Learn About RAINN: Our Mission, Our Work, Our Impact

We launched with a clear but ambitious mission: to fill a critical gap by creating the country’s first national telephone hotline for survivors of sexual assault—a need recognized for decades. 

Our first role was connecting service providers across the country, which is why “network” is in our name: Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. Today, we partner with more than 1,000 local sexual assault service providers.

On July 27, 1994, musical artist Tori Amos made the ceremonial first call on what was then called the RAINN Hotline—now known as RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline.

Building a national brand on a small budget meant thinking creatively. We partnered with dozens of artists, musicians, and media outlets to amplify our message. We worked closely with the music industry, TV networks, and journalists to spread the hotline number and encourage survivors to seek help. 

A milestone moment came when the national broadcast networks agreed to air PSAs on sexual violence for the first time in history. 

In the late ’90s, we learned the shocking fact that thousands of untested rape kits were being held in storage throughout the U.S. Investigative journalists across the country jumped into action, transforming a local issue into a national crisis. 

In 2003, as RAINN advocated for change, Congress passed a bipartisan joint resolution officially recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAPM) and specifically citing RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline as a critical support for survivors. 

The following year, RAINN’s ongoing advocacy led to the passage of the Debbie Smith Act (2004). This landmark legislation—directly driven by RAINN’s efforts—became the most effective anti-rape legislation in history, securing more than $1 billion in funding to test rape kits and helping identify hundreds of thousands of criminals through the FBI’s DNA database system. 

Soon after, our work led to the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005 and the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting (SAFER) Act in 2013.

We launched the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline in 2006—the web’s first secure, 24/7 online-based hotline service. To ensure anonymity for survivors, RAINN created a first-of-its-kind proprietary hotline platform, winning the NPower Award for the best use of technology by a nonprofit (2007). With the rise of digital support tools, we unified our services under the National Sexual Assault Hotline, which today offers help by phone, online chat, and text.

In 2011, we developed DoD Safe Helpline for the Department of Defense, which provides phone, online chat, and text-based support services to the U.S. military community worldwide. We added the Safe Helpline Mobile App, recognized with the President’s Award for Innovation from the American Telemedicine Association (2013). 

That same year, we introduced Safe HelpRoom, a secure, moderated group chat. By 2015, we had expanded 24/7 support for Spanish-speaking survivors through the National Sexual Assault Hotline.

With sponsorship from MTV, we established RAINN Day (the second Tuesday in April), uniting survivors, speakers, and artists for a day of awareness and activism on college campuses. 

In 2007, with bipartisan support in Congress, more than 1,000 radio stations paused their programming at noon to air messages about RAINN and sexual violence. 

We also began partnering with TV networks to work directly with writers and producers on accurate portrayals of sexual violence—most notably in 2012, when ABC’s Private Practice made TV history by portraying a male military sexual assault survivor.

 Congress federally authorized RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline in the Adam Walsh Act (2007). 

We strengthened our role as a pro-criminal justice, pro-prosecution organization—advocating for policies that increase accountability and ensure more rapists are convicted. 

We also helped reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Over the last decade, RAINN experienced rapid expansion, averaging 25% annual growth. In 2024 we completed a three-year project to double the capacity of the National Sexual Assault Hotline and reduce wait times by 97%., so we can now support more survivors than ever before.