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411 Connections

About

Finding help shouldn't come down to luck

Most people find a nonprofit by accident — a flyer in a window, a friend who happens to know someone. Meanwhile hundreds of organizations here are doing work the people who need it never hear about.

The Blue Ridge mountains in autumn

411 Connections is the free noticeboard that closes that gap. It keeps two things public and current: a directory of the organizations serving Western North Carolina, and a calendar of everything they have coming up. Free to appear on, free to use, for every organization at every size.

Arranged by place

Downtown, West, East, North and South each have their own character and their own organizations. Browsing by neighborhood turns up what a keyword search never would — the food drive four streets away, the tutoring program in the next neighborhood over.

Checked by a person

Organizations post their own events, and every listing is read by a person before it goes up. Nothing is published unread, and nothing is ranked by who paid.

How it works

Posted by you,
checked by us

  1. You post it

    The form is checked, the photo checked for type and size, and the listing saved as pending. It is not public at any point.

  2. We're told

    An alert goes out straight away and you get a confirmation, so you know it arrived and what happens next.

  3. A person reads it

    Approved or declined in one click, from the email or the dashboard. Declined listings are never published.

  4. It goes up

    Live on the board with its own page and a link worth sharing.

Submissions are rate-limited and screened with a hidden honeypot field. Uploaded photos are checked for type and capped at 8MB.

House rules

What goes up
and what doesn't

  1. We'll put up

    ✓ Nonprofits and community groups serving Western North Carolina

    ✓ Events open to the public or to volunteers

    ✓ Fundraisers, trainings, volunteer days, community gatherings

    ✓ Contact details the organization itself controls

  2. We won't

    × Listings posted for another organization without permission

    × Commercial promotion dressed up as a community event

    × Campaigning or fundraising for political candidates

    × Anything we can't verify as a real, operating organization

If something is wrong, tell us. Any organization can have a detail corrected or its listing pulled entirely, no explanation needed — info@411connections.org.