RAFT 2025: The Year of Community 

Welcome to 2025! The RAFT team wanted to start 2025 by sharing RAFT's yearly theme with you and let you know about all the different opportunities available for you to be part of the RAFT community this coming year, and beyond. Before we jump into the big list of RAFT offerings for 2025, a bit of backstory on how the RAFT team chose our theme for 2025. 

Two years ago the RAFT team completed an appreciative inquiry about belonging. The initial plan was to discover ways RAFT could create a feeling of community within our own organization. However, during the facilitation the team dreamed a far larger future that included RAFT creating more community throughout the gender-based violence ecosystem. A future that would bring together advocates and organizations across the United States (and beyond) together to support each other with the work and create positive change. 

During the team's 2025 strategic planning process this idea of growing a larger and larger community became even more central to the work we want to do in the world, resulting in RAFT's 2025 yearly theme: "The Year of Community." 

(You can read more about creating your own yearly theme here.)

To kick of our "year of community" we wanted to share a list of all the ways you can join the RAFT community in 2025. If you have already participated in RAFT programs we hope you continue to join us in 2025. If you are brand new to RAFT, we look forward to meeting you. As you look over this list of RAFT offerings and something interests you, you can learn more by joining our newsletter, send an email to outreach@raftcares.org for ask for more information, or follow this link if you would like to set a meeting to discuss bringing RAFT to your organization. 

RAFT Community Support Calls 

Way back in 2020 after the world started shutting down in March RAFT started a series of special COVID support calls for advocates. These calls would later transform into regular support ongoing support calls every month. In 2021 we added leadership support calls for emerging leaders and executive directors. As time has continued we have added even more support calls at various times and days every month. Here is a full list of the current RAFT support calls: 

• Advocate Support Calls: multiple times a month RAFT team members open up a Zoom room for advocates to join and share their experiences, ask questions, and get support. These calls give you a chance to be in community with other advocates sharing your experiences and supporting you in realizing that you are not alone. 
• Advocate Survivor Support Calls: similar to the advocate support calls, these calls are once a month and provide support specifically for advocates who also identify as survivors. These calls give you an opportunity to connect with other survivors and share your unique experiences doing advocacy work. 
• Leadership Support Calls: the goal of these twice a month meetings is to build a community of organizational leaders to support each other in navigating all of the complexities involved with running a gender-based violence organization. Every call covers a specific leadership topic while also making sure that each leader's personal questions are answered by the group. 
• Open Support Calls: sometimes something big happens, something that has an impact that is felt by everyone working in the gender-based violence ecosystem. When these big events happen RAFT holds open support calls where advocates come together and process what is happening with support of the RAFT team. In 2024 RAFT held two of these calls: one to discuss overwhelm over the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, and a second to provide support after the 2024 elections. 

You can download our 2025 support call calendar here.

You can register for these support calls using the links on this page.

RAFT Programs and Conferences 

In 2015 RAFT began delivering our Building Blocks to Resilience series of workshops, and these workshops continue to be RAFT's primary offer to support advocates and organizations. In 2024 and moving forward RAFT started to move in some new and exciting directions to, hopefully, expand and support our community. 

• Conferences: we want to reach as many advocates as possible, so we are making it a key focus to attend more conferences and meet more advocates. In 2024 we made it to six conferences across the United States, and our goal is to attend even more in 2025. If you see the RAFT team in 2025 please stop by our table, or say "hi" after one of our workshops. 
• New workshops: through our workshops, conferences, support calls, and data collection RAFT gets to hear a large number of advocate voices. We are using this feedback to create new workshops to meet your needs. In 2024 we created the "How to ask for help" and "Healing from Urgency Culture" workshops. In 2025 our plan is to continue listening and creating the support workshops you need.  
• Positive Organization Project: in 2025 RAFT will continue to interview advocates having positive experiences and working in positive organizations. The goal of these interviews is to discover what is working in the gender-based violence ecosystem and share this information so other advocates and organizations can create similar experiences. You can read our initial report here.
• Appreciative Inquiry Facilitations: one of RAFT's most exciting new programs are our appreciative inquiry facilitations with organizations. These strength-based facilitations bring your organization together to explore a topic important to your organization and find positive solutions to support you in creating change. In 2024 RAFT worked with two organizations to help them improve their communication systems. 

If you are looking for speakers and sponsors for your conference, or if any of these programs could support your organization email RAFT at outreach@raftcares.org.

RAFT Resources 

Not everyone can join in on live community events. You may not work in an organization ready to participate in RAFT workshops, you may want to create your own community separate from RAFT, or you might just not feel comfortable interacting with a larger group. For you, RAFT has a number of resources that you can access to support yourself, or use these resources to build your own community of advocates. All of these resources are available for free, and you can use them however you want (we do love it when RAFT is given credit so others can hear about us). 

• RAFT advocate resource page: the list of resources on this page is always growing. You can find RAFT's playlist, workshop workbooks, data reports, coloring pages and posters, worksheets, podcasts, blogs, or sign up for a RAFT support call. This page grows every month so make sure to check back on a regular basis for new resources. You can find the resource page here: raftcares.org/advocate-resources-2 
• RAFT Blog: RAFT has been writing blog posts for advocates and organizations since 2015, and we have accumulated a long list of articles on topics ranging from well-being and advocacy to leadership and organizational change. You can start reading RAFT blogs here: https://www.raftcares.org/resources/community-blog/ 
• RAFT Podcast: originating as the "Live a Brighter Life" podcast, the RAFT podcast has been around in one form or another since 2016ish. You can listen to interviews, workshops, meditations, and the RAFT team discussing different topics and sharing our own experiences and tips with well-being. You can listen on your 

Coming Soon in 2025 

With 2025 being RAFT's "Year of Community" we are planning on expanding our work even further in the hopes of bringing more advocates together and continue growing our community. Here are some of the new opportunities to join the RAFT community coming in 2025. 

• Specific Topic Interest Groups: RAFT will be leading open appreciative inquiry facilitations with advocates around specific topics within the GBV ecosystem. Once the facilitation is complete RAFT will continue to work with advocates on bringing change to these topics. We will be asking you to help us pick the topics for 2025, but our current list includes: advocate-survivors, crisis hotlines, rural advocacy, and alternate funding. Keep an eye out for polls from RAFT as we ask for input. 
• Collaborations: in 2024 RAFT worked closely with the SOAR Collective on the positive organization project (you can read the initial results here ). In 2025 we will be continuing to work with SOAR Collective while also looking for other collaboration opportunities with organizations. 
• The RAFT Guidebook: RAFT has gathered and created a lot of information since 2014 and our plan for 2025 is to work with the RAFT community to bring all of this information into one easy to access location. We will be sharing bits and pieces of the guidebook throughout 2025 to support all of you and get your feedback. You can start reading some of the material right now on our advocate resource page.
• Podcast interviews: if you are interested in sharing your story as an advocate RAFT would love to hear from you. We will be interviewing advocates throughout 2025 to help share experiences and build a sense of community and belonging through advocate stories. You can sign up to be on the podcast HERE.

The Big one, coming in 2026: RAFT's Appreciative Inquiry Summit 

This one feels a bit risky as we are "calling our shot" almost two years into the future, but if we want to increase the impact we are having on supporting you we need to take a chance right? 

In 2025 RAFT will be doing all of the hard work of putting together a live community event in 2026. This event won't be your standard conference. RAFT will be holding an appreciative inquiry summit to bring advocates together from across the country (and maybe beyond) to spend two or three days exploring how we can start to make big changes in the gender-based violence ecosystem. This will be a working conference where your experiences and ideas will be used to directly impact what gender-based violence advocacy looks like in the United States. 

We will be sharing a whole lot more on this throughout the year so stay tuned, but this is the biggest project of all as we lean into our "year of community". We hope you will join us for this new and exciting ride into the unknown. 

We are always happy to hear from you. If you have ideas on how RAFT can continue to build a community of GBV advocates and organizations looking to create positive change, send us an email at info@raftcares.org and we will add your idea to our growing list.