The R.I.S.E. (Reaching Information: Supporting Empowerment) Network

Challenges Entered:

R.I.S.E. is a powerful viral idea that will live within online social networks of members and victims to create a safe place where victims can anonymously connect with other members, individual donors, social workers and survivors who have the capacity to help them escape their damaging situation by providing resources such as housing, education, and legal advocacy.R.I.S.E. will match the right resources with victims based on their specific circumstances. The link search algorithm will contain functionality to easily match needs of the victim with services that are available to help them. Specifically, users will answer a short set of questions to determine which group they fall into. The answers will be entered into a dynamic spreadsheet. Through a tailored algorithm, the spreadsheet will take both sets of answers, find similarities in the data, repurpose the information and securely provide details to the victims so their needs are matched with the appropriate donor's offerings.Due to the sensitivity surrounding the safety of the victims, no personal information will be revealed on the website. Partnerships will be developed with organizations like hospitals, shelters, and social work institutions to create a word of mouth campaign directing victims to the site.

What else have you done in this area of work?

Due to the social movement created by Becky's Fund where community members have been encouraged to become change agents, community leaders have come together to support the R.I.S.E. vision, and are now working hard to bring this vision to life. Web 2.0 designers, strategic and financial planners, event planners and activists are working to raise funds to develop the initial beta for R.I.S.E.

Project Details

Project url:

http://www.beckysfund.org

Project video:

Project Assessment

Financial support:

Project has financial support

Project goals:

Domestic violence is one of the most common causes of physical and emotional injury to women in the US. Emotional, financial, and educational barriers are often too great to shift away from domestic violence leaving thousands of victims trapped. Help resources are fragmented across states and have failed to achieve scale to overturn social conventions as well as provide proper resources. The R.I.S.E. (Reaching Information: Supporting Empowerment) Network will have the power to change that. It is the most ambitious effort in the U.S. to aggregate the right resources and technology to help men and women transform their lives and to initiate the process of healing from domestic violence.R.I.S.E. is a multi-tiered online and offline community that provides safety, education, and donor-driven resources for abused victims, while also providing essential behavior modification, education and empowerment for families to usher in a new cultural understanding in our most challenged areas such as isolated immigrant communities. Taking full advantage of Web 2.0 and combining safe and secure device technology, R.I.S.E. will address the subtleties of anonymity while providing victims access to each other, experts, and community resources. Ex: Jane wants to leave this week. She has five minutes to check where a shelter is located in another city. She goes online to www.beckysfund.org, answers two questions about her location, need for shelter, and prints out the results at her local library. Then she clicks on the exit button which logs her out, erases the site from the computer's history, and takes her to a shopping site just as her abusive husband walks in the front door.

Identified Obstacles:

Becky's Fund is creating a unique and powerful approach to help victims of domestic violence. R.I.S.E. is a grassroots social movement that will help men and women thrive through technology and behavioral/cultural understanding. Bringing this integrated community to life, Becky's Fund is seeking the following expert support: Utilizing best of breed technologies in the area of security and communityDesigning a site that is secure and efficient to protect anonymity while providing access to community, educational and e-commerce solutionsEnsuring good usability for the target audiences to optimize efficient site experiences so users can quickly identify resources and exit the site with the information they needMaintaining and updating the site architecture and content in the most efficient manner possible

Submitted by BeckyLee on March 12, 2008 - 12:20pm