These organizations are the heart of our community and they make a real difference to those in need. Please feel free to scroll through the list below, pick one or more of these special organizations, and volunteer your time, give money, and/or adopt or foster a cute critter.
Animals
By building free fences our fence program frees dogs living on chains and gives families and pets a safe place to strengthen their bond. Prior to building a fence, we provide free spay or neuter for each dog. We also supply each dog with a dog house, provide wheat straw during the cold winter months and tarps for shade in the summer heat. We’ve unchained over 2,200 dogs to date.
Saving Grace is a non-profit, 501-C3 organization dedicated to helping homeless animals in our community find permanent, loving homes where they will be treated as family members for the rest of their lives.
Second Chance Pet Adoptions is the oldest no-kill rescue organization in Wake County. At Second Chance, our mission is to champion homeless cats and dogs who are healthy or treatable in the quest to find their forever homes and engage with our community to promote responsible pet ownership–ultimately reducing future generations of homeless animals.
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Wildlife Welfare, Inc. is an organization in and around the Raleigh, North Carolina area dedicated to the rehabilitation and release of injured and orphaned wildlife. It was formed in 1991 by licensed wildlife rehabilitators and wildlife lovers. Local rehabbers in our area are involved in helping approximately 2000 animals each year.
Rescue Ur Forever Friend (RUFF) is an all volunteer, nonprofit rescue dedicated to reducing the homeless population of pets, through foster care, medical treatment and adoption into forever homes. RUFF encourages responsible pet ownership through community outreach and education.
Snowflake is non-profit and receives no government funding. Only donations from our kind supporters and the valuable work of our generous volunteers enables us to provide food, shelter and medical care to the helpless, homeless animals we have rescued. We hope you will consider giving to Snowflake so that we can continue to fulfill our mission to give these poor animals the better life they deserve. Also, please let us know if you may be interested in adopting or sponsoring one of our special needs long-term fosters.
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Children and Youth
“Every child has the right to mature in an environment free from abuse and neglect.”
With this statement, the Junior League of Raleigh established SAFEchild in 1992 with a bold mission to eliminate child abuse in Wake County. SAFEchild – which stands for Stop Abuse For Every child – supports families having a wide range of needs. Expertly trained professionals and volunteers build strong families in which parents nurture thriving children. SAFEchild annually serves nearly 9,000 children and families through parenting programs and the SAFEchild Advocacy Center and empowers 12,000 Wake County first graders through the school-based Funny Tummy Feelings program. |
JDRF is the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Our strength lies in our exclusive focus and singular influence on the worldwide effort to end T1D.
Vision: A world without type 1 diabetes Mission: Improving lives today and tomorrow by accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications 
Haven House Services is the place where youth who need help find it. Founded in 1973, Haven House operates 11 programs that help more than 1,200 youth in need each year overcome their challenges and find a path to success. Whether they are experiencing homelessness, a crisis at home or school, gang involvement, or problems involving the juvenile justice system, we help youth identify their goals, connect with needed resources, and build skills needed for long-term success.
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Developmental & Intellectual Disability
Pathways for People, Inc.’s mission is to provide the highest quality of person centered services to individuals with disabilities within their chosen environment. Our agency prides itself on working in collaboration with clients, families, and other human service agencies, utilizing a team approach.
For 60 years, The Arc has been the voice for children and adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD) throughout the United States. The 1950s were a time when most children with disabilities were ignored by society, and often institutionalized. Parents of these very special kids got organized, formed The Arc in our area and began advocating to keep their children at home, send them to public school, and to educate the community about what it means to have a disability. Arc families also took the lead on developing advocacy and awareness while supporting their own loved ones. Thus was born the largest grassroots movement to promote the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
TLC was founded in 1969 by parents who wanted to improve the local options for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Today, TLC’s work benefits children, adults, and families through a diverse range of on-site and community-based programs, including educational services, respite care, early childhood intervention, autism therapies, community living support, and residential living.
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The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.
Special Olympics aims to combine high quality sports with a wide audience, and be a driving force for social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. 
WHAT WE BELIEVE The National Inclusion Project operates on three core beliefs: EVERY child can participate, EVERY child can make a friend and
EVERY child can succeed. WHAT WE DO With those beliefs in mind, we've made it our mission to make the inclusion of children with disabilities the EXPECTATION, not the exception. HOW WE DO IT We work with community organizations and recreational programs, providing them with the training, tools, and support they need so that children with disabilities can be included in ALL of their activities and programs. |
LGBTQ+
Our Mission
To serve, empower, and advocate for the well-being of our diverse LGBTQ+ communities. Our Vision We envision an inclusive world where LGBTQ+ people are thriving, equal, and valued members of society. 
Our mission is to secure equal rights and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) North Carolinians. To accomplish our mission we tirelessly lobby the North Carolina General Assembly, executive branch, and local governments, broadcast LGBTQ news, stories and content, and mobilize our communities on issues that we understand matter most to North Carolinians, including parental rights, inclusive anti-bullying policies, employment discrimination, hate violence, privacy rights, sexuality education, adoption, youth homelessness, criminalization and HIV/AIDS.
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If you are a parent or friend struggling to understand and accept a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender* or queer loved one, we can help. If you are an LGBTQ individual seeking an affirming community within which to explore and grow, PFLAG Triangle is here to support you. If you are a friend or ally seeking to advocate on behalf of equal rights, we welcome you.
Whatever your position or wherever you are in your stage of discovery, PFLAG Triangle is here to support you in your journey. |
Mental Illness
Mental illness is plagued by a stigma that prevents people from accessing the treatment and support to lead a life of recovery. We are committed to diminishing the stigma and improving access to resources so that all those affected by mental illness feel welcome in the community.
MISSION NAMI Wake County provides support, education, and advocacy to individuals, families, and caregivers, living with mental health challenges, to lead better lives. VISION A community where mental health is valued and quality resources are accessible to individuals affected by mental health challenges. |
The Foundation of Hope For Research and Treatment of Mental Illness is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization established by the late Thad and Alice Eure to fund mental illness research, which develops more effective means of treatment.
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Racial Justice
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities in the South to defend and advance their political, social, and economic rights through the combination of legal advocacy, research, organizing, and communications.
Our mission.
To lead others to greater self-sufficiency through farm raised food, birth coaching, and community outreach. The homestead The homestead is the foundation of living: it is the way back to nature, a point of reference, and the source of wisdom. It’s the way to provide for oneself and others. It’s security and personal utopia. It’s the innermost desires actualized in practice. It’s the world we all live in reimagined and simplified. Keeping only the best parts. Using borrowed practices from a number of different healthier, freer, and greener ways to live such as minimalism, intermittent fasting, permaculture, and collective savings. 
Siembra NC is an organization of Latinx people defending our rights & building power “with papers and without papers” with member leadership teams in Alamance, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Orange and Randolph counties, established in 2017.
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Herban Gardening Collective nurtures networked relationships between plants and people through the intentional cultivation and maintenance of gardens.
In a time of climate crisis, Seeding Sovereignty; an Indigenous-led collective, works on behalf of our global community to shift social and environmental paradigms by dismantling colonial institutions and replacing them with Indigenous practices created in synchronicity with the land.
Emancipate NC was founded on the knowledge that mass incarceration and structural racism harm all of us. Prison is state-sponsored violence. We are all complicit in its harms. As an organization, we are dedicated to shifting the narrative on racialized mass incarceration through community education and mobilization. The mainstream narrative that criminalizes Black and Brown people must be transformed—so that we can all get free. Emancipate NC is a project of the Carolina Justice Policy Center.
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Suicide Prevention
Here in North Carolina, and nationwide, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is a grassroots non-profit, run 99% by VOLUNTEERS like you. Our work focuses on eliminating the loss of life from suicide by delivering innovative prevention programs, educating the public about risk factors & warning signs, raising funds for suicide research and programs, and reaching out to those individuals who have been affected by suicide.
As a part of AFSP’s nationwide network of chapters, we bring together people from all backgrounds who want to prevent suicide in our communities. Our chapter is energized by the families and friends who've lost someone to suicide, by those with Lived Experience, by mental health professionals, clergy, educators, students, community/business leaders, and many others.. |
The mission of Triangle SOS is to provide support and resources for people who have experienced the loss of a loved one by suicide.
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Veteran's Services
Uniting our psychologically and emotionally impaired Veterans in NC with Service Dogs rescued from kill shelters.
Not all crisis looks the same. Stop Soldier Suicide is our promise to those who are facing it. Our struggles may be loud or silent; all-consuming or passing; during service or any time after; a moment or a lifetime.
We have a relentless focus on results. We don't just say we support vets - we actually save lives. With your help, we can move even faster to drastically reduce veteran suicide rates. |
Founded in 2012 Vets to Vets United received 501 (c) 3 nonprofit status and consists of local veterinarians and volunteers working together to provide; service, therapeutic, and emotional support animals, as well as discounted veterinary care to our veterans many of which are struggling with loneliness, depression, Post Traumatic Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, and physical disabilities. This service also significantly reduces the number of animals euthanized at the local animal shelters as NC has one of the highest euthanasia rates in the country.
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Women's Services
For more than 39 years, InterAct has served Wake County and its 12 municipalities as the only provider of comprehensive services for all victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. InterAct provides three 24-hour crisis lines, group and individual counseling, bilingual counseling, specialized children's counseling, case management, court and hospital advocacy, professional training, and a full curriculum of violence prevention in Wake County public schools in grades 3-12. InterAct also operates Wake County's only residential domestic violence program and North Carolina's first community-based sexual assault forensic examination center, The Solace Center.
Planned Parenthood delivers vital sexual and reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide. For over 100 years, Planned Parenthood has promoted a commonsense approach to women’s health and well-being, based on respect for each individual’s right to make informed, independent decisions about health, sex, and family planning.
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The Women's Center is a multi-service crisis intervention and assessment center, located near downtown Raleigh. Through tireless outreach, we work with each individual woman to break the cycle of trauma, abuse, violence, and homelessness and assist her in realizing a fulfilling dignified life, achieving self-sufficiency, and obtaining safe affordable housing.
The Women’s Center has been an established and welcoming portal of entry for homeless women for over 40 years. We provide a safe, low barrier, client-centered and trauma informed environment for women, where they can begin the stabilization and healing process. 
Dress for Success Triangle is celebrating its 10th year serving under-employed and unemployed women in the Triangle by providing a network of support, professional attire and development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.
Since our founding in 2008 by FORTUNE 100 executive Pat Nathan, the Triangle affiliate has become one of the most successful in the worldwide Dress for Success network of 150 affiliates. We have served over 15,500 women in the Triangle. |