June 16, 2016 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Borrowing from Silicon Valley’s playbook, Crisis Text Line has raised $23.8 million in unrestricted contributions to finance its growth — winning support from some of the biggest names in technology.
The nonprofit, which provides counseling by text message, modeled its fundraising after the second round of financing, often called Series B funding, that startups raise to ramp up a promising idea.
“We’re a tech start-up that happens to be a mental-health not-for-profit,” said Nancy Lublin, chief executive of Crisis Text Line. “We’re growing like a tech start-up, we solve problems like a tech start-up, and we need to raise money like a tech start-up.”
Tech titans figure prominently on the list of donors.
The round of funding was led by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, the social network whose pending sale to Microsoft for $26.2 billion was announced this week. Other significant contributors include Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Ballmer Group — set up by Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft and his wife, Connie; and the Omidyar Network, which oversees the giving of eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar, and his wife, Pam.
Crisis Text Line declined to say how much money the lead donors contributed.
Ms. Lublin hopes that her organization inspires other nonprofits — and grant makers — to rethink the way fundraising works.
“I would love to inspire a tidal wave of rounds of unrestricted funding,” she says. “If an organization asks you for $500,000, don’t give them $250,000. Give them $600,000.”
Plans for Growth
While the money raised is unrestricted, Crisis Text Line plans to focus on expanding to serve more people.
The nonprofit currently has more than 1,500 volunteer crisis counselors — a number it hopes to expand to more than 4,000 in the next two years. The charity also plans to hire more developers to build products to better support counselors.
Crisis Text Line is also increasing the number of technology platforms where its services are available. The group already provides its services through After School, a popular app for teenagers, and offers support to people who search for self-harm, suicide, and depression-related topics on YouTube. Soon the nonprofit will provide crisis counseling through Facebook Messenger and through Kik, a chat app also popular with teenagers.
The technology companies pay for the services, which helps Crisis Text Line’s bottom line at the same time it’s reaching more people in distress.
Crisis Text Line started a free “white label” program for nonprofits, which allows organizations to offer its crisis counseling through a customized short code. For example, the National Eating Disorders Association can publicize “Text NEDA to 741741.”
Crisis Text Line’s counselors respond to the messages, and the association helped develop the training that crisis counselors receive about eating disorders and reviewed the organizations to which counselors refer texters.
Creating a lot of issue-specific text hotlines would be confusing for people seeking help, would fragment the crisis data being collected, and waste resources, says Ms. Lublin.
“We’re excited that the National Eating Disorders Association can spend their money not on technology but on the really great work that they do,” she says.
