On Pragma

On Starting Pragma

It’s the second official day of Pragma and I couldn’t be more excited about changing the way that help works in Baltimore and beyond.

Pragma is mapping out free and low-cost resources in Baltimore and beyond and making them available to people to review these services. It’s essentially an online Zagat for helping organizations.

The Problem

Right now, it takes about 3 weeks to get an appointment with a case worker to receive a paper pamphlet filled with resources. Some information is out of date. Some resources don’t exist anymore. Also, paper pamphlets are loseable. If you lose the paper pamphlet, time to make another appointment and receive the same pamphlet. This takes another 2 weeks.

Overall, it can take 6 frustrating weeks to verify all the resources that are listed in the paper pamphlets. Addresses might have changed, hours, and other crucial details that users need in order to obtain help.

In addition, helping organizations don’t have real-time metrics on their help and their demand, which can make it harder to raise money from donors and foundations.

Donors do not know whether or not their help is being administered properly and don’t have a real-time feedback on their donations.

The Solution

Pragma provides a real-time list of verified free and low-cost resources available in Baltimore, with plans to expand to other cities soon. This solves the need to meet a case worker initially by providing an unloseable list of the support network locally with real-time information such as when it is open, where it is located, what type of help provided.

Pragma also has an intuitive search where users can provide terms like ‘breakfast’, ‘lunch’, or ‘dinner’, and be given a list of free and low-cost food resources available in the area based on their location, as well as the ability to review these services.

For helping organizations, Pragma provides real-time metrics and feedback on their services, which can be used to fundraise. This cuts down on internal tracking time, as well as fundraising costs.

For donors and foundations, Pragma provides a series of data that is customizeable based on needs and provides a real-time state of the local area of helping services.

By providing users with a voice of feedback to these organizations, they are contributing to the honing of helping services in Baltimore, creating sustainable value for every stakeholder.

Pragma Private Beta Launching July 2019

A private beta of Pragma will be launching in July 2019 with a simple list of features for users to be able to review each resource, as well as detailed information about each resource available updated within this month.

On Raising

I am currently raising money for 12-18 months of runway for Pragma. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you are interested in investing or donating to Pragma or want an invite to the private beta in July 2019.

The future of help is cooperative and involves all stakeholders.