I’m a huge proponent of updating, renewing, and adjusting...just about everything. The private market allows individuals to make changes and bring things to life all the time. Think about the introduction of alarm systems or DVDs. But when it comes to government services, large change happens less frequently. It certainly can, think about the growth of the post office; from horses to trains to planes- but what about today?

Nancy Lublin and the DoSomething.org staff have recently stepped up to say that there needs to be an addition to today’s crisis services. They propose a Crisis Text Hotline. It makes complete sense. Over 75% of teens have cell phones, and text is their preferred form of communication.

Student texting during class

Student texting during class (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why does this matter? What problems do teens actually have? Let’s roll back to November 2009- I’m George Weiner’s intern (DoSomething.org’s CTO). ‘First task: monitor and regulate our online forums- get the conversation going. Oh, and if you suspect any weird comments or have any reason to, do not hesitate to share our emergency and suicide hotline page (at the time similar to this).’

Looking back, I don’t think I suspected I’d have to share that link. But I did- a few times. As Nancy shares in her TED talk (350,000 views on TED & YoutTube) teens have problems, too. Some that are not likely to be received by a phone hotline- because teens simply won’t call, don’t have the number, or would feel less safe doing so. There’s a comfort and ease in texting and we must go to where teens are comfortable if we’re to provide the best help.

Hotlines have existed for ages- but they vary by cause and there is no leader in the space or a robust text line. DoSomething.org is a great place for the Crisis Text Hotline to come alive. Not only do they understand and communicate with teens daily, their Quarter 2 dashboard shows they’re approaching 1 million members, have a twitter following of half that, and annually engage over 2 million teens- they have reach and the ear of teens.

We often take public services like the local library, 911, trash pick up, or the water authority for granted. They’ve just been around for so long. But at some point, someone got the ball rolling, and we all benefit from their existence.

The CTL will be an addition to current hotlines and be a catchall to serve teens with suicidal thoughts, depression, runaways, bullied LGBT youth, and victims of rape.

Today the CTL is up on indiegogo. The Crisis Text Hotline will need knowledgeable people to run it and technology that’s able to scale and collect data. Other organizations can get involved here. Individuals go here.

It’s rare that we get to create landmark public services. It takes ideas, people, and then funding to get them going- but when we do combine these three, our nation-we- benefit from systemic upgrades. Breathe life into the CTL and other new wide scale public services.