Roadmap

This is not a project on paper: the platform is built, deployed and in use, designed for a modest phone on a bad connection.

• A map of help points by type (shelters, donation points, kitchens, civic initiatives), with accent-insensitive search, a filter by departamento and a card with what it receives, what it needs today, how to get there and who to call.
• It works on a bad connection: the map opens with the last data even with no connection, and says so.
• It travels where people already are: a link per point with a preview in WhatsApp and Telegram, and a social image with the status and date printed inside it.
• “Near”: points sorted by real distance. Your location stays on your phone and is never sent to a server.
• Each initiative has its own profile: campaigns with a concrete goal, an activity calendar, posts, deliveries made and its own managers. What it posts shows up in the news feed.
• Volunteer recognition: experience, five levels and badges, granted by the server and only for verified actions.
• Live hazard layers: epicentres and intensity contours from the USGS public service, flagged as estimates subject to revision.
• Declarable emergencies, each with its type, scope, team and archive. Several can run at once.
• Open source under the MIT licence and a public API with attribution. The same codebase already serves five modelled countries.

Q1

What turns the work of two founders into an organisation that can sign agreements and be held to account.

• Incorporation as a non-profit civil association: everything else depends on it.
• A small permanent team: field and verification coordination, and communication and community coordination.
• A published verification protocol: how a point and an organisation are checked, and who decides what goes in and out.
• A baseline for every indicator, measured on what the platform already records rather than on surveys.

Goal: Organisation incorporated, team hired and protocol published.

Q2 to Q7

The permanent mode is what makes the emergency mode possible: when something happens, the map, the team and the community already exist, and the disaster becomes visible in hours rather than weeks.

• A protocol to open, cover and archive an emergency.
• Drills with Civil Protection, measuring how long it takes to open an emergency.
• Pre-activation agreements with response agencies, signed before they are needed.
• Several emergencies at once, each with its own local team and access limited to its event.

Goal: An emergency declared and published in under 12 hours, rehearsed twice.

Q2 to Q8

Both bridges: a small initiative can show its work and win support with no middlemen, and someone who wants to help finds where what they can do is needed.

• Initiatives manage their own profile, with training in fundraising campaigns, events and posts. The aim is for the HelpMaps team to stop being necessary.
• A volunteer profile with availability and skills. At each point and activity, the initiative says whether it needs hands, skills, in-kind donations or outreach.
• Follow an initiative and get what it posts without going looking for it. Reading the map stays anonymous: the account is for people who come back.
• Disaster-preparedness workshops in communities.

Goal: 120 initiatives managing their own profile and 1,500 registered volunteers by month 12, in the Venezuela pilot.

Q1 to Q8 · launch in month 6

Game-like learning paths on how to prepare for, respond to and organise around a disaster, and on how to use HelpMaps. Each level leaves a certificate on your profile and unlocks rewards.

• A native app and the first learning path, with instructional design done alongside universities, firefighters and Civil Protection.
• A US$ 5 monthly subscription. The first level is free, and all of it is free during an emergency.
• Seats for companies and schools that want to train their people in disaster preparedness.
• New learning paths every quarter, validated with partners.

Q5 to Q8

Businesses meet their social commitment with perks for people who helped, and HelpMaps provides the proof that the person really did.

• Perks redeemed by level at sponsoring businesses.
• Campaign sponsorship, with the delivery published next to the campaign it paid for.
• Appearing is optional: you can help without showing up on any list.

Q2 to Q8

A platform that does not say what keeps it alive ends up living off something it does not mention. HelpMaps does not handle other people's money or take a cut of any donation: what is given to an initiative reaches it whole and directly.

• Grants and cooperation funding for the start-up, weighing less each year.
• Own income: Learn&Help, a voluntary contribution to HelpMaps beside the donate button (genuinely separate, with different payment details), the deployment service for other countries and institutions, and access to verified data for institutions (month 24).
• An external audit of the first year, and a published annual transparency and impact report.

So the work done for one country serves the others.

• Deployment in new countries and institutions: a country is a configuration file and its own database, not a new project.
• Every improvement one deployment pays for reaches all of them, including Venezuela's, which is free.
• The public API and open licence as an aid-data standard for Civil Protection, municipalities, the media and cooperation agencies.
• A guide so a new team can stand up its deployment without outside technical help.