| Dear Friends of the Virginia Anti-Violence Project:
Greetings! We realize it has been some time since you have received communication from us, so we would like to take this opportunity to update you on our recent activities.
As some of you are probably already aware, the VAVP recently finished its first ever Strategic Planning Retreat. This was a very successful event during which board members were joined by community stakeholders from around the Commonwealth to envision the future of the VAVP and plan how to achieve our goals.
One of the tangible outcomes of the retreat was identifying short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals for the organization and creating working groups to implement those goals. While VAVP is still working on a finalized strategic plan, the Board has endorsed these goals and working groups in order to better carry out VAVP's mission: "...addressing and ending violence in the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people across Virginia." We would like to hear from you, our supporters and partners, about how best to create a commonwealth that is free of violence, and we invite you to join VAVP in carrying out this mission through your participation in a working group.
VAVP's strategic goals and their corresponding working groups are as follows:
- Increase community education and awareness programs to enhance the abilities of friends & family members to respond to violence in LGBTQ communities: Media/PR
- Increase community education and awareness programs to enhance the abilities of the full range of professionals & service providers to respond to violence in LGBTQ communities: Trainings Working Group
- Develop better practice protocols and policies for organizations responding to violence in LGBTQ communities or working with LGBTQ survivors of violence: Best Practice Protocols Working Group
- Make VAVP and other organizations responding to violence more responsive to and inclusive of underserved groups within the LGBTQ community:Underserved Populations Working Group
- Ground the work of VAVP in research where it exists, and where not available, encourage or conduct research to fill these gaps: Research Working Group
- Promote vision of people engaged in respectful and equitable relationships:Respectful/Equitable Relationships Working Group
- Work toward a more appropriate and culturally-competent criminal and legal system response to violence in LGBTQ communities: Criminal Legal System Working Group
We know this work is important and that we will need more people to help us continue to move forward. Click here for our Participation Interest Form or contact us at virginiaavp@gmail.com to have a form sent to you via email; please consider whether you might be interested in joining a working group or even the VAVP Board to contribute to this valuable effort! Your response by May 1, in preparation for the VAVP May board meeting on May 8th would most helpful, but we are happy to receive a Participation Interest Form any time you are ready to submit one.
If time is not something you have to spare right now, a financial contribution would also be valuable in supporting the work of the VAVP. We hope you'll agree that this work deserves your support in whatever way you are most able to provide it.
You can make a financial contribution by going to our website:http://www.virginiaavp.org/ or you can send a check to the address below. VAVP is a 501c3 and contributions are tax-deductible.
Please forward this message to any and all who might be interested in the Virginia Anti-Violence Project.
Thanks, and we hope to hear from you soon!
With Thanks, Seth Croft and Rachel MacKnight, VAVP Co-Chairs | 
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