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our mission
We coach and train women survivors of sex trafficking to achieve independent futures through business development in Sacramento.
Rebuild and rise
More than just a business accelerator
We don’t just teach women how to start a business — we coach and train them to rebuild meaningful lives.
Rebuild & Rise blends personal development, mindset work, and real business training so women can grow from the inside out. Before we talk budgets or business plans, we help women shift limiting beliefs, build confidence, understand money and reconnect with their strengths.
Our Survivor-Led Curriculum Helps Women:
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Understand what is holding them back
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Shift into solution-based mindsets
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Reframe past beliefs and trauma around finances
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Build confidence by identifying their strengths
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Learn the importance of language and communication
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Dream big, start small with SMART Goals
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Practice time management, self-care, and accountability
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Use AI tools to make learning faster
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Develop and validate their business ideas
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Pitch their vision with clarity and confidence
What Makes Us Different
This is a survivor-designed pathway that meets women exactly where they are, builds their personal power, and gives them the tools to create income on their own terms.
After the 4-week course, we continue meeting weekly to map out next steps, maintain momentum, and keep each woman moving forward.
When a woman is ready and has an approved plan, we invest directly in her venture—providing tools, supplies, permits, and ongoing support to help her launch and grow.
What we know
43%
Of survivors live on less than $25,000 a year, even years after escaping.
Survivors find themselves stuck in survival mode with no way out. They can't see change. Old behaviors persist.
Many return to aid programs
Within 12–18 months many return to the system because low-wage jobs don’t support them.
The standard pathway
"job → stability"
model is failing survivors.
60%+
Experienced financial abuse, leaving them without savings, credit, or basic financial stability.
We help women heal financial trauma in addition to instruction on how to budget money.
WHY WE DO THIS WORK
Survivors want more than safety — they want a new way forward!
Traditional employment pathways fail many survivors because of:
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Criminal record tied to their trafficking past create additional barriers
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Low-wage jobs that don’t cover basic needs
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Destroyed credit, financial trauma, distorted understanding of money
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Overwhelm from systems that don’t meet them where they are.
Our solution: a survivor-designed pathway that builds confidence, economic power, and microbusiness ownership.
We Invest in success and new beginnings.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS A PROVEN PATHWAY TO STABILITY, DIGNITY, AND LONG-TERM FREEDOM FOR WOMEN.
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Most survivors face ongoing barriers in traditional employment—long gaps in work history, trauma triggers, criminal record stigma, unstable housing, lack of childcare, and rigid schedules that don’t match their realities.
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Data across Polaris and CalWORKs shows that survivors struggle to stay employed in conventional systems.
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Entrepreneurship offers control, flexibility, and real economic mobility. Women can set their own hours, work around healing needs, and build income at a pace that fits their lives.
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When traditional systems fail, women innovate.
Research shows women start businesses out of necessity and resilience—turning lived experience, creativity, and community support into sustainable income.
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Global Entrepreneurship Monitor GEM data consistently highlights women-led microenterprises as engines of recovery and empowerment.
Our Approach: Why It Works
"You can give someone a fish and feed them for a day, or teach them how to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime."
Instead of giving women one solution for one moment, we teach them how to create solutions for a lifetime. We don’t hand out a single “fish.”We teach women how to build the pond, stock it, and sustain it. Through mindset shifts, strengths-based coaching, and entrepreneurial training, we plant seeds of growth that last far beyond our program. Women learn how to build their own streams of income, strengthen their decision-making, and shift from survival mode to a solution-based, empowered way of living. These skills stay with them forever. They fuel progress, purpose, and the drive to create a brighter future—for themselves and their families.
STRENGTH-BASED COACHING & LEARNING MODEL
Survivor success grows when we focus on strengths, not deficits.
Our approach is grounded in the well-established Strengths Perspective, which shows that people thrive when their abilities, resources, and lived experience are recognized—not overlooked.
This is why we:
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Leverage every woman’s skills, talents, and lived experience as assets for rebuilding
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Help women set meaningful, achievable goals that build momentum and confidence
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Support independence and personal power through coaching, mindset work, and real-world practice
Strengths-based learning is associated with higher motivation, stronger identity formation, and long-term empowerment.
View our cited sources and related information
(916) 287-3312
92-2684779
Connect 2 Change is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.
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