Service Women's Action Network (SWAN)

Service women’s advocacy nonprofit · Member-driven 501(c)(3) based in Washington, DC; CEO Elisa Cardnell

The national voice for service women — current, former, and future — built by the women who served. SWAN pairs advocacy in Washington with direct support: case management, emergency assistance, legal referrals, and help navigating VA benefits for women whose service the system was not designed around. It is active now — its newest statement, on fair access to justice for military sexual assault survivors, is dated July 8, 2026, and it is still filing, publishing, and showing up.

Why we carry them. A woman veteran fighting VA alone should not have to translate her service into a system built without her — SWAN is the ally that already speaks both languages.

Start here — their essential work

• SWAN Supports Fair Access to Justice for Military Sexual Assault Survivors (2026-07-08) — Its newest statement: backing the right of sexual-assault survivors to pursue justice in civilian court rather than only inside the chain of command that failed them.
• SWAN Condemns Supreme Court Decision in Trump v. Barbara (2026-04-24) — SWAN’s answer to the Supreme Court’s birthright-citizenship ruling — the citizenship of service members’ own children is a readiness issue, not an abstraction.
• Justice Denied: Ending the Crisis of Military Sexual Assault — Its standing campaign page on military sexual trauma: the scale of assault and harassment in the ranks, and the policy fixes SWAN is pushing.
• New IVMF Report: Gendered Consequences of Communicable Disease Outbreaks on Servicewomen: A Critical Wake-Up Call (2025-03-12) — Amplifying Syracuse IVMF research on how disease outbreaks hit servicewomen differently — the kind of evidence SWAN carries into policy rooms.
• Overlooked: A Short Film Honoring the Service and Sacrifice of Military Women (2025-03-01) — A short film honoring military women’s service — and a reminder of the visibility fight at the heart of SWAN’s work.
• SWAN Statement on Confirmation of Cameron Hamilton at FEMA — A confirmation statement that shows SWAN’s wider brief: it weighs in wherever federal leadership decisions land on the people who serve.

Summaries are ours. The work is theirs — we link to it, we don’t lift it. Visit Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) →