The hotline operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is free and confidential. It provides an access point for victims of any crime to access assistance. The Victim Assistance Specialists staffing the hotline build connections with community partners through networking and cross-training. They provide basic crisis-intervention and referrals to community organizations. Following the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a movie theater in Aurora, a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, and Virginia Tech, the victims' families found that questions over the method of distributing charitable contributions caused them even more pain. Questions included how much should go to the family of each murdered victim, how much should go to survivors who witnessed the murders and will need years of therapy, and who should make these decisions. There were also significant delays in the distribution of donations and questions over whether the organization that collected the donations should retain a portion of the donations. The National Center for Victims of Crime created the National Compassion Fund in order to establish a method and rubric for collecting and distributing donations to victims that could be set up quickly and distributed fairly following a mass shooting. The National Compassion Fund has collected charitable donations and distributed funds to victims of the 2014 Fort Hood shooting, 2015 Chattanooga shootings, 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, 2018 Cincinnati shooting, and the 2019 Aurora, Illinois shooting. The National Center for Victims of Crime supported the Elder Abuse Prevention and Protection Act of 2017, which increased professional training for federal investigators and prosecutors, designated prosecutors to handle cases of elder abuse in each federal judicial district, established elder justice coordinators in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection and the U.S. Department of Justice, and increased penalties for perpetrators of elder abuse. In December 2017, the National Center for Victims of Crime supported the Combat Online Predators Act, which would increase the maximum sentence in federal prison for stalking a minor. In January 2018, the National Center for Victims of Crime supported the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act, which would make it illegal for amateur athletics governing bodies to fail to report sex-abuse allegations to a law enforcement authority within 24 hours. It would also extend the civil statute of limitations for human trafficking and federal sex offenses. It would also require national governing bodies to develop and enforce methods to prevent, report, and respond to the abuse of child athletes. In February 2018, the National Center of Victims supported the Crime Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act, which would provide a legal process for restitution for victims of child pornography in Connecticut.