Love Justice’s transit monitoring method is uniquely positioned to provide a human trafficking prevention strategy that is both measurable and cost-effective; it is the only tangible preventative method that we know of.

We know that donors invest their money in order to make an impact. More impact is obviously better than less. While there are many ways to measure an NGO’s impact, we believe that cost per intercept serves as a concise and straightforward tool for us—and others—to judge our effectiveness. 

At LJI, cost per intercept is a three-year historic calculation that indicates to program staff and donors the cost to intercept an individual to prevent them from being trafficked. It tells us—and you—exactly what the impact is and sheds light on our ability to achieve our core value: Do much with little. Lastly, it helps drive decisions about where and how dollars invested can achieve the greatest impact.

While we report a three-year rolling figure, we measure this number monthly to internally push us toward greater impact.

This number is determined through three steps:

1. Determine the all-inclusive (direct spending, program execution, and fundraising/administration) investment we are making in our anti-trafficking work.
2. Assign that investment, proportionally, between the two measurable outcomes of our anti-trafficking work: interceptions and arrests.
3. Divide the total number of interceptions by the assigned investment.

At the end of 2021, our three-year cost-per-intercept number stood at $363. For about the cost of a monthly car payment, our monitors can prevent the exploitation of an infinitely valuable individual. Because this three-year calculation includes disruptions associated with a worldwide pandemic, it overstates the cost we would expect in a non-COVID world, as numbers from the last non-COVID year indicate (2019 - $205).

To learn more details about the cost-per-intercept calculation, and to see how the math works, click here.