Dear friends,
I’m writing to you in the darkest week of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. In many workplaces around the world, things are winding down before the holidays and people are looking forward to a bit of respite and quiet before entering the new year. Even in these shortest days, we know the sun will steadily return, bringing longer days and new beginnings.
Our own profession of trust and safety has a similar rhythm – periods of challenge and uncertainty followed by renewal and growth. When I took the helm at the Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA) and the Trust & Safety Foundation (TSF) four years ago this week, we were a year into a pandemic that forced virtually everyone in our field to learn how to work in completely new ways. In the intervening years, we’ve navigated widespread layoffs across the tech industry, new regulations and technologies shaping our everyday work, and, in many corners of the world, a political climate increasingly hostile to basic trust and safety practices.
But for as many ways as our community is tested, we see signs of hope and resilience everywhere we look. In our meetups and events, in the connections forged between members, in the way this community consistently shows up to support one another – there is a warmth that persists regardless of external circumstances, and an optimism that carries us continually forward
As 2024 draws to a close, we are reflecting on a year of growth, collaboration, and community-building. We had a record year for community engagement. We hosted our second-ever regional Summits in Dublin and Singapore, with a combined attendance of over 500 people. In July, we welcomed over 1300 attendees at TrustCon 2024 in San Francisco – nearly tripling our inaugural gathering just two years ago. We also had member-led community meetups in Hyderabad, London, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, and a TSPA-hosted meet and greet in Austin at SXSW.
This year, we also debuted a few new virtual event types. We partnered with the Workplace Wellness Project to offer a 3-part workshop series “Trauma-Informed Leadership Foundations Masterclass,” providing a confidential space for managers of T&S teams to learn how to better support teams exposed to trauma at work. We also introduced “Coffee, Cocktails, and Careers,” helping small cohorts of T&S professionals quantify their professional contributions for their end-of-year reviews. These more intimate gatherings have been so rewarding to create, and we’re looking forward to more of them next year!
All of this thoughtfully curated programming across our conferences, meetups, and virtual offerings is thanks to our Director of Community, Maggie Kerr; our Senior Program Manager, Kristy Kosak, and our Events and Communications Manager, Kristelyn Berry (with special thanks to our seasonal TrustCon admin Gabby Tangassi!)
Our research and convening initiatives through TSF have also flourished under the leadership of Research and Program Director Amanda Menking and Senior Program Manager Maia Levy Daniel. This year’s T&S Research Collaborative is exchanging ideas on community-building, tool development, and proactive wellness for frontline moderators, and helping moderators to understand and navigate changes amidst a shifting regulatory landscape. The T&S Research Coalition added two new committees this year: the Global Majority Research Committee (sign up for their new speaker series here) and the Tooling Research Committee, which will be inviting new members in early 2025. As we continue our work on the History of Trust & Safety project, you can check out our History of T&S public archive.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the work of TSPA’s Membership Manager, Ileah Vazquez, who diligently reviews the applications of each and every member of TSPA – and with over 2,000 active members, that’s a lot of time on LinkedIn! I’m also so grateful for the continued partnership of our Director of Organizational Development, Kaofeng Lee. Kaofeng manages all of our finance, sponsorship, and HR processes, and even if it’s not standard practice to mention the completion of an employee handbook in an end-of-year newsletter, I’m going to do it because it was a LOT of work from Kaofeng this year!
Finally, absolutely none of this would be possible without the support and partnership of the T&S teams at 35+ corporate supporter companies worldwide. We know that trust and safety budgets are always tight, and it truly means so much to us that they choose to invest some of their hard-won budget with TSPA every year. Their support pays our staff salaries, allowing us to develop and execute on everything you’ve read about in this letter and more. If your company isn’t on our corporate supporters page yet, we’d love to talk to you about how you can help contribute to this amazing community.
If you’re new here, we encourage you to stay connected to TSPA and TSF by signing up for our monthly newsletter and following our LinkedIn. Got some free time over the holidays? Pop over to our YouTube channel and rewatch our webinars. Ready to present at our events? Our Call for Proposals is open for both TrustCon and the EMEA Summit 2025. As always, we have a lot of exciting events in the works, so mark your calendar for the following events: TrustCon 2025 in San Francisco (July 21-23, 2025), EMEA Summit 2025 in Dublin, Ireland (May 6-7, 2025), and APAC Summit (October 2025).
2024 was a year—it has not always been easy, but my belief in this community and the strength of our team has never been stronger. As we continue this journey into 2025, it is such an honor and a privilege to serve this passionate and resilient community. Your support—whether that’s through feedback through our surveys, attending our in-person and virtual events, or signing up for a Coffee Chat—means the world to us.
Thank you for coming along for the ride in 2024 – I can’t wait to see what we build in 2025.
All my gratitude,
Charlotte Willner
