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About PCADV

Founded in 1976, PCADV is the oldest statewide domestic violence coalition in the nation. Each year, its network of 59 local domestic violence programs provides free and confidential direct services to nearly 90,000 victims and survivors of domestic violence and their children in all 67 counties of the Commonwealth. Together, local programs and the statewide Coalition work in collaboration to deliver a continuum of services, support, and systems to help victims and survivors find safety, obtain justice, and build lives free of abuse.

Vision

We envision a Commonwealth where, collectively, we create a community that supports all Pennsylvanians in the human right to live healthy, stable, and rewarding lives free from intimate partner violence and all forms of violence and oppression.

Mission 

The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV) is a statewide collaborative membership organization committed to ending intimate partner violence and all forms of violence and oppression. 

Core Values Statement

At PCADV, we embrace diversity and its collective strength in creating a community where systems support ALL so everyone can thrive. Led by this principle and to fulfill our mission of ending all forms of violence, we simultaneously strive to challenge and eliminate all types of systemic racism, oppression, and injustice. 

Domestic violence flourishes in isolation. This isolation is often accompanied by unequal access to systems and resources, further disempowering individuals and compromising their safety and well-being. We confront these systems, which perpetuate oppression by granting power to the few while minimizing and alienating the many. 

We commit to holding ourselves accountable within the systems that perpetuate oppression by providing ongoing education and advocacy. These values are the compass for our work and pervade our priorities: prevention, intervention, and change.

Theory of Change

We understand that if we are going to make significant contributions to our vision and mission, we must focus on the areas where we are uniquely situated to create change. We must do the difficult work of leveraging all of our strengths, assets, and influences if we are going to end violence and oppression. We also know that the larger environment in which we work is currently in crisis. Both the pandemic and the civil unrest related to the brutalization of Black people have resulted in a growing awareness of the economic, racial, and social injustice in our country. We are at a cultural inflection point. We are also at a point of great opportunity to affect positive social change. To quote the late civil rights icon, Congressperson John Lewis, we are poised to make “good trouble.”


We will do this by:

Expanding Community CollaborationsWe believe that PCADV is uniquely positioned to create change because we can leverage our position as a statewide organization to develop partnerships across communities. We can be a hub of collaboration within and across all parts of Pennsylvania. By expanding community collaborations, we will serve more people, extend our influence, and better serve our stakeholders.

Leveraging Collective ExpertiseWe believe that PCADV is unparalleled in its ability to leverage collective expertise. We can focus on the root causes of violence, including misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia, and make informed and strategic steps toward ending violence against all people. We also can magnify the strengths and knowledge of our network of delegates. In coalition with our stakeholders, we generate collective expertise that gives us credibility with policymakers and funders.

Utilizing Economic Influence As one of the largest funders of domestic violence work in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we must ensure that the funds we are entrusted with are used to shape a more just world. We will seek to elevate the work conducted within our Coalition so that we and our delegates expand services and advance employee and governance practices so that they are reflective of and responsive to underrepresented and underserved communities.