San Diego Women’s Foundation Announces Largest Grantmaking in its History

I am proud to announce that on June 5, the San Diego Women’s Foundation (SDWF) will award $243,000 in new grant funding to five nonprofits working to combat human trafficking in San Diego County – this will be the largest total grants awards in our 19-year history.

Human trafficking is more dangerous and prevalent than many of us realize. According to a University of San Diego study, an estimated 3,000 – 8,000 individuals in San Diego are victims of sex trafficking each year, with recruitment happening on middle and high school campuses across the county.

Our grants will save lives and help to change those statistics.

SDWF’s grants selection process is thoughtful and thorough, involving three stages of review by teams of SDWF members. After careful review, SDWF members have decided to award grants to the following nonprofits:

• Children’s Legal Services of San Diego provides legal representation for all foster youth in San Diego. SDWF funding will prevent human trafficking among the extremely vulnerable population of foster youth, who are particularly at risk for exploitation by human traffickers.
• Generate Hope uses a long- term, comprehensive approach, and SDWF funding will help provide shelter and programming to empower the care and rehabilitation of female survivors of sex trafficking.
• Free to Thrive provides a fresh start and pro bono legal services to survivors of trafficking. SDWF funding will be used to launch a new Family Law Program, increasing human trafficking victims’ access to justice.
• North County Lifeline aims to stop human trafficking through prevention programs, such as Project LIFE, that help youth avoid becoming victims and intervention programs that help victims become survivors.
• Project Concern International will support an innovative public/private collaboration endorsed by the D.A. and County Office of Education, which will establish protocols and implement curricula in most of the 42 San Diego County school districts, to reach 100,000 students, 2,000 teachers/school staff, 3,000 parents.

These exceptional organizations are doing critically important work to address urgent needs in our community. As an SDWF member myself, I am deeply proud to support these life-changing programs. I am extremely grateful to all of our SDWF members for providing the funding, experience and insight that allow us to make these impactful grants.

All are welcome at our 19^th Annual Grants Celebration on June 5 – if you’d like to join us to celebrate community change and the power of women in philanthropy, register here. This event WILL sell out, so don’t wait!

And if you’d like to join with us in philanthropy as a member, or to learn more about SDWF’s work, please feel free to contact me at katies@sdfoundation.org.

Register for the Annual Grants Celebration