Back in 2017, Stefanie Knaab came up with the idea of an app to support those affected by domestic violence out of personal concern. After years of in-depth exploration of the topic and, above all, the structural aspects that also cause gender-based violence, Stefanie applied for the German government's #wirvsvirus hackathon. In the competition in which digital solutions from civil society for challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic could be submitted and in which a digital project in the field of health, everyday life and crisis management was selected, the German government commissioned Stefanie to implement the first app for those affected by gender-based intimate partner violence in Germany as part of the hackathon.
Together with Dr. Caroline von der Heyden, T. Wied, A. Leder, C. Falke, J. Suckow, L. Mbarki, J. Hirschnitz, she then founded the association Gewaltfrei in die Zukunft e.V. The multidisciplinary approach is also reflected in the association: the founding members bring in expertise from law enforcement (criminal police & public prosecutor's office), criminology, political science and psychology. Within the first year of its foundation, the association managed to initially link the topic of domestic violence and the development and testing of the app to the Federal Ministry of Justice. GfZ was funded by the BMJ until October 2022. Subsequently, in 2022, the topic of gender-based intimate partner violence and thus also the expansion of the app was successfully placed as a topic of national, internal security for the first time and received 39 months of funding from the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs.