versus
Help Me vs Citizen
One tells you what went wrong nearby. The other quietly asks someone nearby for ten minutes.
Short answer
Citizen is an incident-alert app built around broadcasting emergencies and public-safety events to everyone nearby. Help Me is the opposite instinct: a private request for everyday, non-emergency help, offered to a small set of approved helpers with no public feed and no alerts about other people’s bad days.
Broadcast versus private ask
Citizen’s value is awareness at scale — many people learn about one incident. Help Me’s value is the reverse — one person’s small problem reaches a few people who could actually solve it, and nobody else ever knows it happened.
Neither one is 911
Alerts do not dispatch anyone and neither do help requests. If you are in danger, injured, or watching a crime, call 911. That holds for both products and it is worth stating plainly on both.
What that means for privacy
Help Me shows live help as a coarse area of about 500 meters, chats privately between two people, and leaves nothing public behind. If a permanent, browsable record of local incidents is what you want, this is not that app.
Questions people actually ask
Does Help Me send safety alerts?
No. It has no alert feed. It is a request-and-accept product for everyday help.
Can I report a crime through Help Me?
No. Report and block handle problems with a person in a request. Crimes go to police, and 911 if it is in progress.
Keep going
safety
Help Me is not 911
Help Me is for everyday, non-emergency help in Fargo–Moorhead. If you are in danger, call 911. Here is how to tell the difference.
trust
Safety, said plainly
Approximate location, approved helpers only, private chat, public meeting places, and report/block tools. Help Me is not 911.
answer
Who can see my location on Help Me?
Live requests show an approximate area of about 500 meters. Exact location is opt-in after a helper accepts, shared only with that person, and ends when the request closes.
answer
How does matching actually work?
A request is privately offered to approved helpers who are online, suitable for the category, recently active, and not blocked. The first eligible accept wins.
versus
Help Me vs Facebook groups
Fargo–Moorhead Facebook groups are public-to-the-group broadcasts. Help Me sends an everyday ask to approved helpers without the comment thread.
emergency
Emergencies: 911, then the right local desk
Call 911 in Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead, and Dilworth. Campus police and 211 are next. Help Me is not emergency response.
Help Me is a community app for adults in Fargo–Moorhead. It is not a K–12 student program, not a youth chat, and not campus police.