Our Story

The Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention is a private operating institute committed to breaking the cycle of violence in our homes, schools, and communities on the local and national level. The Waitt Foundation has supported violence prevention efforts since 1993. To streamline our efforts, WIVP was founded in 2005, by Ted Waitt.  Through this work, we change social norms that accept violence as a part of life.

Gender violence prevention is at the forefront of our work. This movement in America and around the world has had many champions. Early leaders laid the groundwork from which we build. From the early shelter movement and political activism in the ‘60s and ‘70s to the establishment of the Office of Violence Against Women in 1994, leaders began to intervene against the most damaging and pervasive form of violence in our country. We’ve come a long way and we honor the leaders who had the courage and perseverance to light the way.

Movements, however, need a tipping point. This can happen through prevention. This can happen when you reach youth. This can happen when you bring men to the table. Along with other, early leaders and pioneers, that’s what we’re doing. Through our strong partnership with the Futures without Violence, Mentors in Violence Prevention, and others, we hope to contribute to their work. Through our critical, deeper, on-ground research work in Sioux City, Iowa, our hometown, to our national and international roll outs of violence prevention messages, to intense legislative activity, we can and expect to help decrease the devastation of gender violence.

School bullying and violence prevention is a vital part of this work. Reaching youth early and often is the key to changing attitudes and behaviors . A four year project in our hometown of Sioux City, Iowa will help demonstrate promising practices in gender violence prevention, and school bullying. Utilizing such programs as Mentors in Violence Prevention, Futures “Coaching Boys into Men,” and Second Step Violence Prevention programs in Elementary and pre-school, and supporting middle school curriculum such as Bully-Proofing Your School, we’ve worked with the Sioux City Community School system as they have created seamless violence prevention education for every child in our city.  We measured progress along the way, and found that the more invested and the longer a school is engaged in prevention, the better the results in achieving climate change.

Workplace bullying prevention was added in 2007, when we began a partnership with the Workplace Bullying Institute. In September of 2007, we co-sponsored a national Zogby poll with WBI. The poll has helped inform both media outlets and the American public on the prevalence of this issue.

Since 2009, we’ve found that supporting powerful issue driven documentaries greatly enhanced the changing of hearts, minds, and policy across the country.  The Institute believes that we are the strongest allies when we remain with a film through the critical outreach and education phase.

Mission: Our mission at WIVP is to break the cycle of violence in our homes, communities and schools through the use of education and mentoring.

Vision: The vision for WIVP is to see violence in our homes, communities and schools greatly reduced across the nation.

Our Team

Ted Waitt

Co-founder of Gateway, Inc., Ted pioneered the direct marketing of personal computers revolutionizing how people use technology. He has since gone on to form multiple enterprises including: Avalon Capital Group, Inc., the Waitt Foundation and the Waitt Institutes. Ted has served as the Chairman of the Founding Fathers campaign of the Family Violence Prevention Fund. He also serves on the Board of Trustees and the Council of Advisors of the National Geographic Society and as vice chairman of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in La Jolla, Calif.

Cindy Waitt

Prior to her 20 year career in philanthropy, Cindy worked with at risk youth and their families for 10 years. Cindy serves on the National Advisory Board for the Future’s without Violence International Center to End Violence, has been a member of the Clinton Global Initiative since 2006, and served as a judge in the Ashoka Changemaker’s 2007 competition “No Private Matter”. Under her leadership, WIVP has been a lead supporter of the strategy of engaging men and boys in violence prevention. She also sponsored a five year violence prevention in- school and community research project called the “Sioux City Project” and co sponsored the first workplace bullying Zogby poll in America in 2007.

She is an Executive Producer of Emmy nominated “Bully”, “Private Violence”, and the Peabody Award winning “Audrie and Daisy”.

Alan Heisterkamp, Ed.D

Alan Heisterkamp, Ed. D., is a longtime MVP Strategies project partner, trainer and curriculum developer who directs the Center for Violence Prevention at the University of Northern Iowa. As director, he conducts Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) gender violence prevention training and outreach to Iowa’s universities, colleges, and secondary schools, and oversees curriculum infusion of bystander education and strategies within pre-service teacher education programming.

Alan was the education and research consultant with the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention on a five-year study, entitled the Sioux City Project. He was also the education consultant on the award-winning documentary film, Bully, and he co-authored the educational study guide for the Emmy Award-nominated documentary, Private Violence. In Addition, Alan has co-authored multiple curricula and a number of research articles on the topic of gender violence prevention education.

Alan presents and trains across the U.S. and overseas on the subject of engaging men, young men, young men and boys in the prevention of men’s violence against women. For the past four years, he has served as a member of the coordinating committee for the North American MenEngage Network.

Alan is also President and CEO of the consulting firm Cultivating Minds, Inc. Prior to his current endeavors, he served the Sioux City Community School District for 23 years as a teacher, coach, school counselor and school administrator. He holds masters’ degrees in educational psychology and counseling, and school leadership, and a doctorate in secondary school administration.