SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC
Uniting to Eradicate Sex Trafficking in the U.S. by 2030
SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC
EIN: 82-3487081
Mission
Safe House Project is uniting communities to end domestic sex trafficking and restore hope, freedom, and a future to every survivor. Safe House Project’s mission is to increase survivor identification beyond one percent through education, provide emergency services and placement to survivors, and ensure every survivor has access to safe housing and holistic care by accelerating safe house capacity and development across America. Safe housing and restorative care is critical to ending the cycle of victimization. Education is key to spotting, reporting, and ultimately, preventing trafficking. Our vision is to see communities across America unite to end domestic sex trafficking and restore hope, freedom, and a future to every survivor.
Ruling year
2018
CEO
Kristi Wells
Chief Operations Officer
Brittany Dunn
Main address
1340 North Great Neck Road Suite 1272-162
Virginia Beach, VA 23454 USA
EIN
82-3487081
Child abuse
Child advocacy
Children's rights
Human services
Shelter and residential care
Population served
Children and youth
Adults
Ethnic and racial groups
At-risk youth
Victims and oppressed people
NTEE code
Fund Raising and/or Fund Distribution (P12)
Alliance/Advocacy Organizations (L01)
Civil Rights, Advocacy for Specific Groups (R20)
IRS subsection
501(c)(3) Public Charity
IRS filing requirement
This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.
Tax forms
Communication
Programs and results
Reports and documents
Download annual reportsWhat we aim to solve
When Safe House Project began in 2018: Hundreds of thousands of Americans will be trafficked this year, including an estimated 300,000 American children. 1% are rescued. 1,044 beds exist for survivors across the United States. There are less than 100 beds across the U.S. for child victims of sex trafficking. Due to the lack of safe houses, 80% of survivors end up back in the hands of their traffickers. Safe House Project’s mission is to increase survivor identification beyond one percent through education, provide emergency services and placement to survivors, and ensure every survivor has access to safe housing and holistic care by accelerating safe house capacity and development across America. Our vision is to unite communities to end domestic sex trafficking and restore hope, freedom, and a future to every survivor.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Accelerate Domestic Safe House Capacity and Program Standards
In 2018, HHS estimated 300K children across America are sex trafficked and that survivor identification was at 1%. Furthermore, there were less than 100 beds available to child sex trafficking survivors. Without restorative care, 80% of children will be re-victimized. To prevent children from being re-victimized, Safe House Project works to increase the number of beds available across the U.S. for survivors of trafficking through not only funding these safe houses, but also providing hundreds of mentorship hours each year to better equip them in fundraising, building out their vision, and forming connections in their communities.
Program Highlights:
- Safe House Network - Over 200 organizations
- Landscape Evaluation and Planning (Local or State Assessment)
- Programmatic Training Direction and Evaluation
- Development & Sustainability Strategies
- Industry Expertise & Networking
- Certifying programs based on evidence-based and promising practices
Safe House Certification
High quality residential programs have the opportunity to promote positive outcomes for survivors. Today, there are strong evidence-based and promising practices that residential programs should be following to provide high quality care to survivors.
Safe House Certification was developed by industry experts, including programmatic trainers, healthcare professionals, mental health experts, and survivor leaders, to establish the first national certification for residential safe house programs serving trafficking survivors.
A program’s effectiveness is assessed by evaluating:
Organizational Structure and Compliance
Executive & Board Leadership
Residential Programming
Financial Sustainability
Specialized Services Programming
This process allows programs to elevate the current quality of care, serve survivors more holistically, and strengthen outcomes for survivors.
Emergency Services & Housing
SHP works to empower survivors through emergency services, economic empowerment, and mentorships.
• Identification & Extraction
• Emergency Transportation & Services
• Survivor Placement into Safe House Programs
• Survivor Advocacy
• Survivor Internship & Skilling
• Survivor Mentorship
Trafficking Education and Prevention
In order to build a comprehensive approach to combating trafficking, victim identification must increase beyond 1%.
• The OnWatch training equips and empowers community members and educators to spot, report, and prevent trafficking where they live, work and play.
• The H.O.P.E. (Healthcare Observations for the Prevention & Eradication) of Human Trafficking Training was developed with the Academy of Forensic Nursing to educate healthcare workers.
• SHP's in-home service provider training educates technicians on how to spot signs of child exploitation in the home.
• Safe House Project performs in-person trainings for law enforcement and military personnel.
• All of Safe House Project’s trainings are survivor informed working with survivor leaders of the anti-trafficking industry to ensure that their lived experiences are accurately represented and that the information reflects the current trafficking landscape in the United States.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Ending Child Trafficking by 2030.
Safe House Project launched in 2017 because at that time Health & Human Services estimated 300K American kids are trafficked every year in the United States, yet victim identification was only at 1%. Furthermore, even when victims were being identified over 80% were being re-victimized due to a lack of safe house programs that offer restorative care services, like therapy, medical attention, education, life skills training, and support. From these realizations our mission was born to increase survivor identification beyond one percent through training, provide emergency services and placement to survivors, and ensure every survivor has access to safe housing.
To increase survivor identification above 1% we have worked to educate people through survivor-written trainings that empower them to spot, report, and prevent trafficking where they live, work, and play. To date we have trained over 250K people, which drove the development of our second program: Emergency Support & Safe House Placement. As survivors are exiting their trafficking situation, they need immediate assistance to understand the services available to them, and help navigating those first days of safety. Our Survivor Response team is on-call 24/7 to support survivors and get them into a safe house. To date we have had the privilege of walking alongside over 300 trafficking survivors and their children as they step into freedom. Finally, we are increasing capacity of certified safe house programs to help provide emergency, long-term, and transitional support to survivors on their healing journey. To date, we have helped add 371 new beds in safe house programs, which provide over 135K safe nights annually.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
1) Accelerate Domestic Shelter Capacity and Standards | The #1 Need in the Continuum of Care
Seed & Launch: Launch Partner Grants for Children and Over-18 Shelters
Sustainable Operations: Mentorship Grants to Secure Local Support and Resources
Increase National Capacity year-over-year
Collaborative Growth, System Solutions, and National Best Practices
2) Grow National Network of Resources | Stewarding National Care into Local Impact
Property Acquisitions, Homes, and Renovations
Corporate and Community Engagement
Connecting Professional Services and Shelter / Survivor Necessities
3) Empower a Lifetime of Freedom | Long-term Survivor Health and Independence
Post-Shelter Communities that Empower Self-Determination and Reduce Recidivism
Workforce Readiness: Survivor Population and Trauma-Informed Workplaces
4) Advance Innovative Education and Prevention | Actions that Promote Counter-Trafficking Impact
Education, National Campaigns, Technology
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The Safe House Project...
- Has an expansive network of connections around the United States.
- Is a scalable model that allows anyone, anywhere to get involved.
- Is an organization without walls, which means lower overhead, and more money going directly to survivors of sex trafficking.
- Provides various fundraising opportunities for different audiences, sizes, and locations to allow everyone to get involved with the effort to eradicate sex trafficking in the United States.
- Educates people on the global crisis of sex trafficking through online media, youth empowerment programs, and other events.
- An extensive partnership network amongst local anti-sex trafficking organizations, government agencies, and private/corporate donors.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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Who are the people you serve with your mission?
We serve survivors of sex trafficking in the United States. An integral part of Safe House Project’s mission is Survivor Empowerment. We strive to lead by example on this front by hiring survivors as employees or consultants, seeking survivors to ensure we are survivor-informed, and using our unique position in the anti-trafficking movement to allow survivors to give feedback on what is helpful to their success and what is not. We work to implement survivor-informed language, trauma-informed best practices, and openly accept that human trafficking survivors are the experts in the anti-trafficking field.
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How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?
Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Case management notes, Constituent (client or resident, etc.) advisory committees, Suggestion box/email,
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals,
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What significant change resulted from feedback?
We recently hired survivor leader, Alia Dewees, as our After Care Development Director to lead our safe house mentorship and certification program. We know that survivors are the lived experience experts, and want to provide them opportunities to influence the future of after care programming. Alia says it best, " Today, I have the privilege to work alongside safe house programs throughout the country. With my trafficking situation beginning at age 14, I was placed into a variety of programs over the years, and deeply understand the damage bad programs can cause and the healing good ones can provide. Drawing on my own lived experiences and those of my fellow survivors, I help elevate the standard of survivor care through mentorship and national certification of safe house programs. "
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With whom is the organization sharing feedback?
The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners,
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How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship?
All of our program directors are survivors who have the ability to influence the direction of their program to best serve survivors of sex trafficking. Together, they form working groups that help bring a collective survivor voice to our initiatives. They also reach into their survivor community for consistent feedback, which allows us to build not just from our teams lived experiences, but from the greater survivor network. Our survivor leaders have the autonomy to develop and deploy changes to their program, our job as Safe House Project leadership is to facilitate opportunities, provide resources, and drive all of our programs toward excellence. Our team knows that all work is guided by 5 core values: innovation, collaboration, hope, integrity, and stewardship.
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded,
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, Sample Size,
Financials
Financial documents
Download audited financialsRevenue vs. expenses: breakdown
Liquidity in 2020 info
245.07
Months of cash in 2020 info
8.9
Fringe rate in 2020 info
30%
Funding sources info
Assets & liabilities info
SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC
Revenue & expensesFiscal Year: Jan 01 - Dec 31
SOURCE: IRS Form 990
SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC
Balance sheetFiscal Year: Jan 01 - Dec 31
SOURCE: IRS Form 990
The balance sheet gives a snapshot of the financial health of an organization at a particular point in time. An organization's total assets should generally exceed its total liabilities, or it cannot survive long, but the types of assets and liabilities must also be considered. For instance, an organization's current assets (cash, receivables, securities, etc.) should be sufficient to cover its current liabilities (payables, deferred revenue, current year loan, and note payments). Otherwise, the organization may face solvency problems. On the other hand, an organization whose cash and equivalents greatly exceed its current liabilities might not be putting its money to best use.
Fiscal Year: Jan 01 - Dec 31
SOURCE: IRS Form 990
This snapshot of SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC’s financial trends applies Nonprofit Finance Fund® analysis to data hosted by GuideStar. While it highlights the data that matter most, remember that context is key – numbers only tell part of any story.
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Business model indicators
| Profitability info | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Unrestricted surplus (deficit) before depreciation | $256,366 | -$57,396 |
| As % of expenses | 139.5% | -15.3% |
| Unrestricted surplus (deficit) after depreciation | $256,366 | -$57,396 |
| As % of expenses | 139.5% | -15.3% |
| Revenue composition info | ||
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue (unrestricted & restricted) | $440,118 | $317,595 |
| Total revenue, % change over prior year | 0.0% | -27.8% |
| Program services revenue | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Membership dues | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Investment income | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| Government grants | 0.0% | 5.9% |
| All other grants and contributions | 99.4% | 94.1% |
| Other revenue | 0.4% | -0.1% |
| Expense composition info | ||
|---|---|---|
| Total expenses before depreciation | $183,752 | $374,991 |
| Total expenses, % change over prior year | 0.0% | 104.1% |
| Personnel | 32.6% | 36.6% |
| Professional fees | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| Occupancy | 0.0% | 0.2% |
| Interest | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Pass-through | 40.8% | 54.6% |
| All other expenses | 26.5% | 8.6% |
| Full cost components (estimated) info | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Total expenses (after depreciation) | $183,752 | $374,991 |
| One month of savings | $15,313 | $31,249 |
| Debt principal payment | $0 | $0 |
| Fixed asset additions | $0 | $0 |
| Total full costs (estimated) | $199,065 | $406,240 |
Capital structure indicators
| Liquidity info | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Months of cash | 22.0 | 8.9 |
| Months of cash and investments | 22.0 | 8.9 |
| Months of estimated liquid unrestricted net assets | 21.9 | 8.9 |
| Balance sheet composition info | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | $336,396 | $279,625 |
| Investments | $0 | $0 |
| Receivables | $0 | $0 |
| Gross land, buildings, equipment (LBE) | $0 | $0 |
| Accumulated depreciation (as a % of LBE) | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Liabilities (as a % of assets) | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| Unrestricted net assets | $335,880 | $278,484 |
| Temporarily restricted net assets | N/A | N/A |
| Permanently restricted net assets | N/A | N/A |
| Total restricted net assets | $0 | $0 |
| Total net assets | $335,880 | $278,484 |
Key data checks
| Key data checks info | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Material data errors | No | No |
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Documents
CEO
Kristi Wells
Kristi Wells is a co-founder and has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Safe House Project for three years. Prior to Safe House Project, Kristi spent 12 years in marketing and advertising with Gannette Co. and Tribune Media. Kristi has a bachelors on Journalism from Texas Christian University. She is a military spouse, mother of three and an ardent defender of the vulnerable.
Chief Operations Officer
Brittany Dunn
Brittany Dunn has the honor of serving in leadership with Safe House Project as the Chief Operations Officer. As a co-founder of the organization, she has served in this position for 3 years. Prior to Safe House Project, Brittany Dunn spent 10 years in International Business Development at CareerBuilder.com working internationally. Brittany Dunn has a B.A. in Economics and English from Wellesley College. She graduated top of her class with an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is a member of Beta Gamma Signma, Pi Sigma Alpha, Wellesley Alumnae Association, the Naval Officers' Spouses Club, and is an active member in her church. Brittany received the CEO Circle Award from Thunderbird School of Global Management,. She is a military spouse, mother of two, lifelong learner, world traveler, and protector of the vulnerable.
Number of employees
Source: IRS Form 990
SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC
Officers, directors, trustees, and key employeesSOURCE: IRS Form 990
Compensation data
There are no highest paid employees recorded for this organization.
SAFE HOUSE PROJECT INC
Board of directorsas of 03/14/2023
Board of directors data
RaeAnn Hancock
Safe House Project
Term: 2023 -
Kenneth D Walker
Chairman and CEO Driven Brands, Inc. Chairman
Kristi Wells
CEO, Safe House Project
Joel English
Vice President, Centura College
Darin Ely
President, Virginia Asset Group
Vickie Walker
Investor
Nigel Anderson
Board Member Emeritus
RaeAnn Hancock
NTT DATA Services
Derik Timmerman
Managing Partner of Sparrow Nonprofit Solutions
Sarah Navarre
Partner at The Martin Navarre Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors
Allison Bollinger
Vice President of Emergency and Urgent Care Services, Ascension
Scott Hasenbalg
Social Entrepreneur & Executive Leader
John Allen Waldrop
Waldrop & Colvin
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
The organization's co-leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.
Equity strategies
Last updated: 01/31/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
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