Chapter 8 - The Foundation That Changed A Million Lives
Two years after Daniel’s sentencing, the Hayes Foundation wasn’t just a nonprofit anymore—it was a movement. We’d expanded to 12 cities across the country, with a staff of 62 lawyers, forensic accountants, social workers, and financial educators. We’d helped over 1,200 women recover more than $78 million in assets stolen by abusive ex-partners. We’d partnered with 30 law schools to run free legal clinics for low-income women. We’d launched a free online financial literacy course that had been taken by over 200,000 women in 47 countries. And our Facebook group—now called Hayes Women: Win Your Life Back—had grown to 2.3 million members, a safe space where women shared their stories, asked for advice, and celebrated each other’s wins.
I spent half my time running the foundation now, traveling across the country to speak at events, meet with the women we helped, and lobby state legislatures to pass stronger laws against financial abuse in divorce. The other half I spent running Hayes Marketing Group, which was now a $50 million a year company with offices in New York, LA, Chicago, and Miami, 180 employees, and a client list that included some of the biggest brands in the world. Jake and I were still happy, living at Hayes Haven with the dogs, talking about getting engaged (but in no rush—we both knew good things took time). Dad had retired from the state, but he still came into the foundation’s office three days a week, volunteering as a fraud investigator, teaching the new accountants all the tricks he’d learned in 32 years on the job.
The biggest moment for the foundation that year was when we helped a woman named Maria Torres, a single mom from the Bronx who’d been married to a cop for 15 years. Her ex-husband had hidden $1.2 million in assets during their divorce—cash in safe deposit boxes, a rental property in Puerto Rico, a 401k he’d never told her about—convincing her he was broke, that she’d have to take $50k and be grateful. He’d also threatened to take their two kids away if she fought back. Maria had found our Facebook group, filled out our application for help, and we’d taken her case pro bono.
Dad and our forensic accountants spent three months digging through her ex’s finances, finding every hidden dollar, every secret account, every lie he’d told. We took the case to court, and after a two-week trial, the judge awarded Maria 100% of the hidden assets, plus full custody of the kids, plus $500k in punitive damages for the threats. When the verdict came down, Maria cried in the courtroom, holding her kids, and told reporters, “I thought I was gonna lose everything. I thought no one would believe me. But the Hayes Foundation fought for me like I was their own family. They gave me my life back.”
The story made national news. The White House called, asking me to come speak at a summit on domestic and financial abuse. Congress invited me to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the need for stronger federal laws to protect women from financial fraud during divorce. I testified for three hours, telling Maria’s story, telling my story, telling the stories of the hundreds of women we’d helped, asking Congress to pass the Financial Abuse Prevention Act—a bill that would require full financial disclosure in all divorce cases, make hiding assets a federal felony, and fund nonprofits like ours to help low-income women fight back.
The bill passed six months later, with bipartisan support. The president signed it into law in a ceremony at the White House, with me, Dad, Maria, and a dozen other women we’d helped standing behind him. When he handed me the pen he’d used to sign the bill, he said, “This law is gonna change millions of lives. And it never would’ve happened without you, Emily. Thank you for refusing to stay quiet.”
That night, we had a big celebration at Hayes Haven. All the foundation staff, all the company employees, Maria and her kids, Vanessa (who’d flown in from Austin for the event), Jake, Dad, Rita, everyone who’d helped us get to that day. We ate, drank, danced, and watched a video we’d made: testimonials from women we’d helped, clips from the trial, the White House ceremony, messages from women all over the world saying our work had changed their lives.
At the end of the night, after everyone had left, Dad and I sat on the back porch, drinking coffee, watching the moon over the ocean. He pulled out an old photo from his wallet: me, 22 years old, sitting in my dorm room, holding the first $500 check I’d gotten for Hayes Marketing, grinning like I’d won the lottery.
“I knew back then you were gonna do big things,” he said, smiling at the photo. “I just never thought it’d be this big. You didn’t just get your money back, Emily. You changed the law. You changed the country. You made sure no other woman has to go through what you went through alone. I’m so proud of you I could burst.”
I hugged him, tears in my eyes. “I only did it because of you. If you hadn’t told me to change those PINs that day outside the courthouse? Daniel would’ve gotten away with everything. I would’ve lost the company, the house, everything. You saved my life, Dad. In more ways than one.”
He patted my back, handing me the pen from the White House. “Nah. You saved your own life. I just gave you a little push. That’s what dads do.”
A week later, I got another letter from Daniel. This one was shorter, typed this time, postmarked from the same prison. He’d been transferred to a minimum-security facility for testifying against Vinnie Rizzo, he was taking college classes in business management, he was working in the prison library. He said he’d seen the White House ceremony on the news, that he was proud of me, that he was glad something good had come out of all the bad he’d done. He said he’d be up for parole in six years, that when he got out, he wanted to volunteer at the foundation, teaching men in prison about financial literacy and accountability, so they never made the same mistakes he had.
I didn’t write him back. I didn’t need to. His apology didn’t matter anymore. His offers to help didn’t matter. What mattered was the work we were doing, the women we were helping, the lives we were changing. What mattered was that I’d turned the worst thing that ever happened to me into the best thing that ever happened to thousands of other women.
That fall, we launched our biggest campaign yet: 10,000 Women. Our goal was to raise $10 million to help 10,000 more women over the next three years, to expand the foundation to 10 more cities, to launch a free app that would help women track their finances, find free legal help, and connect with other women going through the same thing. We hit our $10 million goal in 11 days, most of it in small donations from women in our Facebook group, from Vanessa’s followers, from people who’d seen my TED Talk, from strangers who just wanted to help.
On the day we hit the goal, I stood in the foundation’s New York office, surrounded by our staff, watching the donation counter tick over to $10,000,001, and everyone cheered. I looked out the window at the Manhattan skyline, thinking back to that day outside the courthouse, my hands shaking, thinking my life was over. I thought about the night of the Aurum House fraud alerts, about the deposition, about the trial, about Maria Torres crying in the courtroom, about the president handing me that pen.
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I smiled, turning back to the crowd. “Okay,” I said, raising my glass of champagne. “Let’s get to work. We’ve got 10,000 women to help. And I don’t know about you—but I’m just getting started.”
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