Winter 2025 Our Mission:
Bringing philanthropy to life for a stronger South Dakota.
2024 Bush Prize: South Dakota Winner Announced Call to Freedom South Dakota Community Foundation (SDCF) in partnership with the Bush Foundation is proud to announce Call to Freedom (CTF) as the 2024 Bush Prize: South Dakota honoree. This prestigious award honors extraordinary organizations that consistently engage and lead their community toward creative solutions. Bush Prize: South Dakota provides flexible funding, empowering recipients to bolster their reserves, explore innovative ideas or support initiatives that advance their impactful work. SDCF received 75 applications for the 2024 Bush Prize: South Dakota program. CTF received $500,000 to further its mission of bringing wholeness and healing to individuals affected by sex trafficking, labor trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Six finalist organizations (below) each received $10,000.
Bush Prize: South Dakota Finalists BLACK HILLS WORKS, INC. FACE IT TOGETHER, INC. LIFESCAPE ONE SPIRIT
LOVE, INC OF THE BLACK HILLS VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA NORTHERN ROCKIES
Based in Sioux Falls, CTF has developed a cutting-edge continuum of care model to offer individualized and specialized support to survivors as they move through the stages of emergency assistance, supportive services and transitional services. Because every survivor of trafficking is unique and requires a different mix of services CTF offers a variety of in-house experts in addition to a case manager for their clients. The model ensures that clients have a strong network of providers who can offer clients emergency housing, medical care, chemical dependency treatment, trauma counseling, job skill training and other services, ensuring the clients’ needs are met.
Presenting the ceremonial check to Call to Freedom for earning the Bush Prize: South Dakota are (from left) Malcom Chapman, Bush Foundation Grantmaking Officer, Eileen Briggs, Bush Foundation Grantmaking Director, Rachel Schartz, CTF Director of Grants Management, Becky Rasmussen, CTF President and CEO, Stephanie Judson, SDCF President and CEO, and Ginger Niemann, SDCF Senior Program Officer.
The cornerstone of CTF’s continuum of care model is Marissa’s House, which in 2023 earned gold-level certification from the Safe House Project, the national anti-trafficking nonprofit. It also received a specialized care badge in the areas of pregnant/ parenting survivors, ADA compliance and interpretation. Safe House evaluates programs against national standards set by industry experts. As one of nine gold-standard certified programs in the U.S., CTF has a long-term vision of taking their continuum of care model nationwide. “Trauma doesn’t fit into a convenient timeline. Victims can stay with us anywhere from two months to two years.” stated CTF President and CEO Becky Rasmussen, “It is our goal to be there for them as long as it takes to heal and to see moms reunited with their children. To hear a child thank us for believing in their mom…it is a true privilege for us to do life with the victims that walk through our doors.” CTF believes that no single organization has all the answers and resources necessary to combat human trafficking. They believe collaboration drives the heart of their work. So, when a community problem is identified they collaborate with the community members and experts who have a stake in solving the problem. By having community buy-in CTF believes in the likelihood of the project’s sustainability, but also the project’s success. Learn more about Bush Prize: South Dakota: SDCommunityFoundation.org/bush-prize-south-dakota
Call to Freedom’s CommUNITY Breakfast brings together over 1,000 South Dakotans in support of trafficking suvivors.
Learn more about Call to Freedom at calltofreedom.org