewide report on crisis services provided by Virginia’s Sexual and Domestic Violence Agencies, covering data collected in VAdata between January 1 and December 31, 2025.
How many survivors were served in Virginia in 2025? 27,898 adults and children received face-to-face crisis response and advocacy services from Virginia’s 70+ SDVAs in 2025.
How many hotline contacts did Virginia advocates respond to in 2025? Advocates answered 70,136 hotline calls, texts, and chats in 2025, a 2% increase over 2024.
How much has Virginia’s VOCA funding declined? Virginia’s share of federal VOCA funding fell from $25.1 million in State Fiscal Year 2020 to $11.6 million in SFY 2026 — a 54% decline.
Where can survivors in Virginia find help? Call the Virginia Statewide Sexual and Domestic Violence Hotline at 800.838.8238, text 804.793.9999, or chat at vadata.org. Free, confidential, 24/7/365.Every Day, Survivors Reach Out. Every Day, Advocates Answer.
You Deserve Safety and Support
Virginia Statewide Sexual and Domestic Violence Hotline: Call 800.838.8238 | Text 804.793.9999 | Chat www.vadata.org/chat. Free. Confidential. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 365 days a year.
Support This Work
Behind every statistic in this report is an advocate who showed up. Help us make sure they can keep doing so:
- Become a member of the Action Alliance
- Donate to support survivors across Virginia
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