More About The Hotline Directory

​

KINDLY NOTE, OUR AGENCY IS A 100% VOLUNTEER NONPROFIT CORPORATION WITH NO PAID EMPLOYEES.

​

MISSION PHASE I

​

Our primary mission is to create the only database of all hotlines, helplines, text chat, and web chat services from scratch. We have chosen this mission because no such database exists.

​

Our database, which as of March 1, 2020, has over 20,000 services, is an easy to search, open-source, online directory. Our website, 4help.org, will include a developing wiki-style Resource Library of hotline related topics plus many other tools.

 

As of the Fall of 2022, we have over 500,000 listed hotlines.

​

Each hotline at 4help.org has its own dynamic webpage, containing collected data. Services can claim their pages and update them with several additional fields of data.

​

We will route callers to a hotline of their choosing with masked phone numbers (much like Uber and Airbnb use). Similarly, “click to call” and “click to text” tools will be available at 4help.org with masked phone numbers.

​

We are proud to tell you that Twilio.org donated our phone system. We are their FIRST pro bono project.

​

One reason for setting up #4Help is because there is no government oversight or regulations for the hotline industry. The industry has been exploding with new services for the past few years. We have accounted for in our database the ability to collect objective data related to each individual hotline's performance, such as:

​

• How many rings until pick up,

• Time on hold,

• Length of calls.

• Time between text chat replies (representing indications of handling over one caller or texter at a timer), and;

• Other such data.

​

We will make all data available to the public.

​

We are also collecting voluntary feedback from individuals that use our service about their experiences with hotlines and chat services. We appreciate that for this data to generate meaningful statistics will take more time. But should we be able to brand #4Help and 4help.org? The statistics generated will be unique and meaningful?

​​

Also, we will not accept advertising from hotlines. There will be no pay per click, search engine marketing (SEM) or any value to search engine optimization (SEO). This will place all hotlines and helplines on equal footing, regardless of their name or the size of their budgets.

​​

To meet our mission, since the summer of 2019, volunteers have been scraping hundreds of websites and collecting relevant data about thousands of governmental and nonprofit hotlines and helplines. We hope to list and be able to connect people in need to all (as many as possible) of the existing non-profit and governmental helplines and hotlines.

​​

We have included an "Add Your Hotline" form at 4help.org, and we have a team of volunteers continuing to search for more services to add to our database and continuing to edit and improve the data we’ve already collected.

​

MISSION PHASE II

​

We recently began using our Google grant and are slowly ramping up our Adwords campaign.

​

We have also devised a boots on the ground plan for helping us to get the word out about #4Help that entails soliciting help from as many high school students as possible.

​

Our plan includes National Hotline Volunteers Month, the first annual event will take place in October 2020.

We're hoping to find volunteers that are interested in assisting us with the following projects.

​

VOLUNTEER SUPPORT IS NEEDED SO THAT WE CAN ACHIEVE OUR TWO-MAIN PROJECTS FOR 2020

​

PROJECT #1: We're looking for feedback from volunteers about our outreach plans and for help with implementing it.

​

PROJECT #2: We also continue to need help to add hotlines and helplines to our database, while improving our structuring of categories and keywords to make searching easier and more efficient.

​

Please consider helping us with meeting our mission by joining us on one of these major projects.

​

We believe that if we're able to brand #4help and 4help.org, they will be life-changing instruments for millions of people in need. We also believe that our mission is unique, clear, concise, and doable.

​

Click here to contact Support Services with questions.