HER Board

With decades of experience working with women, Luma are well placed to provide the wrap-around services required to avoid tragedy and trauma. A woman experiencing domestic violence loses her connections, voice, confidence and strength. Bit by bit, she loses her power. To move on, she needs to find that power again and HER Board is an essential service that will help in giving her power back.

Felicite Black

CEO, LUMA

In Australia, domestic violence is a pervasive issue, with one woman losing her life to it every week and one in four experiencing abuse from an intimate partner. Traditional funding approaches often focus only on crisis intervention, instead of providing long-term support and empowerment for women facing domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a huge, complex problem. It can take years to leave it behind. On top of that, when a woman is experiencing domestic violence, bit by bit she loses her power.

Our idea was to give women comprehensive support and give her power back through ‘HER Board’. In a world first, it asks people to sponsor a woman experiencing domestic violence - rather than make one-off, crisis donations. By taking ‘a seat’ on HER Board and sponsoring, you could save a woman. We deliberately target women who understand power and have the money to sponsor – professional women on LinkedIn.

HER Board makes sponsors ‘HER Board Members’ and women experiencing violence ‘HER Board Associates’ with the power to choose their services, moving away from the victim-saviour model and providing comprehensive, wrap-around support tailored to individual needs.

Luma, WA’s largest not-for-profit organizations dedicated to women’s health and wellbeing, launched HER Board during Domestic Violence Prevention Month with strong backing from influential female leaders like Rose Herceg and Katie Rigg-Smith. HER Board fosters a community-driven approach to tackling domestic violence, aiming for a continued impact throughout 2024 and beyond. As a long-term sponsorship programme, its power has only just begun.

Since HER Board is mostly about women helping women, the film creators were deliberately chosen to be women – including director Melle Branson and 95% of the film crew.