Purpose
“We want to be where you are. We want to make it as easy as possible for people who are in pain to get help.”
The Crisis Text Line Story
Crisis Text Line was born “from the rib” of DoSomething.org, the largest organization for young people and social change. Dozens of DoSomething.org members were texting in to ask for personal help and CEO Nancy Lublin came up with the idea for Crisis Text Line and quietly launched in August 2013.
Within 4 months, Crisis Text Line was being used in all 295 area codes in the US. Two years later, Crisis Text Line spun out into a separate entity and Nancy went along with it.
Complete story detailed in this New Yorker article.
Our Principles
We fight for the texter. Our first priority is helping people move from a hot moment to a cool calm, guiding you to create a plan to stay safe and healthy. YOU = our priority.
We believe data science and technology make us faster and more accurate. See our Founder’s TED talk for more scoop on how we’re using this stuff. While we love data science and technology, we don’t think robots make great Crisis Counselors. Instead, we use this stuff to make us faster and more accurate–but every text is viewed by a human.
We believe in open collaboration. We share our learnings in newsletters, at conferences, on social media, on our blog, and at www.crisistrends.org.