This post is brought to you in collaboration with the Allstate Foundation® and Latina Bloggers Connect.
We were invited to be a part of the Allstate Foundation’s Purple Purse Challenge this month, and we thought it would be a definite worthy cause to support, especially considering next month is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In case you’re not familiar with the Purple Purse Challenge, its a fundraising initiative put together by the Allstate Foundation to make it easier to talk about domestic violence and the financial abuse that traps women in abusive relationships.
According to the foundation, the program ignites fundraising for more than 140 national, state and local domestic violence organizations. There’s a lot of great information to share about this subject and I don’t want to editorialize it. So, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to list below the points that most spoke to me about this initiative.
- Domestic violence affects one in four women in her lifetime – that’s more women than breast cancer, ovarian cancer and lung cancer combined.
- Most people think only of physical abuse when they consider domestic violence. Yet, financial abuse happens in 98% of all cases of domestic violence and is one of the most powerful ways to keep a victim trapped.
- Domestic violence and financial abuse often go hand-in-hand, but nearly 8 in 10 Americans have not heard much about financial abuse as a form of domestic violence. The number one reason domestic violence survivors stay, leave or return to an abusive relationship is that they don’t have the financial resources to break free.
- Two-thirds of Americans believe that domestic violence is a serious problem, yet just over 1 in 3 have ever talked about it.
- The Allstate Foundation is investing more than half a million dollars in the Purple Purse Challenge. The more donations each nonprofit gets, the more it can compete for Allstate Foundation incentive funding. Go to PurplePurse.com between Sept. 2 and Oct. 3 to join the Challenge and help a nonprofit near you.
- PurplePurse.com has important tips and tools to help you recognize domestic violence and financial abuse, talk about it and end it.
- Since 2005, The Allstate Foundation has invested more than $40 million across the country to help domestic violence survivors regain control of their finances and break free from abuse.
- If you or someone you know needs immediate help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224.
Take a stand against domestic abuse. This is one way you can help.