Meet Kelsey Morgan | EverFree CEO & Co-founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelsey Morgan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelsey, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
50 million people are victims of human trafficking today. Those who are forced, tricked, or coerced into trafficking are all ages, and no country is spared from the insidious reality of trafficking. Exit from exploitation is just the beginning of a survivor’s freedom journey. Freedom is a long-term process, yet less than 1% of survivors receive the care they need to prevent re-exploitation and to help them truly flourish. EverFree is on a mission to change this locally and globally.

Our work is focused on 3 main solutions:
Aftercare: We connect survivors with the individualized care and opportunities they need to heal and go on to live full, healthy lives. Our shelters and empowerment centers are in Uganda and the Philippines.

Prevention: We educate communities about human trafficking and exploitation to increase awareness of vulnerabilities, and empower them to take action to stop human trafficking before it starts.

Innovation & Scale: In 2023 we released The Freedom Lifemap, which is the survivor-informed and AI-enabled tech solution for the anti-trafficking sector. This tool ensures survivors access the support they need and tracks global insights about common vulnerabilities to trafficking so that we can stop trafficking before it happens. It’s currently deployed in 7 countries, including here locally.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My personal journey in anti-trafficking began over fifteen years ago. The issue completely broke my heart and changed my life. I accepted a job with an organization that was just getting started providing aftercare to young survivors of sex trafficking in East Africa. The lives of the girls who came into our program had been impacted in so many ways — trafficking negatively affected their physical health, mental and emotional wellbeing, connection to family and community, and educational and economic opportunities. I wanted to ensure that we were providing the best care possible. So I started searching— what are the models, what are the best practices? What does the research say? The search came up empty. So the team and I began building a model— we realized we needed to create a standard that has long been absent from the sector.

After a long winding road, I ended up back at UC Irvine (where I did my undergrad). I met with the Dean in hopes that we could recruit some grad students to help us build a tool that would connect survivors with the resources they needed and measure outcomes – ultimately I wanted to develop the standard of care and build the evidence base of what actually worked since neither existed. The Dean ended up walking me into the admissions office and enrolled me into the PhD program. I was terrified. I had been out of school for a decade and was already overwhelmed with the many responsibilities of running a growing nonprofit. But her belief in me and the support I received in the school was totally life-changing. It has not been easy, but it has been well worth it.

During that time, I gave birth to my daughter and saw our work at EverFree grow (thanks to a very supportive husband and family who made all of that possible). I feel so grateful to lead our organization as CEO. We have a team of 75 experts, survivor staff, and passionate employees. In addition to our staff, we have a global network of incredible people who make this work possible and are amazing advocates. Every day, our work stops cycles and systems of exploitation and gets quality care in reach of human trafficking survivors around the globe.

I want the world to know that change is possible, but it requires effort and commitment. The question we need to ask ourselves is what type of world do we want to live in? Personally, I’m not okay living in a world where millions of people are living in modern day slavery. I’m not okay with the reality that our supply chains are fueled by forced labor or that millions of children are being exploited. It doesn’t have to be that way. But for this to change, we need more voices and we need people to demand justice. We need to stop supporting companies that profit off of slave labor. We need to demand transparency and accountability, and we need to ensure those who have experienced exploitation have all the support they need.

We each have a responsibility to help. It could be through conscious decisions around how we shop, it could be by demanding more accountability of corporations, it could be by amplifying the stories of survivors and the work of organizations like EverFree. We can all use our time and our talents towards a world in which everybody, everywhere, is safe and free to live in dignity.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We’re so lucky to be around so many truly incredible art museums in Los Angeles. I love visiting The Getty and The Broad. And near LA, I’d also love to give a huge shout out to the Orange County Museum of Art. Their fabulous team actually collaborated with us on our art tour this year to exhibit photography from human trafficking survivors showing their lens and their definitions of freedom. Their Chief Curator, Courtenay Finn, has a heart of gold and is so talented! Art has immense power to bring us together and to move people into action.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Angela Robinson – Research UC Irvine Blum Center

Angela is the co-creator of the Freedom LifeMap tool. She’s based in Long Beach and is one of the most incredible, yet humble people you will ever meet. She’s an amazing mama to two kids, a brilliant writer and researcher, and has the most strategic mind. I’ve had the joy of traveling the world with her as we’ve validated and adapted our tool in seven different countries. And I am so blessed to work with both Angela and Richard Matthew (the Director of the Blum Center). The partnership between the University and EverFree is so special and one I’m grateful for every day. The work we are doing ensures that nonprofits working on the frontline not only have access to critical data to guide their work, but are co-creators with us.

Website: https://everfree.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everfreeorg/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/everfreeorg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everfreeorg

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@everfreeorg5209

Image Credits
EverFree