Frequently Asked Questions

Our Wave builds and runs free, anonymous online spaces for survivors of sexual harm, domestic violence, and child abuse. Survivors can share their story anonymously, read stories from other survivors, ask questions answered by experts on our team, and find vetted local resources. We also license our storytelling technology to other organizations.

A survivor storytelling platform is a moderated online space where people who have experienced harm can publish their experiences anonymously and safely. Unlike a general social network, we review every submission before it goes live, redact identifying details, add community notes when applicable, and design every part of the experience around protecting the person sharing.

Our Wave is for all survivors of sexual harm, domestic violence, and child abuse, regardless of gender, background, or where you are in your healing. Allies are welcome as well, and anyone can send a message of support whether or not they personally identify as a survivor.

Yes. Sharing your story, reading other survivors’ stories, asking a question, and using our resource referrals are all free for survivors. Our Wave is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation grants, individual donations, and program revenue from organizations that license our storytelling platform, rather than by charging the survivors we serve.

You must be 18 or older to use Our Wave and to share a story. Sexual harm and domestic violence happen across the lifespan, and you are welcome to write about experiences from when you were a minor, but for legal reasons the platform itself is only for adults.

No. Our Wave is a storytelling and peer support community, not a crisis line or emergency service, and the platform is not monitored in real time. If you are in immediate danger, please contact your local emergency service. In the United States, the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline is free, confidential, and available 24/7 at 1-800-656-4673, and our resources hub lists services for other countries.

No account is required to share your story. Sharing your email is required - it is what lets you stay in control of your story afterward, because we send a link you can use to find or remove it. If you lose that email, we may not be able to give you access to your submission again.

Yes. Our Wave is an anonymous platform. Before a story is posted, our review team redacts information that could identify you or anyone else in your story, including names, locations, and social media handles. You decide how much to share.

Yes. Every story and comment is moderated before it appears on the platform. Our review team redacts identifying details, adds community notes where they are needed, and escalates any story suggesting someone may be at risk to our trauma experts. Our full process is published in our review guidelines.

Once it is published, your story is public on our community platform, where other survivors can read it and respond with support. It is only published after identifying details have been redacted. Within Our Wave, a limited number of senior technical staff can access platform data, and only for debugging purposes. When you share your story, we will send a secure link to your email that will allow you to update the visibility of your story at any time.

Yes. You can remove your story whenever you want, using the link in the notification email we send when it is posted, or by requesting secure access to your story on our community platform. You can also request deletion of your personal data at any time.

Reporting stories to law enforcement is not part of our review process. When a story suggests that someone may be at risk, we escalate it to our trauma experts and follow up with the survivor by email with support resources. Like any organization, we may disclose information where we are legally required to do so, and our privacy policy describes exactly when that applies.

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, and that research works with anonymized data. We publish aggregate figures that contain no identifying details, and we do not provide survivor data to external AI systems.

Trauma-informed means designing around what survivors need in order to feel safe. Here’s how we do that:

• Every story is read by a trained human moderator before it is published. They take out any identifying details and add community notes if needed.
• Anonymity is built into our platform, so you never need an account or real name.
• Every page has a Safety Exit button that clears the screen if someone walks in.
• Resources are localized by country, so survivors outside the U.S. see services they can actually reach.
• Survivors advise us directly, and their feedback shapes what we build next.

Every page has a Safety Exit button. Selecting it clears the page, opens a neutral site in a new tab, and replaces Our Wave in your browser history so that pressing the back button does not return you here. It does not erase your full browsing history, so if you need to cover your tracks completely, clear your browser history as well.

You can share your story anonymously, read stories from other survivors, leave anonymous messages of support, and work through grounding exercises for moments when things feel overwhelming. Your story stays yours, so you can go back and edit it whenever you want, and add a message of hope or healing for whoever reads it next. If there’s something you need to know, ask a question and someone on our team will answer, or look through the 725 questions survivors have already asked. Our resources hub points you toward hotlines, therapy, and legal aid near you.

Questions go to our research and survivor support team, trauma-informed clinical experts who write back in plain language, usually within days. Answers cover consent, disclosure, legal options, relationships, and what healing tends to look like over time. Questions are submitted anonymously, and answers are published so that other survivors can read them without having to ask.

Our Wave is available in English, Spanish, and Japanese. Our resources hub is localized as well, so a survivor in Japan or Argentina is shown services they can actually reach rather than a United States phone number.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes. Universities, nonprofits, healthcare organizations, and government agencies use Our Wave’s technology to run branded, no-code storytelling platforms for their own communities. We handle setup, hosting, and moderation.