The impact of a global community
Here we highlight the remarkable ways the Our Wave community fosters a safe, supportive, and engaging space for survivors to embark on their healing journey.
Our Wave is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and anonymous online community for survivors of sexual harm, domestic violence, and child abuse. Since 2019, 479,667 people have joined the platform. Survivors have shared 1,723 stories from 73 countries, our team has answered 725 survivor questions, and we have made 105,269 referrals to hotlines, therapy, legal aid, and local support services. This page presents these numbers, along with our annual impact reports.
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United States
Our Impact Reports
By the Numbers
What Has Our Wave Achieved So Far?
479,667 people have joined the Our Wave community since the platform launched in 2019. Survivors have shared 1,723 stories from 73 countries, our team has answered 725 survivor questions, and we have made 105,269 resource referrals. Every figure on this page comes from our own platform data.
Storytelling Community
Community users
Stories shared
Survivor Questions & Answers
Questions answered
Resources
Resource referrals
For survivors, by survivors
Messages of hope posted by survivors in 2025
What Does the Our Wave Community Look Like Today?
The Our Wave community has 479,667 users. Members read stories, leave anonymous messages of support, work through grounding exercises, and mark healing milestones as they reach them. To date the community has started 13,414 grounding exercises and reached 25,945 milestones.
Read our 2025 annual reportNew community users in 2025
Survivor milestones achieved
Grounding exercises started
Survivor questions answered
How Many Stories Have Survivors Shared?
Survivors have published 1,723 stories on Our Wave, shared from 51 U.S. states and territories and 73 countries. 857 of those stories include a personal message of hope for other survivors, and 977 include a message about healing.
Explore the impact of storytellingSurvivor stories shared
Survivor artwork shared
Messages of Hope posted
Messages of Healing shared
State/Territory
Stories shared
California
105
New York
70
Texas
68
Florida
56
Pennsylvania
48
Minnesota
38
Ohio
37
Illinois
35
Georgia
28
North Carolina
26
41 more
Countries with shared stories
U.S. states & territories with shared stories
How Do Survivors Get Their Questions Answered?
Survivors can ask anything, anonymously, and someone qualified answers. Questions go to our research and survivor support team, who write back in plain language about consent, disclosure, legal options, relationships, and what healing tends to look like over time. We have answered 725 questions so far, and those answers have been read 452,925 times, which makes them the most-read part of the whole platform. Most of the people reading never had to ask, because someone else already did.
Survivor questions answered all time
Survivor questions answered in 2025
Select questions submitted by our community in 2025
How Many Survivors Have We Connected to Resources?
Our Wave has made 105,269 resource referrals, connecting survivors to curated hotlines, therapy services, legal aid organizations, and local support providers. Our resources hub is localized, so a survivor in Japan or Argentina is shown services they can actually reach rather than a U.S. phone number.
Explore our community's impactResource referrals all time
Resource referrals in 2025
Resource Name
Referrals
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline
21,356
Violence Against Women Helpline
4,829
NO MORE Global Directory
4,524
Sexual Violence Helpline Montreal
3,365
SOS WOMAN Line 37
3,184
Women's Emergency Helpline Dominican Republic
2,930
Violence-Free Line Mexico
2,888
Line 114 Honduras
2,876
0800-MUJERES Venezuela
2,730
Purple Line Colombia
2,719
79 more
How Does Our Research Support Survivors?
Our Wave is using data to improve healing outcomes for survivors. In practice that means asking and listening to survivors about what has helped them heal, and adapting our platform to match. One of our studies gathered healing advice from 136 survivors across seven countries so the next person can start their journey with tools that already helped someone else. Survivors contribute their stories to this work only with their explicit permission.
View all research
Press & Media
See how Our Wave's mission is making headlines and inspiring change across the media landscape.
View all press
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions we get most often about our numbers, our funding, and how we measure impact.
How is Our Wave funded?
Our Wave is funded three ways: foundation grants, individual donations, and program revenue from organizations that license our storytelling platform. Our institutional funders include the Oak Foundation, which supports our work on childhood sexual abuse prevention and survivor support. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so donations are tax-deductible and our finances are filed publicly on IRS Form 990.
How does Our Wave measure impact?
We track three things: platform metrics, resource utilization, and partnership and research outcomes. Platform metrics include sharing a story, asking a question, or starting a grounding exercise. We also measure what happens when we point someone toward outside help, counting the referrals and asking whether the resource was beneficial or not. The third is what comes of working with partner organizations and researchers. All of this goes into our annual impact report, most recently for 2025.
How current are Our Wave’s impact numbers?
The impact figures come from our own platform data as reported in our most recent annual impact report, covering 2025. Year-specific figures come from the annual impact report for that year.
Does Our Wave sell or share survivor data?
No. We do not sell survivor data and we do not share identifying information. A story is only used in research when the survivor has explicitly consented. The aggregate figures on this page contain no identifying details.
Can researchers or journalists use Our Wave’s data?
Yes, within limits. Researchers can request access to our consented, anonymized story archive through our research team. Journalists can find approved figures and quotes in our press kit. We do not release story text or identifying information without the survivor’s consent.
Help change the conversation.
Our Wave depends on your generous contributions for our continued success. Thank you for supporting us as we build a community where survivors of sexual harm, domestic violence, and child abuse are heard, believed, and supported.
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