Who We Are
Vision
The vision of the National Resource Center for Reaching Victims is that victim services will be accessible, culturally relevant, and trauma informed—and that the overwhelming majority of victims will access and benefit from these services.
Mission
The Resource Center is a one-stop shop where victim service providers, culturally specific organizations, criminal justice professionals, and policymakers may get information and expert guidance to enhance their capacity to identify, reach, and serve all victims, especially those from communities that too often have less access to healing services and avenues to justice. The Resource Center seeks to increase the number of victims who receive the support they need to help them heal.
The Resource Center is working to—
- Understand who is underrepresented and why some people access services while others do not
- Design and implement best practices to guide organizations and service providers in how they connect people to the services they need
- Empower and equip organizations with the services that are the most useful and effective in helping victims to recover from crime.
The Resource Center delivers a comprehensive array of training and technical assistance to expand the capacity of victim service programs to identify and reach victims.
About the NRC
The National Resource Center for Reaching Victims (NRC) works to increase the number of victims who receive the support they need to help them heal, by providing victim service providers, culturally specific organizations, criminal justice professionals, and policymakers with information and expert guidance.
Supported by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), the NRC was founded in 2017, paused in 2020, and is resuming its work in 2025.
From 2017-2020, the NRC was a collaborative effort among nine partner organizations to address the barriers that prevent underserved communities from accessing victim services. Starting in 2020, OVC began individual initiatives focused on reaching many of the communities of focus from the initial NRC.
The NRC has relaunched in 2025 as a project of Activating Change, in partnership with the Center for Justice Innovation, building on its work from 2017-2020 and focusing on five communities identified as still being vastly underserved and in need of the NRC’s attention:
- Previously incarcerated individuals
- Boys and men of color
- Victims of gun and community violence
- Child victims
- People with disabilities from these groups