2015-2016 Accomplishments Education

Through our education work, we seek to elevate the national conversation around sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse, transform society’s response to survivors, and build a community that doesn’t blame survivors, but instead, meets them with compassion. We do this through large-scale, high-impact public awareness and education campaigns, community events, digital and social media outreach, media advocacy, our blog, web content, research, and through influencing storylines on television and in film.

Turning Up the Volume with Media Advocacy

Through the use of media, we raise awareness, promote public conversation and challenge the victim-blaming attitudes and beliefs that perpetuate the culture in this country. Since the start of the fiscal year in July, Joyful Heart has directly contributed to media coverage of issues like the rape kit backlog, the sexual abuse of men and boys, and more in 1,558 news stories, reaching a total number of impressions of more than 2.2 billion.

Reaching New Heights with the NO MORE PSA Campaign

Joyful Heart’s NO MORE PSA campaign continues to defy gravity. In fiscal year 2016, we surpassed an audience mark of 4 billion on television, online, in print, and through outdoor assets. Since their launch in 2013, the PSAs have aired on television nearly 175,000 times, in all 210 media markets—generating more than 2,295,000,000 impressions with a total ad value of $91,135,769.

During this fiscal year, Joyful Heart, in partnership with 1in6 and Viacom, released the NO MORE Male Survivor PSAs, which speak to the myths and excuses male survivors of childhood sexual abuse hear, raise much-needed awareness, and provide survivors with links to necessary resources. We also expanded our work to engage athletes and sports culture in the movement to end violence against women by partnering with the New York Giants to create an in-stadium Giants Say No More PSA for a Domestic Violence Awareness Month game. We are also a leading partner in Hawaii Says No More and is creating a local Hawaii Says No More PSA campaign.

Joyful Heart debuted our Male Survivor NO MORE PSA campaign on March 1st on Viacom’s networks. The PSAs were directed by our Founder & President, Mariska Hargitay, developed in partnership with Rachel Howald, and photographed by world-renowned photographer Timothy White.

The campaign features bold messaging to engage bystanders and challenge the preconceived notions about male survivors of sexual abuse—NO MORE “That can't happen to guys" and NO MORE "He just needs to get over it." he day after the spots began airing, 1in6 reported 1,520 visitors to their website, up from an average of 1,000 daily visitors. The PSAs were also displayed on the Today Show website, HuffPost, Mic, and Refinery 29. With the powerful combination of our second #NOMORExcuses Marathon of the year in March on USA Network, as well as the media surrounding the new Male Survivor PSAs, our web traffic rose 160 percent. On social media, we reached an audience of nearly 4.1 million, generating more than 4.9 million impressions—with content from Joyful Heart, our partners, followers, and influencers who all shared messages about the campaign.

The NO MORE Excuses Marathons on USA Network: Amplifying the Conversation and Connecting Viewers to Resources

This fiscal year, Joyful Heart partnered with USA Network on four new NO MORE Excuses marathons of Law & Order: SVU. The marathons—which we have produced in partnership with USA since 2014—bring new meaning and import to television. During every marathon, videos featuring current and former cast members air throughout the marathon, pointing viewers to resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1in6.org, the Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, and the National Sexual Assault Hotline. This exposure drives critical awareness of these services for survivors and those who are looking for support. During one marathon, for example, the National Domestic Violence Hotline hotline saw a 43 percent increase in phone calls, and RAINN’s, which operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, saw a 26 percent increase in web sessions. Videos from Joyful Heart’s NO MORE PSA campaign air during each marathon, which expose millions to messages urging viewers to rethink the victim-blaming attitudes that prevail. Online and on social media, Joyful Heart, NO MORE, our program partners, and USA have engaged in meaningful conversations with viewers and non-viewers alike on those days on the issues.

Our four marathons were held:

On August 30, 2015. The donated airtime of these messages reached more than $400,000, and our conversation on social media generated 15 million impressions. Over the course of the 12-hour marathon, each episode had just over 1 million viewers.
On October 25, 2015, in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In collaboration with the NO MORE campaign and NFL players, the marathon featured new original videos with Mariska and Mark Herzlich, as well as new messages from NFL stars William Gay (Pittsburgh Steelers), Andrew Hawkins (Cleveland Browns), Ben Watson (New Orleans Saints) and Jason Witten (Dallas Cowboys) encouraging viewers to get off the sidelines to help end domestic violence and sexual assault.
On March 6, 2016, to kick off NO MORE Week of Action. This marathon focused on the way men are affected by these issues. It featured the Male Survivor PSAs. . The following day, the print campaign began a six-day run on Viacom's billboards in Times Square, leading to a total of 95,733,435 media impressions in the two weeks following their release.
On April 24, 2016, to mark Sexual Assault Awareness Month. During the marathon, USA again aired our new Male Survivor NO MORE PSAs, doubling 1in6’s web traffic for the day.

Saying NO MORE in Hawai‘i

Hawaiʻi Says NO MORE celebrated its one-year anniversary this spring during NO MORE week: March 6 through March 13. Joyful Heart is one of 15 organizations championing this local initiative, and we are proudly spearheading the Hawai‘i Says NO MORE PSA Campaign, a local version of our national campaign featuring locally- and nationally-recognized musicians, television personalities, athletes, cultural practitioners, and community leaders. In celebration of this week, the Honolulu municipal building, Honolulu Hale, and the locally iconic IBM building were lit blue. We worked with Hawaii News Now, the largest news outlet in the state, to raise awareness about Hawai‘i Says NO MORE and encourage individuals and organizations to become allies. A co-editorial with Mariska and Hawaii News Now General Manager Rick Blangiardi aired throughout the week to point viewers to hawaiisaysnomore.org and the Hawai‘i Says NO MORE Ally Campaign.

In June, we held two shoots for the Hawai‘i Says No More PSAs, which we have now just released to the public. The shoots were held at Hawaii News Now, our campaign production and media partner, and in New York City at the Highline Stages, thanks to our long-time national partners, Viacom. Angela Morales, Brian Keaulana, Carolyn Edward, Dan Cooke, Daniel Dae Kim, Hinaleimoana Wong, Jenna Ishii, Justin Young, Kamana‘o Crabbe, Kara Teng, Kaumaka‘iwa Kanakaole, Kealoha, Kini Zamora, Lehua Kalima, Lilikala Kame‘eleihiwa, Mariska Hargitay, Mileka Lincoln, Nalani Choy, Nick Rolovich, Nicolas Zambuto, Paula Fuga, Rick Blangiardi, and Steve Uyehara joined us to shoot deeply stirring print and video, directed by Mariska Hargitay.

To see the full campaign, visit hawaiisaysnomore.org.

TALK And TALK STORY: Convening our Community for Dialogue and Discussion

Our TALK STORY and TALK education series continued to expand with sessions in Hawai‘i, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, bringing together members of our communities for dialogue and discussion. These gatherings—whether in a living room or in a large auditorium— serve as open and honest platforms to bring sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse into the light; normalize the conversation; and explore the role each one of us has in ending this violence. TALK STORY AND TALK covered diverse topics including Cultural Trauma and Gender Violence (a two-part series in Hawai‘i); men, sports culture, and gender violence; the backlog of untested rape kits in the United States; our Holistic Healing Arts Retreat research project; and the experience of men—both as survivors of violence and as agents of change—in the movement to address, prevent, and end violence and abuse.

Engaging Men

We were a conference partner and hosted a plenary session at A CALL TO MEN’s national conference: Advancing Sports Culture to Prevent Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. The session, a roundtable discussion about using public service campaigns to prevent violence against women and girls, focused on the collaboration between Joyful Heart, NO MORE, Viacom and NFL players to create our NFL Players Say NO MORE PSA campaign.

Investing in our Digital Presence

Joyful Heart’s website serves as a critical resource for connection, community and learning to tens of thousands of website visitors every month. In March, we completed work on joyfulheartfoundation.org to make our site mobile-friendly for our growing base of visitors reaching us from mobile devices.Since the completion of our mobile-optimization, we have increased the percentage of people served through mobile traffic by 37 percent. Mobile traffic to the Joyful Heart website is also driving growth in our percentage of new users: the number of new users on mobile is up by 40 percent.

Programs