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More About The Hotline Directory

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

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MISSION PHASE I

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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.

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Our database, which as of March 1, 2020, has over 50,000 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.

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

  

By the end of May 2021, we plan to have our database connected to a voice recognition, geo-targeted IVR phone system, which will be accessible for free, by anyone searching for a hotline or helpline. Callers will dial #4Help (#44357) from any cell phone (or 855.4help.org from other phones) to reach our new service.

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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.

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We are Proud of our Unique Speech Recognition IVR Hotline Search System (In Development)

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The Hotline Directory is important 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 baked into our database the ability to collect objective data related to each individual hotline's performance, such as:

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• How many rings until pick up,

• Time on hold,

• Length of calls,

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

• Other such data.

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All data will be made available to the public.

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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 quite a bit of time. But should we be able to brand #4Help and 4help.org, the statistics generated will be unique and meaningful?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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MISSION PHASE II

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In the Fall of 2019, we began utilizing our Google grant and are slowly ramping up our Adwords campaign.

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

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Our plan includes National Hotline Volunteers Month, the first annual event which took place in October of 2020.

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

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VOLUNTEER SUPPORT IS NEEDED SO THAT WE CAN ACHIEVE OUR TWO-MAIN PROJECTS FOR 2021

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

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

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

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

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Click here to contact Support Services with any questions.