08/28/2023

Hello, SAFE community,

It has been an incredible year of meetups with you all! We have always wanted to create an open and flexible environment to meet the needs of survivors of spiritual abuse by offering education, support, and community. 

Financially speaking, it has always been important to the facilitators to NOT require attendees to pay to attend community meetups.

After much discussion, we would like to open a way for people to financially support our work if they wish to do so. Support comes in many different ways, and we don’t want anyone to feel obligated to financially donate. Your presence at SAFE meetings alone has meant so much – thank you for being a part of our community!

How are SAFE Meetups Funded?

Our SAFE meetups are mostly funded through a gift from Ken’s church, Grace Church, Portland. The church has generously supported our meetup rentals, incidentals, promotions, website, etc. since SAFE began years ago. The reason for this support is that so many survivors of spiritual abuse come through the doors of Grace Church that the congregation has developed a deep appreciation for the challenges and trauma faced by survivors. 

Pastor Ken and his family are survivors of 12 years of spiritual abuse at a church they left in 1996. Moreover, the congregation of Grace Church understands that spiritual abuse occurs in many religions and high-control groups, and it is not limited to the Christian religion. 

It is for that reason that Grace Church supports our SAFE meetups. There is no underlying motive of gaining members or converting people to the faith—just the desire to help out people who have been hurt. 

We usually overspend our budget for SAFE each year, and the deficit has been made up by a few private donors. 

Do SAFE Team Members Receive Payment From Meetups?

No. SAFE is primarily run by four volunteers - Ken and Sharon Garrett, Kent Burtner, and Ashlen Hilliard.

How will my Donation be Used?

With your support, we hope to:

1. Continue our rental of the Community Room for our meetups and explore adding time to our meetups. (Currently, we rent the room for 2 hours @$15/hour.) We’d like to add some time since we really enjoy hanging out after our meetings to chat with each other. 

2. Continue to fund our website, and to print invitation business cards to give out to people and to distribute around town. 

3. Build up the funds for a one-day conference sometime in 2024. We had such a conference in 2019, and it was a smashing hit! We welcomed over 70 people for a day of workshops, relationship-building, and lunch together. 

4. This is still in the “dream a big dream” bucket, but we (Kent, Ashlen, and Ken) have a longstanding hope of one day taking our SAFE meetups on the road, and hosting meetups for survivors of spiritual abuse in other cities.

So, if you would like to help out the SAFE cause through a financial contribution, your gifts are very welcome and will go towards those four things.

Are you Seeking 501c Status?

 We are presently a bit too small to obtain our own 501c status and are not really prepared to do so. 

How do I Make a Donation?

All funds that we receive will be processed through Grace Church, where SAFE has its own budget line, and are therefore tax deductible. If you would like to contribute by Paypal, please indicate your purpose in giving by writing “SAFE” in the notes of the transaction. Link to Paypal.

After much discussion and thought, we are moving ahead to open up this avenue of support. We have seen so much good come from our meetups, met so many beautiful people to share the journey with, and believe so strongly in the good in what we’re doing, and the continued need for it, that we are sure this is a good step for us to take. 

Warmly, 

Kent, Ken, Ashlen