Encore Host Organizations
Beth Hassett, CEO – WEAVE
Ellen Powers, Encore Fellow
“We can't afford the people who have this kind of background. It's not entry level work, but it's hands
on client work and we don't always get the most experienced people. We got lucky with our Encore
Fellow.” – Beth Hassett, CEO WEAVE
“Supporting Beth and WEAVE on this mission to end violence has been the perfect way to give back as
well as begin what will likely be my final professional life’s bucket list item that I check off.” – Ellen Powers, Encore Fellow
WEAVE’s vision is that when everyone acts, violence ends, with a mission to promote safe and healthy
relationships and support survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and sex trafficking. Founded in
Sacramento, CA 1978, in 1988 they became the Rape Crisis Center for Sacramento County and in 2009
started serving victims of sex trafficking. With a budget of $11,000,000 this year, with 120 employees,
they exist to promote safe and healthy relationships because that's how to stop the victimization.
WEAVE’s direct services are safe shelter – they own a lot of their own housing – therapeutic counseling,
legal services, family law, and as a rape crisis center, they dispatch advocates to support victims
following a sexual assault. There is a focus on delivering prevention education, they have advocates
embedded all over the community to make it easy for people to get help, and they partner with five
different law enforcement agencies so they can do the follow up when somebody’s been victimized.
When Ellen Powers was looking for the next phase of her career, WEAVE’s mission resonated. And,
Ellen’s skills and passion for helping people build wealth and helping people get out of debt resonated
with Beth – that is exactly what WEAVE’s clients needed. WEAVE’s first priority is to ensure the
physical safety, safe housing, and availability of trauma counseling professionals for their clients. But all
too often, there will be financial abuse underlying a survivor’s physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
Having a focus on how to best support those financial needs helps survivors not have to return to their
abusers out of financial dependence.
WEAVE already had a good program with their Client Prosperity department that provides the case
management to remove barriers, to overcome whatever is keeping somebody from being housed on
their own. They were doing things like pulling credit reports and running workshops. But it seemed a
little haphazard in that it depended on the staff they had and what funding they had at any given time.
Having a dedicated financial literacy specialist to support staff and clients became the solution, and Ellen
jumped in to fill the role.
Ellen’s Fellowship has had a number of specific projects. She developed a resource booklet for the
community to instruct on how to better safeguard one’s financial life and identity both in the real world
and the digital one we all participate in online. This tool helps folks in need to take control through
constructive actions to set up self-protection, as well as connects them to valuable resources at the local
and state level that can help remove financial obstacles to escaping violence. She also continues to
make herself available on request to staff or survivors who want to benefit from one-on-one financial
literacy coaching and goal setting too.
In another example, Ellen suggested WEAVE staff could really benefit from a new 401K provider so Ellen
worked with the CFO and Chief People Officer, doing all of the interviews and reviewing all the options,
creating a 47-page PowerPoint slide deck documenting the entire process. She guided them towards
picking an improved offering, saving a lot of money both for the staff and also for the agency.
And an Encore Fellow brings more than specific skills. For example, it’s a big lift to go through the 68-
hour training that the state mandates to afford them confidential privileges, which is a big part of
keeping victims safe. But since the Encore Fellows make a longer commitment to the organization, the
first thing Ellen did was go through the training so that she has been able to work directly with clients;
not everybody has been willing to do that.
She became a great resource for our staff because many are early on in their careers, maybe aren't
saving as much as they should be. She can ask, why aren't you contributing to the 401K that we match?
She really comes at it from the client services standpoint point and bringing that enthusiasm really helps
our staff.
And Ellen is a really analytical person, so she looked for places where her skills intersected with what
WEAVE are already doing, to jump in to help. For example, there were some prosperity presentations
and resource booklets that someone had created that weren’t up to date or as efficiently accessible as
they could be. She thought, “I bet it could be organized to offer an improved learner experience,” and
she got to work.
Ellen would say that if you spent your career on someone else’s mission that you didn’t necessarily feel
passion for and now want to explore a passion project where all your contributions will directly support
outcomes you do care deeply about personally, the Encore Fellowship could be the right thing. You can
be choosey and design the next—perhaps last—chapter of your professional career in a way that sings
to your heart and leaves a lasting mark on a good cause, rounding out your legacy.
