How to Contact Your Representative
How to Contact Your Representative
When critical services are threatened due to changes in policies, legislation, or funding, our local, state, and national leaders need to hear from you, their constituents.
For decades, city, county, state, and federal funding have been the backbone of programs and services that offer victims safety, healing, and a path forward. Accounting for over 70% of annual funding at YWCA Spokane, this support helps power the lifesaving services we provide every day: emergency shelter, housing, safety planning, legal advocacy, therapy, and outreach services.
Right now, these vital resources are at risk.
Proposed cuts, grant terminations, and delays are threatening victim service programs across the country. Survivors in Spokane and beyond could be turned away simply because organizations can’t afford to keep critical programs in operation.
Take Action - Contact Your Representatives
Whether you’re a longtime advocate or just learning about these issues, your voice matters. Use the below scripts, social media content, and tools to contact representatives. In less than 10 minutes of your times, you can inspire action that can have a profound impact on the files of your fellow citizens.
Urge Representatives to:
- Protect existing critical funding for survivors
- Restore rescinded funds
- Invest in long-term support for victims and survivors
Together, we can stand up for survivors, protect life-saving services, and tell our leaders: Survivors can’t wait. Communities can’t wait. We all suffer when we don't prioritize this support.
How To Contact Representatives
Who is your Member of Congress?
- Find your Representative: https://ziplook.house.gov/
- Find your Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact
Call their office
To contact your Senators and Representative by phone, call the US Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to these offices, or find their phone numbers on their websites.
Email their staff directly
If possible, we recommend this method of contacting your Member’s office, as it allows you to build a relationship with the staffer who is working on our issues for the Member of Congress and share your concerns directly with them. See here for a staff contact list. We suggest emailing their women’s issues staff, their judiciary staff, their legislative directors, and their appropriations staff.
Email through their website
To contact your Senators and Representatives by email, go to their website and click on the ‘contact us’ link.
Call & Email Scripts
If you or someone you know is impacted by intimate partner domestic violence, know that confidential advocates are always available through our 24hr helpline services.
Share on Social Media
Here are samples you can use or adjust as desired to help encourage support for survivors throughout your social media channels.
Members of U.S. Congress Social Media Contacts
Shareable Talking Points
- Survivors rely on federally funded programs for shelter, advocacy, counseling, and legal support. Without this funding, those services disappear.
- Even short funding delays cause layoffs, service reductions, and sometimes program closures.
- Prevention saves lives and money: Every $1 invested can save up to $12 in long-term costs.
- Cutting or consolidating prevention programs means fewer tools to stop violence before it starts.
- The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) must remain independent. Its expertise and connection to communities cannot be replicated by broader agencies.
- Grant turmoil and uncertainty force staff to focus on survival instead of supporting survivors.
- Congress must act to restore funding, reject harmful budget cuts, and protect the infrastructure survivors need to be safe and heal.
Why Federal Funding for Victim Services Is Critical
Every year, over five million survivors of domestic and sexual violence—both adults and children—turn to community programs for emergency shelter, legal advocacy, counseling, and support. These services are often the difference between life and death.
Without support, programs may be forced to lay off staff, close their doors, or turn survivors away. For victims seeking help, this means fewer options, longer waits, and sometimes, nowhere to turn. Even short delays in funding cause damage—resulting in program shutdowns, staff attrition, and dangerous service gaps.
The economic argument is just as clear: domestic violence costs the U.S. an estimated $12 billion annually. Each instance of rape costs survivors more than $122,000. Prevention programs not only save lives—they save money, delivering up to $12 in savings for every $1 invested. The Violence Against Women Act alone prevented nearly $15 billion in victimization costs in its first five years.
Cuts to critical funds for survivors threaten to unravel decades of progress. This is a moment of crisis. But it is also a moment of choice. Our leaders must act to reject harmful cuts, restore interrupted funding, and ensure a future where all survivors—regardless of where they live—have access to the safety, justice, and support they deserve.
Additional Resources and Fact Sheets
- National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (2024) - FUNDING IS CRITICAL for Sexual Assault Services and Prevention.
- NNEDV’s 19th Annual Domestic Violence Counts Report https://nnedv.org/resources-library/19th-annual-domestic-violence-counts-report-national-summary-english/
- Sign on letter to AG Bondi from over 600 local, state, and national organizations raising concerns about DOJ funding.
- Letter from the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence to HHS Secretary
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