Spero

How Spero came to be is truly a story for the ages. Back in 2016, Spero was just a dream of a guy in food sales. That guy was me, Jonah Traaseth. In 2016, working my first job out of college, I had the opportunity to share about my passion for human trafficking prevention with the owner of our company. Low and behold, just a few weeks after the initial conversation, the company owner heard about the grim reality of sex trafficking of girls in India at his local church service, and he asked me if I would be interested in seeing what we could do to prevent it if he would be willing to help fund the start of our nonprofit. Although at the time I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, I said yes without hesitation, quit my job, and Spero was born. With help from a team of my closest friends, I began to research and brainstorm the most effective ways to make an impact on the issue of trafficking in the worlds most vulnerable and under-served areas. After a year of conversations, meetings, networking, and vision trips, the team and I was humbled to see all of the incredible anti-trafficking work being done, but we also saw a glaring need in anti-trafficking work. Although great work was taking place, hardly anyone back home had ever heard of the organizations doing the work because they are in places that are not often on the radar of most donors.

It was out of this gap in the trafficking prevention cycle that we found our purpose. At Spero, we do a few things, and we do them very well. 1. We go to the under-served, underfunded areas of the world that are notorious for human trafficking, and we find the rock stars that are doing incredible work to stop it. 2. When we find these people and organizations, we spend time with them, vet them, and see that the work they are doing is effectively making an impact in the fight against trafficking. 3. When we’ve vetted them, we create a partnership where we create media that shares their story effectively to our network back home in the US. In the US, we are not short of generosity, however, we often neglect to take the time and make sure the projects we are donating to are responsible, and effective. Spero is the bridge that stewards responsible and effective generosity to under-served change makers fighting trafficking around the globe.