With funding from the National Institute of Justice, Urban Institute researchers conducted an outcome evaluation of the VictimConnect Resource Center from 2023 to 2025. This brief summarizes our evaluation findings.

Why This Matters

VictimConnect is the only national helpline serving all crime victims by providing emotional support, information, and referrals. These services are offered through a website and a hotline available by phone, online chat, and text messaging. The hotline is operated by trained staff called victim assistance specialists who serve helpline visitors from a wide range of backgrounds in every state across the United States. The findings from this evaluation can provide helpful insights for service providers, funders, and policymakers into how the national hotline supports the accessibility and delivery of victim services.

Key Takeaways

Our goal was to assess the extent to which VictimConnect affects crime victims by increasing their knowledge and awareness of resources, improving their emotional well-being, and facilitating uptake of relevant services when that is a victim’s goal. We also examined the platform’s privacy protections for victims. These data led to the following overall conclusions:

• VictimConnect increases awareness and supports pathways to victim services.
• Victim assistance specialists provide high‑quality, trauma‑informed support.
• Confidentiality and victim rights are strongly protected.
• Visitors’ early gains in knowledge and emotional support have lasting effects. We also identified several recommendations for VictimConnect to expand its impact, which other service providers and policymakers can learn from as well.

How We Did It

We surveyed nearly 1,000 visitors after their VictimConnect experiences and reached almost a third of those visitors for a follow-up survey one month later.