Rebuilding in Uncertainty: Survivor Leadership as our New Foundation

Written by Minh Dang, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Survivor Alliance, and Lena Sinha, inaugural Director of The Life Story

Introduction

The progress we have made toward institutionalizing survivor leadership is at risk.

For decades, a robust, multidisciplinary community worked to build organizations and systems that respond to human trafficking and exploitation—creating pathways to safety, stability, and healing. Although we may not always recognize it, survivors have driven this progress, challenging systems to be more just, more effective, and more compassionate.

Survivors called on us for a fundamental shift in the way we do our work – asking for a meaningful seat at the table to create, plan, and implement interventions. When those seats were not offered, survivors created their own tables and mobilized resources separately. The mainstream took notice and the words ‘survivor leadership’ and ‘lived-experience’ ripple
through philanthropy and government. Unfortunately, we still aren’t seeing the financial investment or deeper shifts called for by survivors.

We are at a moment of reckoning. We are in a critical time for transformational change and have an opportunity to shift power and rebuild the foundation of social justice work. We do not want to rebuild with the same materials. We want to see survivor leadership as a key ingredient in every building block and this means we need to think differently.

A Continuum of Support: From Crisis to Financial Independence

Historically, support for survivors of trafficking and exploitation focused disproportionately on short-term, crisis intervention, with most resources going towards people under age 18. The focus on minors often overlooked the developmental needs of survivors as adults. While immediate shelter and safety are crucial, this model doesn’t address the long-term effects of trauma or foster economic independence. While programs are shifting toward longer-term support, they remain in the minority.

Survivors need more than job search skills—they need long-term support that helps them sustain employment, develop careers, and build financial stability. A shift to economic independence as a core focus, alongside  meaningfully healing from trauma, is necessary. The Employment Programs Report by Survivor Alliance highlights the gap between job
search skills and job sustainability, underscoring the need for consistent  programming that empowers survivors to thrive, not just survive. Without this, we risk creating systems that are too narrow and too temporary.

Integrating Survivor Leadership: Avoiding Tokenism

It’s time to redefine how we integrate survivor leadership into organizations. Too often, survivors are invited to participate in advisory roles or consultations, only to be sidelined when the project is over. This tokenism is not only disempowering—it’s also ineffective. Survivors must be embedded in the heart of the organizations that serve them, not just brought in when it’s convenient.

Full-time roles for survivors should be the norm, not the exception. Survivors bring complex, multifaceted expertise shaped by their lived experiences. Just like veterans or people with disabilities, survivors face unique challenges, which should be considered as they are asked to contribute meaningfully to their communities.

It’s critical to provide ongoing support for survivor leaders, allowing them to be full participants in every stage of the work. By integrating survivor leadership at all levels—staff, policy, program design and implementation—we build more inclusive, effective systems that reflect the communities they serve and are grounded in real-world experience.

Direct Service and Survivor Leadership: A Partnership, Not a Conflict

There’s a misconception that direct service and survivor leadership are separate tracks—either you provide immediate help or you empower survivors to lead. In reality, these two aspects of the work should go hand in hand. Survivors, even when negotiating their own trauma, are not helpless—they are deeply knowledgeable about what works and what doesn’t.

Survivor leaders are already consultants, NGO leaders, advisors, and organizational staff, advising organizations to rethink their approach to deeply complex and nuanced challenges. Survivors should not have to choose between receiving help and leading change.

A sustainable, survivor-led approach means holding the both/and of survivorship: we can be both deeply impactful and still need support. That is the case for survivors of all kinds of trauma and should not be an exception for survivors of exploitation. We also need to ensure that survivor leaders who work in our sector do not fall back into precarity. Not only is that harmful for the individual, it is a disservice to the larger movement.

Addressing the Need for Living Wage Compensation: Economic Independence

A significant barrier to survivor leadership in nonprofits is inadequate compensation. One reason that survivors are drawn into consulting roles or part-time jobs is simply because the nonprofit sector doesn’t offer competitive wages. This creates a cycle where those doing the critical work are financially unstable and may feel forced to take other jobs to make ends meet.

This is especially problematic when these workers are already contributing their lived experience to the mission. We need to push philanthropy and nonprofit organizations to ensure that employees are paid at the same level as any other highly valued professional role. If organizations want to build long-term, sustainable impact, they must invest in people, not just programs.

A salary that reflects the value of lived experience and public service ensures that survivor leaders can focus on their work and achieve some balance in their lives without financial stress. Ultimately, paying competitive wages is both an ethical decision and a strategic one that strengthens organizations and systems.

Creating Healthier Workspaces: A Culture of Equity

We cannot ignore the intersection of economic exploitation and institutionalized oppression in our workspaces. Survivors have often experienced severe economic exploitation, and if we are to create truly supportive environments, we must ensure that our workplaces reflect fairness, equity, and dignity.

Survivors should never feel that the work they do is another form of exploitation. To address this, we need to create workplace cultures that prioritize the well-being of all workers, particularly those with lived experience. This means ensuring a workplace that acknowledges and actively works against institutionalized oppression of all forms.

Creating healthier, more equitable workspaces will foster a culture where survivors, as well as others from marginalized communities, feel valued as leaders and contributors, not just as clients or sources of experience. To do so, we need to commit to internal reflection, ongoing training, and policy changes, and to ensure we are not reproducing the systems of harm we are trying to dismantle.

Conclusion

Meaningful inclusion of survivor leadership doesn’t happen overnight. Systemic change is uncomfortable and messy, but right now, we have a rare and urgent opportunity to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to survivors.

Survivors know the truth in ways that others cannot: they know the gaps in support because they have fallen through them, they know the policies that fail because they have experienced the consequences, and they know what healing and justice feel like, because they have had to, and continue to, fight for them.

We did not want to get to such a precarious place in this movement – but here we are. We have a responsibility to center those who have lived through the harms we seek to address. We can either rebuild the same harmful and inequitable systems, or we can build something new – something rooted in equity, dignity, and the leadership of survivors.