Financial Contingency Planning: Sources Of Funding Domestic Violence Research Paper Sample

As an organization that is involve in social services, it is essential to prepare for a financial contingency plan to fund the sectors we are serving. As there is increasing number of cases of domestic violence, we shall focus our efforts on creating financial contingency plan for the domestically abused individuals. The World Health Organization release a report in 2013 revealed that 35% of women globally experienced physical and/or sexual violence and 30% of women in relationship experienced violence from intimate partner (World Health Organization, 2013). This paper seeks to evaluate revenue and funding sources to develop financial contingency plan to help address domestic violence.
The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress defined domestic violence as a physical and/or emotional abuse by an intimate partner, parent, older children, and other children. It is usually in the form of physical and sexual assaults and verbal abuses (Newton, 2001).
Funding has always been an issue and a core consideration in solving the issues of domestic violence. The Guardian news article in 2012 revealed that the United Kingdom’s local government’s expenditure for domestic violence decreased by 31% in 2011 and 2012 from GBP 7.8 million to GBP 5.4 million (The Guardian, 2012). Such occurred despite the domestic violence prevalence report of the World Health Organization.
The Australian Government projected an AUD 15.6 billion spending for domestic violence in 2021-2022 if it will not address the issue. The said government spent AUD 13.6 billion for domestic violence in 2011, up from the AUD 10.4 billion in the previous year (Australian Government, 2015). The government of the United States, on the other hand, spends USD 4 billion national budget annually for domestic violence (Stop Abusive and Violent Environment, 2011).
The above data shows that domestic violence is a costly social issue. Hence, it is important to address it through the coordination of the various government agencies concerned, non-profit organization and even the enterprises with concerns on such issue as a part of their corporate social responsibility activities. The organization addressing such issue especially the government should be financially prepared to support the activities that can curb domestic violence in the society.
There are various ways to source funding for domestic violence. A few these are temporary assistance, funding assets, public-private partnerships, donations from community based organizations, bond issuance, grants and multi-level government financing. Temporary assistance is smaller as compared to other funding sources. However, it can significantly help in immediate needs of the victims of domestic violence in certain period of time. An example of these is the local government’s provision of about USD 1900 for 90 days for every victim. Such assistance becomes possible due to the taxes, government’s financial assets, partnerships with the non-profit organization and corporate sponsorships.
Funding assets play a significant role in accumulating huge funds for addressing domestic violence. A local government or an organization can create an asset building programs through investment in the secured financial instruments and any other forms of investment that can produce a sure and high yield profit in a short or long term investment. Other examples of such high sure but high yield profits is an investment on the high demand products or services at a current time that can provide a predetermined yields at a certain period of time. Such could be the investment on the distribution of the highly demanded agricultural commodity and highly demanded and fast growing service sector. Such highly performing services sector varies per country.
Asset building can also be applied in through the cooperation and teamwork of the concerned victims. An article in the National Online Resource Center on Violence against Women shared a funding prospects of microenterprises in which few funds from the victims and other concerned families can be reinvested to a microenterprise in which yields can be used to support the daily needs of the victims. Although average yield per victim may not be high, it can help save the food and other small needs of the victims of violence. Their engagement to such enterprise will also help them copy psychologically (National Online Resource Center on Violence against Women, 2011).
Public-private partnerships are the other possible huge source of revenue to financially aid the victims of the domestic violence as part of the contingency plan. The Avon foundation for women had various partnerships with the US, Mexican, and other Latin American countries’ governments through the provision of free training and technical assistance to the judges, prosecutors, and low enforcers in a thrust to improve the victim protection efforts and criminal justice response to those who were domestically abused. The Avon foundation for women also provided short-term emergency response for the medical, housing, and legal assistance of the victims (Avon Foundation for Women, 2015).
Non-profit organizations can also be a source of funding for to assist the domestically abused people. The National Network to End Domestic Violence in partnership with the US Government implemented a transitional housing project for the victims (National Network to End Domestic Violence, 2015). Other forms of sourcing funds include bond issuance such as peace bonds and bail bonds which will demand fines or payment from the defendant and in case he or she violated an agreement with the complainant. Such bonds can also subject the defendant to a criminal charge once he or she did not comply with the agreement. Bonds reduce the government spending on the victims.
Multilevel government financing are a huge source of funds. Funds are usually acquired from the United Nations and are sent to the governments of various countries, oftentimes to the local governments of the areas vulnerable to domestic violence.
Taxation plays an important role in accumulating funds to have local and national budget to address the challenges domestic violence in the society. If taxes are properly allocated and reinvested, a country will always have a sufficient fund for such social issues. In the United States, it is a part of the current administration’s policy to cut the taxes of the middle income people. However, the higher taxes paid by the higher income group equalizes or even increases tax collection in the current taxation set up. Thus, the current changes in the US’s tax policies will not have a negative impact on funding for resolving domestic violence. Further, it is advisable to keep and spend tax revenues appropriately without the practice of corruption to prevent budget cuts in funding various sectors of public services.
Financial or cost efficiency should be a practice whenever allocating the sourced funds to implement the contingency plans for domestic violence. Such can be done through purchases of cheap but acceptable quality of housing materials, cheap but nutritious foods, and effective but non-costly medicines and medical care. Attendance of the legal system from the judges to the law enforcers to the free seminars and trainings will also help the government decrease cost in the response and protection of the victims as part of the contingency plans.
If given an opportunity to source for funds for domestic violence contingency plans, I would choose the means of asset building, corporate and public sector partnership non-profit organization and government partnership and multilevel government financing. Asset building helps in two ways; one is financing of immediate needs while second is the physical and psychological recovery of the victims as they will be engaged in an enterprise. Corporate and non-profit organizations’ partnership with the government and the multilevel government financing provides huge funds that help a large number of victims. Such funding sources can provide a big difference to people particularly to the vulnerable in the remote areas as those are the organizations that have wider networks that can reach and extend assistance to the underserved communities and countries.
It is, however, important for an organization that plans and implements contingency funding for domestic violence to actively market and sell the cause but, at the same time, maintain the integrity in handling the funds for the victims. With such practices, prevalence of domestic violence may significantly decrease in the long run and, hence, may reduce the amount of budget needed to resolve the issue.
In conclusion, we can state that we can lower , if not eradicate, the cases domestic violence to a very minimal level through the cooperation of the various sectors such as the government, private sector, non-profit organizations, cross governments, and the constituents in solving the issue. The cooperation in funding, technical assistance, and training are very important to save the lives of the domestically abused people. Such cooperation will also help inhibit the prevalence of domestic violence. Aside from funding, we also need to create effective laws and enforcement that will crackdown the people who assault their own family members and other people in their household.
Any organization involved in social services should be updated with the latest statistics involving domestic violence. That way, we will become aware if our contingency plans and other projects are effective in resolving the issue. It will also inform us if there are things we need to improve or do if our funding efforts have low significance or impact in combating domestic violence and saving the victims.
Lastly, we can always create an innovative and original ways of asset building for the victims. However, we do not need to disregard the mentioned ways above as they are already tested over time and proven effective in creation of sufficient or more than enough funds to save the abused people. The organization should also be open for the voluntary donations of the public for such causes as the donations of the large number of citizens can also produce a large sum of money to help the victims of the locality. Public donations also result to a large amount of foods, clothing, and other necessities that are essential in rebuilding the lives of the abused people. The organization should also look into the possibility of private donations particularly in the real estate and accommodation sectors for the temporary shelters of the victims.

References

2013. Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. World Health Organization. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng.pdf
Newton, CJ. February 2001. Domestic Violence: An Overview. American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. Retrieved from http://www.aaets.org/article145.htm
31 January 2012. How will the cuts affect services preventing violence against women? The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jan/31/cuts-women-services-domestic-violence
2015 (site accessed). Economic cost of violence against women and their children. Australian Government. Retrieved from https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/women/publications-articles/reducing-violence/national-plan-to-reduce-violence-against-women-and-their-children/economic-cost-of-violence-against-women-and-their-children?HTML
Sanders, Cynthia. November 2011. Asset Building Programs for Domestic Violence Survivors. National Online Resource Center on Violence against Women. Retrieved from http://www.vawnet.org/grants-funding/summary.php?doc_id=2972&find_type=web_desc_AR
2015 (site accessed). The Global Partnership to End Violence against Women. Avon Foundation for Women. Retrieved from http://www.avonfoundation.org/causes/domestic-violence/funding/global-partnership/
2015 (site accessed). Housing Project. National Network to End Domestic Violence. Retrieved from http://nnedv.org/projects/housing.html