Simpler, smarter, sustainable.
RIVA is an independent, practitioner-led collaboration strengthening the infrastructure, investment and innovation behind the UK’s response to violence against women and girls.
RIVA connects people and ideas from across the system. We focus on what works — aligning investment, innovation and evidence to achieve greater sustainability and impact.
Our Mission
We are creating the conditions for systemic change.
RIVA’s mission is to make the UK’s approach simpler, smarter and more effective by improving how investment, evidence and innovation connect across sectors.
We bring together practitioners, funders and policymakers to rethink the system’s foundations — reducing duplication, aligning investment to need and impact, and mapping where innovation is needed.
Why we Exist
Violence against women and girls affects millions each year, with an estimated economic cost to the UK of more than £100 billion annually. Yet the response remains structurally weak — inviting women and girls into a system that doesn’t work for them, and failing to prevent perpetration.
After fifty years of reactive policy and piecemeal investment, even excellent services report struggling to achieve their intended outcomes. Limited oversight, weak evidence and competing priorities spread resources thin and dilute impact.
RIVA exists to change this.
We are a shared platform to re-design the system.Our work brings clarity to a noisy system, enabling funders, policymakers and practitioners to act with confidence and focus — and to make women and girls safer.
What we Do
Building the foundations for a system that works
Our work focuses on three core areas:
1. Infrastructure
Strengthening the systems, standards and shared tools that make improvement possible.
We’re creating the architecture for stronger accountability, coordination and learning — bringing greater coherence between resources and outcomes.
2. Investment
Aligning funding with need, evidence and long-term value.
We work with funders and policymakers to make public, philanthropic, and social investment more focused, transparent and effective.
By analysing how resources flow through the system, we show where investment achieves impact, where it falls short, and how smarter funding models can create sustainable change.
3. Innovation
Catalysing new approaches in practice, governance and delivery.
We support localities, regions and services to test, adapt and scale smarter solutions — strengthening prevention, coordination and survivor experience.
By connecting innovators, commissioners and practitioners, we help effective ideas spread and take root across the system.
In all our work
Women and girls are at the centre.
The safety and insight of women and girls across all communities is at the centre of RIVA’s reforms and the system we aim to build — one that is simpler, smarter and sustainable.