Ethical AI Education for Survivors of Human Trafficking

Raising $50,000active

Training survivors of human trafficking in ethical AI skills and connecting them to paid apprenticeships, turning technical training into sustainable tech careers.

Project Details

AnnieCannons' Ethical AI Education Program trains survivors of human trafficking to use AI responsibly and skillfully. This program is directly into our existing software engineering training and workforce development program. Participants learn to apply generative AI for coding, data analysis, and workflow automation, while also examining bias, privacy, data governance, and the broader societal impact of AI systems. We want to make sure survivors, a population historically excluded from the tech economy, are among the people building and shaping these systems.

Over the grant period, we will integrate an Ethical AI curriculum into 100% of our advanced training pathways, deliver AI upskilling workshops to 60 or more current students and graduates, secure 15 or more new employer partnerships offering AI or data focused apprenticeship roles, and place 40 or more apprentices into paid AI, data, or automation related positions. Participants complete program assessments measuring their AI knowledge, their ability to use AI tools responsibly and interpret outputs, and their confidence applying AI to real world tasks.

This work is carried out by AnnieCannons' instructional team, who design and teach the curriculum through a trauma informed lens, and by our students themselves, a group that is 90% women and 75% women of color, most of whom enter the program earning under $20,000 a year. Salesforce, IBM, and Masters.dev are core partners in this effort. They contribute to curriculum development, lead technical workshops and mentorship sessions, and online learning platforms.

The concrete output is a cohort of survivors who complete a fully integrated Ethical AI curriculum, gain hands on experience applying AI tools to real projects, and move into paid apprenticeships or direct employment with our partner companies. Our current apprenticeship program converts apprentices into full time hires at a 80% success rate. We want to continue to expand the number of students we serve and placements we can facilitate through these new AI-enabled roles.

Theory of Impact

Most AI harm that survivors and other marginalized communities encounter today comes from misuse, bias, and poor governance in deployed systems. By training people who have direct experience with exploitation and systemic harm to critically evaluate AI outputs, identify bias, and apply data ethics and human-in-the-loop principles, we are growing the pool of practitioners who bring a harm-aware lens into workplaces building and deploying AI tools. Diversifying who has a voice in AI development, particularly people who understand exploitation and power imbalance firsthand, is one important structural input into a healthier AI ecosystem.

People

Laura Hackney

Team Member

Grants Received– no grants recorded

Funding Asks

grantmaking.ai Launch Round

Applied

Minimum

$50,000

Ideal

$175,000

How the money will be spent

At $50,000, funding covers the core build-out of the Ethical AI curriculum and a scaled version of program delivery. At $175,000, funding covers full delivery against all of our targeted outcomes, including expanded employer partnership development and apprenticeship placement support.

At the minimum funding level, we prioritize integrating Ethical AI content into our advanced training modules, since curriculum development is a one-time cost that benefits every future cohort regardless of scale. This level supports delivering AI upskilling workshops to a smaller group of roughly 20 to 25 students, along with the technology access and licenses needed for hands-on coursework within that cohort. It also allows us to maintain and deepen our existing partnerships, and to support a smaller number of paid AI or data related apprenticeship placements. Evaluation at this level would focus on pre and post assessments for workshop participants.

At the ideal funding level of $175,000, we can deliver the full program as designed. This includes embedding the Ethical AI curriculum across 100% of our advanced training pathways, delivering workshops to 60 or more students and graduates, and extending technology access to all advanced pathway students rather than a single cohort. It also allows us to secure 15 or more new employer partnerships offering AI or data focused roles, and to support 40 or more paid apprenticeship placements with the coaching and employer coordination that placements require. At this scale, we can run full pre and post assessments across all participants, along with longer term outcome tracking, giving us a complete picture of impact.

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