Feeds, embeds and API

Put real needs from your town, cause or community wherever your people already are: a church website, a newsroom live blog, a Slack channel or a Discord server. Free, no key needed.

RSS and JSON feeds

Every search on Browse needs has a feed. Use the same filters you see in the address bar.

RSS 2.0
https://helpbless.com/feeds/needs.xml
JSON Feed 1.1
https://helpbless.com/feeds/needs.json

Filter	Values	Example
cause	20 causes, e.g. medical, housing, food, disaster	?cause=medical
kind	16 kinds, e.g. money, bills, labor, time, transport	?kind=transport
country, region, city	ISO country code, then state and city	?country=US&region=Texas&city=Austin
urgency	urgent, critical	?urgency=critical
funding	money, nonmoney, unfunded	?funding=nonmoney
q	Keywords	?q=wheelchair

Example: critical medical needs in Kenya, as RSS: /feeds/needs.xml?cause=medical&country=KE&urgency=critical. Live disaster alerts have their own feed: /feeds/disasters.xml.

Want it in your inbox instead? Signed-in members can turn any search into an email alert from Need alerts.

Slack, Discord, Teams, Zapier

No code: point any RSS-capable tool at a feed URL.

Slack
Add Slack’s RSS app, then in a channel type /feed subscribe https://helpbless.com/feeds/needs.xml?country=US&city=Chicago.
Discord & Teams
Use an RSS bot (for example MonitoRSS for Discord) or the Teams RSS connector with any feed URL.
Zapier, Make, IFTTT
Trigger on “New item in RSS feed” to post to social media, send a text, or add rows to a spreadsheet.

Embeddable fundraiser cards

A live card with progress and a Give button, for any open need.

<iframe src="https://helpbless.com/embed/needs/NEED-SLUG" width="420" height="250"
  style="border:0;border-radius:16px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy"
  title="Fundraiser on HelpBLESS"></iframe>

Platforms that support oEmbed (WordPress, Ghost, Discourse, Notion and others) build the card from a plain link. Our endpoint: https://helpbless.com/api/oembed?url=https://helpbless.com/needs/NEED-SLUG. Every need page also has a printable flyer with a QR code.

Read-only JSON API

Simple GET endpoints, CORS open to every origin, JSON responses.

Endpoint	Returns
`GET /api/v1/needs`	Open needs. Same filters as the feeds, plus sort=newest\|urgent\|almost\|unsupported, page and per (max 50).
`GET /api/v1/needs/:slug`	One open need.
`GET /api/v1/stats`	Live totals: open needs, countries, gifts, amount raised, members.
`GET /api/v1/disasters`	Normalised live alerts from GDACS, USGS, OpenFEMA and the National Weather Service.

curl "https://helpbless.com/api/v1/needs?cause=food&country=NG&per=5"

{
  "data": [{
    "slug": "…", "url": "https://helpbless.com/needs/…", "title": "…", "summary": "…",
    "kind": "goods", "kind_label": "Goods & supplies", "cause": "food", "urgency": "urgent",
    "location": { "country": "NG", "country_name": "Nigeria", "city": "Lagos", "remote_ok": false },
    "money": false, "goal_usd": null, "raised_usd": 0, "supporters": 0, "offers": 2,
    "owner": { "name": "…", "handle": "…", "verified": ["photo"] },
    "image": "…/opengraph-image", "embed_url": "…/embed/needs/…", "published_at": "2026-10-14T09:12:00.000Z"
  }],
  "meta": { "total": 37, "page": 1, "per": 5, "pages": 8, "sort": "newest" }
}

Fair use

Free for any purpose that helps people get or give help. Please link back to the need on HelpBLESS so supporters give through the protected checkout.
Up to 600 API requests an hour per IP. Feeds are cached for a few minutes; polling more often than every 10 minutes gains nothing.
The API only exposes what is already public on need pages. Never use it to contact owners outside HelpBLESS or to collect personal data.
Need more, or want a deeper integration (webhooks, matching campaigns for your company)? Get in touch.

Versioned under /api/v1. Breaking changes get a new version.