Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention Through the Lens of Cost-Benefit
A Manual for Domestic Violence Prevention Practitioners
(and the State and Local Policy-Makers They Present to)
Who Can Use This Manual?
This Manual has been designed to help domestic violence prevention program staff recognize and be able to talk about some of the basic elements of cost-benefit approaches. No special knowledge of mathematics, accounting, bookkeeping or microeconomics is necessary. All that is needed is an appreciation for:
Cost-benefit terms and frameworks;
Ways to describe your prevention program using a cost-benefit lens; and,
Tools that can be used to make the case for your prevention program.
Every action, decision or event has economic implications. Having some awareness of these costs and benefits will help you:
Make your prevention program stronger;
Describe your program and its impact more clearly;
Gain funding and support for your program.
We believe that policy-makers and funders can also use this Manual to add to their understandings of the issues that domestic violence prevention programs face when making a case for their work.
How do we convince funders that our prevention efforts are worthwhile and worth the cost?
“Just knowing what cost-effectiveness is and being able to speak this language will help those who are managing domestic violence prevention programs communicate with policy-makers and funders.”
Angela Browne-Miller, Program Manager, TC-TAT, September 23, 2005.
“This kind of cost-effectiveness analysis can help state and federal agencies to justify funding strategies and programs directed toward primary prevention, and not only toward programs providing critical direct services.”
Nancy Bagnato, Coordinator,
Violence Against Women Statewide Prevention Project
California Department of Health Services, EPIC Branch,
September 23, 2005.
“This Manual will be useful for those who are developing programs because we know we have to market what we’re developing and we have to have outcomes that we can prove. This gives us some basic language that we can talk to people who are used to getting value for their dollar.”
Susan Thompson, Community Development Manager
Lake Family Resource Center, September 23, 2005.