Our Wave

The mission of Our Wave is to 1) Amplify sexual violence survivor voices who are not typically heard through mainstream media, 2) Foster connections between survivors to build hope that healing is possible with time, 3) Educate society on the scope and impact of sexual violence through story sharing and analysis of survivor narratives, and 4) Mobilize our communities to create evidence-based strategies for prevention and survivor support in order to create a wave of change.

Our Wave is an anonymous story sharing and data gathering platform for survivors of sexual violence aimed to build a community of hope and healing online. We built this platform in response to survivors' desires to anonymously reflect and connect with others who have undergone similar experiences. Through our platform, we hope to provide survivors with hope and healing to move past the most traumatic experiences of their lives.

We aim to connect with survivors through the following channels:
-Establish partnerships with national rape crisis centers and state coalitions.
-Connect with online survivor communities (Reddit, FB Groups, etc.)
-Digitally through Google Ads.
-Partnerships with corporate partners and universities.

We are an organization of passionate operations, technology, design, research, and survivor advocate volunteers. Since our launch in September 2019, we have solidified a team of 10 founding members who meet weekly. Our team has a diverse representation of product specialists who have extensive experience building and scaling technology companies. To learn more about our team please check out the about us section of our website to view specific bios. Alongside our team, we have formally established a non-profit board with some of the biggest names in the sexual violence prevention space. We would encourage you to view our team/board member page to see their bios and experience. https://www.ourwave.org/who-we-are

Since we were founded in July 2019 Our Wave accomplished the following:

Structuring
In 2019 Our Wave filed as a non-profit and obtained 501(c)(3) status.

Technology
In 2019 our team completed the entire design, development, and rollout of our web/mobile-responsive anonymous social media platform.

Staff
Our team grew to 10 dedicated volunteers. Our diverse team is comprised of engineers, designers, academics, healthcare professionals, and business/operations specialists.

Establishing Our Board
In 2019 we created our board of directors to support our governance and decision making. We are lucky to have Suzanne Brown-McBride, Samira Rajabi, Christopher Poe, and Kate Smith as our first 4 external board members alongside Kyle Linton and Brendan Michaelsen. We hope to increase the size of our board and advisory council in 2023.

Traction
Since our 2019 launch, we have received 500 stories and our site has over 120,000 views from survivors with over 28,000 users. We have created partnerships with Me Too International, It's On Us, End Rape on Campus, the NSVRC, Unapologetically Surviving and many other International Survivor Advocacy Organizations.