[Unified Purpose] Tracy DeTomasi from Callisto Ep 12

Shannon (Host): Hello everyone and welcome to Unified Purpose, the podcast where we share inspiring tales of compassion, resilience, and community spirit. I’m your host, Shannon, Penji’s partnership coordinator, and I’m joined here today with a very special guest, Tracy DeTomasi from Callisto. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Tracy DeTomasi: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

About Tracy and Callisto

Shannon: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself, about Callisto and everything that you think would be relevant for how you got to this point? And yeah, anything you’d like to share?

Tracy DeTomasi: Yeah, of course. So, again, thank you so much for this opportunity. Really excited to be here. I am actually a licensed clinical social worker by training. And I have been working in the field of gender-based violence for 25 years now. I started my career as a therapist for adolescent sex offenders. And so I started on the offender side and then I worked with kids for a long time and I ran a domestic violence shelter and eventually I wanted to do more in prevention and culture shift, and so did some of that work as well.

Three years ago I became the CEO of Callisto. And that was because after all of the years of working in gender-based violence, there weren’t a lot of solutions. We were helping survivors and victims come out of really terrible situations and heal, but we weren’t stopping the problem. And the problem is with the perpetrators. We so often have figured out that we focused on how can victims prevent harm rather than focusing on perpetrators who are causing harm and preventing them from doing the harm, because that’s the only way that we’re gonna stop this epidemic that we have of sexual violence.

So I was really excited to be a part of Callisto. And that is because we have created this really incredible technology.

How Callisto’s Technology Works

Tracy DeTomasi: Our technology allows survivors, if they’re wondering if their perpetrator has harmed somebody else, they can find that out through a very safe way using our technology. So our technology is end-to-end encrypted. And what that means is that all of the information that a survivor puts into the system is encrypted prior to being saved on our servers. And it is safe and it is secure and they’re the only ones that can have access to most of the information.

So a survivor, if they’re looking to find out if their perpetrator has harmed somebody else, they can create a free account if they have a .edu email address. So anybody in the US in its territories with a .edu email address has free access. They create an account and what they do is they put in the state where the assault occurred. That’s because sexual assault laws vary by state, and then they put in a unique identifier of their perpetrator. So the perpetrator’s social media handle, email address, phone number. There’s about 12 or so criteria that we have, and they can put in as many as they know, and that’s what we use to match on.

So if two people put in the same Instagram handle, for example, of their perpetrator, there’s gonna be a match. Now, it’s not like a dating site, so they’re not gonna know immediately that there’s a match. But what happens is that we find out that there’s a match and we can only see part of the information. So we cannot see the survivor name, and we cannot see the perpetrator information. And that’s really to protect the survivor and also to protect the named perpetrator as well, because we wanna keep it all as confidential as possible. And a lot of lists that are just databases or whatever get shut down for defamation, and so we’re trying to prevent that.

The Legal Options Counselor Process

Tracy DeTomasi: What happens is, is that we assign that case to a legal options counselor, and the legal options counselor is a trauma informed confidential advocate so they can also not share any of the information that’s told. They then reach out to the survivors individually who have matched and tell them that there’s been a match in our system. And if the survivor wants to connect with them, they can. The survivor doesn’t have to. We make sure that the survivor leads the way throughout the entire process and that they are in the driver’s seat.

If the survivor does want the counseling services, they connect with the legal options counselor and they tell them what happened to them, and that’s the first time they have to explain what happened to them. Because we know that repeating that trauma can be very difficult for survivors, and then they get fairly high level advice about what’s criminal, what’s the difference between criminal court and civil court and how do they pursue those? Or do they even have a case and what is that gonna look like?

They can talk to the legal option counselor maybe about what happens if they blast their perpetrator’s name on social media and what are the legal ramifications of that, whatever it is that they wanna know. And then if it’s safe to do so after going through the risks, the legal option counselor will connect the survivors if the survivors consent to doing that, and then that means that they would be able to pursue healing and justice, whatever that means for them together.

We do not investigate the cases. We do not represent the survivors in court. It really is about connecting those survivors for them to make the decisions that are best for them so they can use the system whether or not they’ve reported. We do not report to police. We do not report to Title IX. We are really just about connecting those survivors.

Why Callisto Exists

Tracy DeTomasi: A lot of people ask why we exist. Well, 90% of sexual assaults on college campuses are committed by serial perpetrators who on average offend six times while in college. And so if we can connect two survivors and there’s accountability after two, which is too many, of course, but that can potentially prevent four survivors from being assaulted. And if and when we are super successful at what we’re doing, we can reduce college sexual assault by 59% with this model.

We are growing. We need as many people to know about it as possible because the more people that know about it, the more effective we are. And the perpetrator doesn’t have to be associated with the college at all. It can be anybody that has assaulted somebody, because less than 10% of survivors report to Title IX or to the authorities at all, because reporting is really challenging, and I think a lot of people think that reporting is like an episode of Law and Order, SVU and it is definitely not. That is very much fictional and the reality is very challenging. Very retraumatizing. And so if somebody has the ability to go through that with somebody else, there’s a higher chance of the perpetrator being held accountable and the survivor being believed, and the survivor really understanding that what happened to them was not their fault.

The Importance of Survivor Agency

Shannon: That is incredible. I really love the idea, like the whole confidentiality aspect of it. Of course, we want these cases to be confidential, but everything that you have seeded into this process that allows all of the choice to be up to the survivor is so unique and wonderful because I think that a lot of things do not work for everyone. Right. And I think that a lot, it’s terrifying to be part of this process.

I think even as easy as you make it, I think even for people to admit that something happened to them is already so hard. So to be able to go through this process, know that they have a choice in every step of it and how it goes is really wonderful.

Especially, I think that the biggest, sometimes the biggest fear that people have is that people are going to know that it happened regardless, like even though they don’t want it to happen to someone else again, because it’s just, it is terrifying. I think that’s why a lot of people don’t go through Title IX or different things like that solely because they don’t think they’re going to be believed, and then other people will have a certain opinion of them or whatever it may be, and they’ll just have to rethink about this situation over and over again, especially through trials.

That’s absolutely a whole thing to just be able to simply connect to another person, whether they choose legal action or not, is just such a wonderful thing to be able to do. I think that that is really healing in itself. If they don’t want to go through that entire process, they can at least do that, and that is, it’s so wonderful to be able to do all of that and to also get legal advice on top of it.

Tracy DeTomasi: You know, it’s so important for survivors to be in control of all of it because the whole thing about sexual assault is that they weren’t in control and they were violated and their agency was taken away. And we don’t want to do the same thing. And oftentimes the systems that are meant to support survivors do the exact opposite.

Whisper Networks vs. Confidential Systems

Tracy DeTomasi: In the past we can see that a lot of times women in particular have created a whisper network. So there’s ways to warn other people about who the creeps are in the office or who the creeps are on college. But a lot of those lists or social media pages get shut down. They get sued, or they’re not super effective.

And the other part is that in the past and even now, journalists are doing this work. So if you look at the case of Larry Nassar, who was the USA gymnastics doctor who has been put in prison for hundreds of years, which is great. He assaulted girls for over a decade and was reported on numerous occasions to both Title IX at Michigan State University and to police.

And until there was a reporter at the Indianapolis Star, I think it was, that wanted to do a story on it, and somebody called in and said, “I know that I’m not the only one and I’m going to use my name.” And her name was Rachel Den Hollander. And she was brave enough knowing the risks of putting her name out there to say her name, and that encouraged other survivors to come forward.

Even in the process, if you go back and you watch the victim impact statements, there were so many people that continued to add because the voice of one, the voice of two, the voice of 10, the voice of 80, really inspired others to be brave and to say, I can speak out too, and it gave them a different level of being loud about what happened and putting that on Larry Nassar and not owning that anymore.

But with that journalist, you’re not protected. It’s not necessarily confidential and the perpetrator has to be somebody worth reporting. And that’s not always the case. And so if we can connect folks before it becomes a public story where they’re scrutinized, that can be really impactful and empowering for survivors, and it leads to justice quicker.

I mean, imagine if survivors in the early two thousands were to get together, it would’ve prevented so many assaults that Nassar did. If he was held accountable after five people came together in the early two thousands, he never would’ve assaulted 95 to a hundred and however many people, and that would’ve been amazing.

And I do wanna be clear, it is never a survivor’s responsibility to protect others from a perpetrator. It is not ever. It’s great when it happens, but it’s also not their responsibility. That person is the person doing the damage.

Shannon: Absolutely. And I agree it sometimes is re-traumatizing to be able to have to explain that something happened to you and talk about it. And to tell other people whether they believe you or not, which is also another thing that people factor in. I agree with you.

Security Measures

Shannon: I actually, and maybe this is me being like pessimist, but I was wondering, are there any fail safes for someone interacting with this that is not a survivor, but a perpetrator?

Tracy DeTomasi: Absolutely. I mean, you know, we have thought so long and hard about all of this. And Jess Latt is our founder. And she had this idea in 2013. And so we’ve been working on this for a long time and we had different technology and just like any type of technology, you try one and you realize it doesn’t work as well as you thought it was. And then you have to shift gears.

So we launched the pilot for the technology that we have now in about 2020, 2021 in the fall. The pandemic kind of had other plans for us, of course, as it did for everybody else. And then we launched nationally last year, or, well, I guess October of 23.

But in all of that, we know that perpetrators are gonna try to find themselves. And so they’re gonna try to put themselves in. And that is why we have that human component of a legal options counselor. That’s one of the reasons why it’s not like a dating site where you don’t get to know that there’s a match right away, because we’re looking at that. Humans are looking at that to make sure that that’s not happening and that’s why they meet individually first.

And so if a perpetrator wants to put their own name in to find somebody, they’re gonna have to sign consent forms, they’re gonna have to verify their identification. They’re gonna have to make up a story and tell a story. And then they’re gonna have to be able to consent to connecting with the other survivor. And the other survivor has to agree to that. So many steps to protect that.

Like, if a survivor’s like, “Well, I just don’t want to know,” they don’t have to. They can meet with the legal option counselor and never connect with the other person. That is totally fine. Because it’s just sometimes a matter of knowing that yes, this does exist.

And there’s a lot of other fail safes that we have in the system that I’m not gonna talk about for security reasons. But we have thought long and hard about that on a lot of different levels because connecting the survivors, there’s a lot of legal risks in that, that, again, we’ve thought through.

Connecting is not gonna be the choice for everybody. It’s not gonna be the right choice for everybody. Sometimes it might impact a case, sometimes it won’t. And so they get that information and it’s the survivor’s choice to take the risk that is right for them. And we explain all the risks, and we give informed consent to make sure they know what the risks are before they make that decision. But ultimately, it is the survivor’s decision.

Empowering Survivors

Shannon: As it should be. I think that’s incredible that you’re empowering the survivors to be able to make their own decisions rather than push them to do something that is maybe not for them. I think that that is a lot of maybe I don’t know if I should say services like this, but I think there’s a lot of opinions out there of like what a survivor should do and like the course of action in which they should take after something happens. And I think that, that there’s not a one size fits all for everyone. That’s very important to acknowledge. So I do, and it’s very nice to see that that’s a level in which you’ve acknowledged and have held to importance.

Tracy DeTomasi: Every survivor’s different and every survivor has different needs and situations. Every courtroom is different. Every district attorney is going to prosecute these cases differently or even they may not wanna prosecute. There’s some district attorneys that just refuse to prosecute a lot of sexual assault cases. So it really depends on the location, the school, the county. All of that. And that’s a decision that this survivor has to make for themselves.

And we do know that people are like, “Well, if you’ve got this list of perpetrators, you need to go and investigate them and hold them accountable.” And that’s not our job. That’s not the survivor’s job. We’re about healing and we know that that will lead to justice as well. And we let the survivor define both of those for what’s right for them, because they are the experts on their own life.

Shannon: It would be insane and horribly violating to seek action against perpetrators that the survivors did not give you permission to do. That makes no sense. It is very nice to see that you’re empowering these individuals to be able to look at what they wanna do and be able to sort that out. I think that’s very valuable.

Campus Ambassadors

Shannon: Switching gears a little bit, because I’m curious about other sides of this. So you collaborate with students on campuses and have like ambassadors. How do you choose these individuals? How do they kind of participate and how do you train them in what they do to be, I’m sure, sensitive in a way that they have to, to spread this message?

Tracy DeTomasi: A lot of times they choose us most of the time. So you can go on our website at projectlisto.org and you can find our ambassador program. And basically it’s a volunteer program for students to get involved and to spread the word about Callisto on their campus.

And they fill out an application. And we just wanna make sure that they really have the time and the capacity to do this because it’s not easy work because it’s continually re-traumatizing and triggering potentially for certain folks that are doing this. And so we have survivors and we have allies, both that are working to spread the word.

And we give them training so they understand how to use Callisto, all the ins and outs about it, the language to use around it. We can give them brochures and information. And we do have an online toolkit that anybody can download free on our website to be able to spread the word and we give them support if they’re trying to go up against administrations that don’t want students to have access or to know about Callisto.

And it looks different on every campus. You know, again, just like any survivor, we know that every campus culture is different and it’s about what works for that ambassador and what works for their school. And so some ambassadors go to every dorm meeting and tell every dorm meeting about Callisto. Some go to Greek life and they talk to all the sororities and fraternities about Callisto. Some get the student government involved and get us as a resource put on their websites and everything like that.

So it can look different for each school. And so if you have listeners out there that are interested in spreading the word on their campus, definitely check out our website because it is really important and survivors trust their peers. And so the first person that most survivors tell is their friend or their RA. And so we wanna make sure there was one survivor several years ago that said at least one person in every friend group needs to know about Callisto. And we couldn’t agree more.

Statistics and Awareness

Tracy DeTomasi: Because one in four women, one in 15 male students and one in five transgender students will experience sexual assault. That’s a lot. So you don’t go into college thinking “I’m gonna experience sexual assault, or one of my friends is gonna experience sexual assault,” but the probability is very, very high. And knowing what to do and how to respond and the resources that are available when your friend tells that to you or when it’s happened to you is really important.

And people don’t wanna talk about it, but it is really important. And if you have somebody that you already know is advocating for that on your campus, that can be healing just knowing that there’s others that are speaking out about it.

Shannon: I 100% agree. I think there was things like this going around when I was in college at Temple University. And there were Instagram accounts where people would post, but it was very helpful to be honest. It was extremely helpful for staying away from certain people and looking out for things. But of course they were shut down, I think. Very often there were like new ones made every now and then, but I think that it was very difficult to manage finding them. And not everyone had access to them because they’re not, you know, you don’t publicize them. So I think that was very difficult.

Also, having a private account and knowing who to accept into the account. It’s very difficult to have social media around one of these things. So I think that having the different levels of like ambassadors and then the next step and then the next step and then the next step I think is really helpful to be able to, again, put choice in the survivor’s belt, but also be able to connect with someone first and then kind of move along the cycle of however they want to do it.

Whereas you can’t really connect with a post. You can connect and feel maybe some kind of healing from the idea that this happened to someone else, but sometimes that doesn’t really make someone feel better. It almost makes them feel worse sometimes because, wow, this happened to someone else and I can’t get in touch with them. So getting in touch with them is like a big part of it.

Tracy DeTomasi: And, you know, Temple University huge. Shout out to our Callisto ambassadors at Temple University. We have a bunch there that’s amazing. And they are incredible about spreading the word. They’re led by Ray Epstein and she is such a rockstar. So huge shout out to our Temple University ambassadors because they’re doing a lot of amazing work on that campus.

Shannon: I love Temple. I really loved going to that school. There’s a lot of communities that really support things like this and it was really nice to know that that was there. Even if it wasn’t super accessible at the time.

Expanding Beyond College Campuses

Shannon: But yeah, so I appreciate that you do that at college campuses specifically. Is there any other place you’re trying to tap into outside of this? Because I know that you specifically mentioned that you have to have an EDU in order to like sign up for this service. I understand that that’s a very big place in which this happens statistically. But this does happen everywhere as we both know. Are you thinking about doing that in other places or are you strategically focusing on this space because of how much it happens?

Tracy DeTomasi: That is a question that we get all of the time. And we are looking to expand beyond .edu and beyond academia. Right now about 21 million people have access, you know, between students, professors, alumni. If you have access to your .edu, you can use our system for free.

Eventually we would really like to expand. A lot of it is resources and funding. And so the more funding we can get, the more we can spread the word and then the more we can go into different markets. And that is definitely in our three year plan and we’re working on it actively. And it really comes down to resources.

Funding Challenges

Tracy DeTomasi: You know, funding for sexual assault organizations is not readily available. Unfortunately, less than 2% of all philanthropic giving goes to women and girls issues. And you figure that breast cancer awareness a lot of times is roped into that 2%. So Susan G. Komen, which everybody knows that name is also part of that 2%. And so if you think about that, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of funding.

Shannon: That is because that gets an incredible amount of funding as far as I’m aware, like not in comparison to a lot of other things, but as a general whole. So that probably makes up the majority of what’s going to that percentage.

Tracy DeTomasi: It is, you know, a lot of corporate giving. They don’t wanna attach their name to sexual assault. Everybody says they wanna solve it and then until the rubber meets the road and then they’re like, “Oh, but we can’t attach our name to that, or, that’s not how we wanna do it.” Or, ’cause they have to recognize that they have offenders in their mix. And so that becomes really controversial. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

And so it’s just really challenging. And so the more funding that we can get, the sooner we can expand and give access to more and more people because it’s just gonna improve the matches that we got. Because we know offenders don’t stop in college. We know that they’re gonna continue to offend, they’re gonna go to the workplace, they’re gonna sexually harass folks. And if we have this web of networks that we can get more and more information put in it, the more perpetrators that we can hold accountable.

Shannon: No, I think that’s incredibly important and I’m happy that that’s something that you guys are looking into. I think that it is really great to start somewhere, and especially focusing and honing in on a group I think is really important. Especially if it’s the fact that you’re focusing on earlier on, I mean, if there is legal action and it’s successful at that time, then of course they’re not going to do it in the future because they’re not – their agency is taken away.

But I think that, yeah, of course, like if there isn’t legal action, even at that level, of course, that it might continue to happen. So, looking into that, do you have any kind of plan for the possible current administration maybe making money towards these issues even less than they already are?

Concerns About Future Funding

Tracy DeTomasi: Nonprofit leaders across the globe, honestly, are very nervous right now. ‘Cause of the funding cuts that have been announced and then paused. And we’re really worried about the Office of Violence Against Women, which is a massive funder for gender-based violence, that that funding is gonna go away. And that funds a lot of local rape crisis centers, a lot of domestic violence shelters.

We don’t get federal funding, but that’s going to be a ripple effect. And so we’re definitely worried about that. And we’ve been talking about that as a staff, as a board of how to prepare for that and what we want.

What we’re relying on is amazing people to donate. That’s what’s gonna keep us afloat. That’s what’s gonna keep this whole movement going because we need people, we need survivors. We need folks that care to really help move not only Callisto, but any organization in this space forward. Because these cuts are coming and we know that they’re gonna be big and we don’t know exactly how to prepare for all of it because it’s so chaotic right now. But clearly the administration, sexual assault is not their priority.

Shannon: Women don’t seem to be their priority either. I just was wondering, I know that it’s really scary right now. I do worry. So I really hope that everything is okay and I really wish you guys good luck in whatever is coming our way.

But I do think that I’m happy that there are people that are donating to these causes that are outside of federal funding. I think that especially people that are participating and volunteering that don’t involve money or funding them, which is really great. I know training must cause some amount of money, but it’s really nice to have people involved in the service as well. But because it’s technology based, you must have to put in a certain level of funding into a lot of this.

Tracy DeTomasi: I mean, it’s not – we have a very minimal budget, but it still costs money to run an organization and to do the technology and to provide the services and to do the outreach and all of that.

Callisto’s Survival Story

Tracy DeTomasi: And we did face a funding crisis in the fall of last year and we were gonna close like it was happening. And it was awful. And the most stressful period that I’ve been through in my career. But in the end, survivors said absolutely not. This resource is way too important and they started to donate. And we got massive support from Arnold Ventures to keep our doors open. And we’re still partnering with them and it was really overwhelming in the best way possible to watch survivors say, “Not on my watch.”

And so we know that there are so many people out there and that kind of momentum needs to carry on through the next four years. Again, not just for Callisto, but for all organizations because these services are gonna go away.

And the more we can do to prevent them now, like you said earlier, we can prevent people from getting into power in the future if we hold a 19-year-old student accountable and set that person on a different trajectory where they’re not gonna be continual perpetration into their adult life. That can have generational impact.

And we have to start somewhere. We’re not gonna solve it all overnight, but it is really important that we can start that now. So we can see in 10 years, in 20 years – I’ve been doing this work for 25 years. The numbers haven’t changed significantly, and it’s because we haven’t addressed the issue at the source. And we haven’t had the funding to do so collectively.

A little tangential there, but it is really important – if people want these resources, ’cause we give them for free. We do not want to make survivors pay for something that happened to them. But it takes the whole community to really support this work. And even $5 helps. $5 a month, be a reoccurring donor is really key and helpful. And if you can donate more, that’s even better.

Closing Thoughts

Shannon: I think that is a really great message to end on and I hope that a lot of our viewers consider that and consider donating because I think this is a lovely cause and I really do think it’s so unbelievably important. So thank you so much for coming in here and sharing your message and sharing about Callisto. ‘Cause I do think that this is really important work and I hope that I see more people interacting with any organization that does something like this, but specifically yours. ‘Cause I think this is a very unique way of tackling it and I do appreciate how much you empower survivors.

Tracy DeTomasi: Well, thank you so much. And again, thank you for spreading the word. People can help if you just go to our Instagram or LinkedIn and follow us at Callisto on Instagram and sharing our message and telling people about us really helps spread the word. Even if you can’t donate, all of that really helped support our work.

Shannon: I really appreciate that and I will definitely be doing that. And your website and everything that is posted will also be featured in this. So I hope that everyone can check it out. And thank you again so much for joining me and thank you everyone for listening and or watching. Do not forget to see other episodes like this and learn about other organizations doing good like Callisto. Thank you so much and have a good day.

Tracy DeTomasi: Thank you.

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