LexisNexis and Polaris Project Pioneer Partnership

Polaris Project and LexisNexis announced an exciting new project last week: a comprehensive national database to assist in the operation of the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC), which runs the national human trafficking hotline for the U.S.  This project is a part of a corporate-nonprofit between NGO Polaris Project and corporation LexisNexis.  Partnerships like these are growing in the anti-trafficking world and seeing a lot of success.

I caught up with the masterminds behind this project, Ambassador Mark Lagon, Executive Director of Polaris Project and Elizabeth Rector, Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility for LexisNexis, to chat about their collaboration.

Amanda: Corporate-nonprofit partnerships like this one are still very new for a lot of anti-trafficking NGOs.  What made you seek out this particular partnership?

Elizabeth Rector: We were looking for authoritative voices on the problem of human trafficking to explore how we could help.  Polaris Project immediately understood that we were looking to be more involved than simply providing financial support.  Pretty quickly we identified the opportunity to use our information and analytics capabilities to build the national database.

Mark Lagon: Polaris Project knew LexisNexis cares immensely about rule of law and indeed fighting human trafficking.  They could offer qualitative added value to "the reach" of our national hotline.

ER: Since then we have found several opportunities where our skills can be useful.

Amanda: How will the database you are developing change the way Polaris Project finds and serve human trafficking victims?

ER: LexisNexis worked with Polaris Project to develop a new web-based system that allows all hotline employees to access the same information in real time.  The newly designed system allows Polaris Project call specialists to service those in need more quickly and provide up-to-date, accurate information about local resources and service providers.

ML:  Prior to this new national database, Polaris Project used a system of disparate spreadsheets, making it difficult to access, maintain and share vital information.   

Amanda: Corporations are more often associated with the problems of human trafficking, not the solutions.  Why has LexisNexis chosen to fight slavery and how is that important to the movement as a whole?

ML: LexisNexis is deeply devoted to rule of law, and fighting human trafficking is all aboutrule of law-punishing enslavers and empowering the enslaved.  Human trafficking victims are not being treated as equal before the law, but as subhuman.

ER: A couple of years ago it became evident that there was a strong intersection between the problem of human trafficking and weaknesses in the law.  We saw an opportunity to build awarenessfor the issue within the industries we serve, increase the capacity for lawyers to provide pro bono work supporting human trafficking victims and help our employees find opportunities to use their skills to help serve victims of human trafficking.   It's critical for NGOs to be thoughtful on how to engage corporations.  So often we get calls for money, but with very little thought about how we can use our products and specific expertise.

Amanda: What do you think will ultimately make this collaboration successful?

ML: Success has been built on principle and expertise - the principle of LexisNexis to share its comparative advantages with a crucial cause and the principle of Polaris Project as a leading catalyst of anti-slavery movement.

ER: Polaris Project was willing to invest the time to help determine how we could create a working relationship that involved financial support, in-kind donations and our people's volunteer time.

ML: Each has shared its expertise with the other: LexisNexis on managing information for bolstering justice and Polaris on the problem and anti-trafficking players and assets.

Amanda: Do you think corporate-nonprofit partnerships are the wave of the future of abolition?

ER: Collaboration among corporations, governments and NGOs is critical if we are going to make significant progress on this issue.  Each of us brings our unique skills to the issue and together these skills can do far more than any one of us could accomplish individually.

ML: Companies from importers of tainted supply chains; to users of shark-like, lying, usurious labor recruiters; to IT catalysts of the sex trade, like Craigslist, can stop being enablers.  Good and utterly untainted businesses, like LexisNexis, can contribute their comparative advantage to a Movement to abolish slavery.

Amanda: If you each had one wish for the other, what would it be?

ER: LexisNexis would wish for Polaris that every victim or person who witnesses human trafficking in their community would find their way to the hotline for help.

ML: I'd like the commitment of LexisNexis to serving justice - far beyond mere good PR - to be more widely known.