How To Respectfully Engage Anti-Trafficking Grassroots Organizations

Building strong and strategic partnerships with key stakeholders in your community can increase the impact and help achieve your mission and goals.

1. Conduct a needs assessment of your community

• Gauge how many organizations in your area are doing anti-trafficking work
  • The referral directory on the human trafficking hotline provides a starting point to find contacts in your area. 
  • The Human Trafficking Task Force for your area will be able to offer guidance and support as well. 
  • Snowball method: Request information from the organizations you meet regarding their anti-trafficking community partners.
  • Keep an open mind about organizations that are not doing anti-trafficking work, but may be able to support your overall mission.
    • For example: If your overall aim is to provide outreach to public schools then partnering with the Education Board would be important.
• Supplement your list with the following information:
  
  • Best point of contact; method of contact (phone vs email)
  • Services provided by the organization
  • Number of survivors they work with annually (if any)
  • Referral service for healthcare needs (if they have one)
  • Hours of operation
  • Population served (including any demographic restrictions for clients such as age, gender, citizenship)
  • Fees and insurance information
  • Referral requirements

2. Once you have established the different organizations that are in your area then you can start to build partnerships with them

• Sometimes this entails “cold-calling” an organization and explaining your needs.
• Set up a time to discuss building a partnership
  • In this meeting - describe your practice, learn more about their organization, and seek ways to support each other.
  • Draft a letter of support (if needed)
    • To formalize your relationship and establish accountability.

3. Continually engage with your community partners as time goes on. Either touch base via email or phone once every 2-3 months.

4. Best practices for engagement

• Remaining humble in your discussions is very important. These organizations likely have been engaged in anti-trafficking work for years and can offer much advice and support.
• Some staff members of organizations may have experienced trafficking and exploitation in their past; keeping this in mind during your interactions will help you build more respectful and enduring relationships.
  • Be cognisant of questions you ask and the way you frame them. Be sure to describe the ways in which you plan to practice trauma-and survivor-informed care.

5. Writing a Memorandum of Understanding vs Letter of Support

• In some cases you may wish to formalize your partnership with the community organization; this can be done in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding or Letter of Support.
  • Key differences between the two have to do with the binding nature of a Memorandum vs a letter of support. If you are obtaining this document for grant writing, often a letter of support will suffice.
  • Examples of a Memorandum and a letter of support.

Toolkits for building community partnerships:

Engaging Your Community: A Toolkit for Partnership, Collaboration, and Action 
March of Dimes: Making a Community Partnership work