The Freedom Fund

The anti-trafficking movement is at a pivotal moment. For far too long, the space has excluded survivors and failed to invest in our leadership. Without the invaluable experience, expertise and passion that we bring, anti-trafficking organizations cannot reach their full potential. The Freedom Fund has taken crucial steps by becoming one of the only global anti-trafficking organizations with a survivor of trafficking on its senior leadership team and by speaking out about the importance of integrating survivor input into every element of our work.

But it will take more than words to make this change. The Elevate Prize would not only give me a greater platform to advocate for survivor inclusion in our movement. It would also allow me to put critical resources behind our efforts to chart a new way forward. The funding would enable us to expand our three survivor-focused initiatives: a fund to invest in survivor activists and their work, a global training program for grassroots leaders, and a fellowship providing survivors with pathways to non-profit leadership through employment. The Prize and its associated exposure would ensure we can serve as a trailblazing model for other organizations by documenting our learnings and encouraging replication.

As a survivor of human trafficking, I have experienced the alchemical change of injustice into hope and pain into freedom. I believe everyone should be given the opportunity to experience hope and stability, and this belief drives my work. 

My experience of exploitation was fueled by a score of underlying vulnerabilities including childhood abuse, fear of homelessness, drug addiction and sexual assault. Along my journey, I was given access to opportunities that have changed my life: finishing college, working for one of the world’s leading financial services firms, and now working with the Freedom Fund.   

As I began to work in the anti-trafficking movement, I began to realize how few survivors like me were afforded positions of leadership, and how often programs failed to listen to the very people they were designed to serve. I joined the Freedom Fund because it is making an enormous impact in communities on the frontlines of exploitation.  I felt deeply aligned with the model, designed to invest in the knowledge and work of local, grassroots organizations. I am now using my leadership role to change the landscape of the anti-trafficking space and ensure that survivors have a voice in ending global exploitation.

Modern slavery still exists. Whether called human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, or child exploitation, victims of modern slavery are controlled by others through violence, fraud or coercion, and exploited for commercial or personal gain. The scale is overwhelming: the 2016 Global Slavery Index estimated that 40.3 million people were in modern slavery. Slavery preys upon the most vulnerable in our communities – women and children, the poor, and members of marginalized social groups. 

The Freedom Fund’s mission is to mobilize the knowledge, capital and will needed to end slavery. We do this by investing in the most effective frontline efforts to eradicate modern slavery in the countries and sectors where it is most prevalent. We partner with clusters of frontline organizations to directly combat slavery in countries like India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Brazil and Ethiopia. We tackle the underlying systems that allow slavery to persist by engaging the government, private sector, media, social movements and other key drivers of change, and empower the anti-slavery movement by providing platforms, knowledge and training. Since inception, the Freedom Fund has had a direct impact on over 900,000 people in slavery or at risk of it.

Many interventions to tackle human rights challenges suffer from a lack of focus, with philanthropic resources spread too thinly to produce real impact. We concentrate our efforts on a small number of slavery hotspots, investing in a range of interventions that reinforce each other to maximize impact. 

The Freedom Fund is unique for its holistic, systemic approach to tackling modern slavery. Core to our vision is an aim to change the underlying systems that allow slavery to persist. Our emphasis on addressing root causes, engaging with business and government and supporting advocacy while also directly supporting survivors and those at risk sets our approach apart.

We also have a rigorous focus on data and measurement.  We generate research and solutions to influence governments, international organizations, businesses and funders by identifying the most effective models to drive measurable and sustainable change. Our work with frontline partners ensures that our research is informed by the experiences of communities affected by slavery.

We are also unique in centering survivors. From supporting survivor collectives in India to the inclusion of survivor experts on our senior leadership and Board, we are deeply committed to advancing the leadership and knowledge of those with lived experience.

We have achieved measurable success through our innovative “hotspot” model, which works through interconnected and strategically aligned programs in regions of high prevalence of slavery. Hotspots put power and resources in the hands of frontline organizations, enabling them to collaborate, share knowledge and advocate together more effectively. This approach forges powerful civil society alliances between survivor activists, NGOs and communities, capable of shifting societal norms and putting pressure on multiple levels of government. Multiple studies have shown that this is the most impactful and cost-effective way to fight slavery.

Since our inception in 2014, the Freedom Fund and our partners have had a direct impact on 904,807 of the world’s most vulnerable people. We’ve liberated 28,914 victims of modern slavery, placed 58,659 at-risk children back in school, and supported 10,264 community freedom groups. We estimate that our systems change efforts have indirectly impacted an additional 3.5 million lives.

We are also working to change the face of the anti-slavery movement. Through Freedom Rising, a new leadership training and movement-building program, we aim to equip and connect frontline anti-slavery leaders, especially women and survivors, and build a more diverse and inclusive movement.