Opportunity

The opportunity to scale NORA and make a broad social impact is enormous. Child abuse is not a niche issue – it’s a national (even global) crisis, and every community is looking for better tools to combat it. NORA’s impact potential spans both measurable improvements in reporting outcomes and far-reaching benefits to society.

Tackling a Nationwide Challenge: Every U.S. state has laws mandating certain professionals (and in 19 states, all adults) to report suspected child abuse (1). This means millions of potential users for NORA – teachers, healthcare workers, social workers, coaches, and more. For example, teachers have traditionally been the #1 source of abuse reports (2), and there are over 3 million teachers in the U.S. alone. Yet few modern tools exist to assist them in this duty. NORA can become the go-to platform for mandated reporters everywhere, filling a critical void in the market. Child welfare agencies and school systems across all 50 states represent a wide open market ready for innovation in reporting.
Improved Outcomes for Children: By ensuring reports are higher quality, NORA directly improves what happens after a report is made. Early data from our direct work in Child Welfare indicates that NORA can significantly speed up and sharpen the reporting process. As a result, we expect that CPS intake specialists will see a 50% reduction in report processing time for NORA-generated reports, thanks to their clarity and completeness. That means faster decisions to investigate and intervene, potentially saving children from ongoing abuse sooner. With more timely and thorough information, agencies can prioritize the most critical cases and allocate resources more effectively. The ultimate impact is more children getting help, faster. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this can save lives and prevent trauma.
Scale of Social Impact: The social impact of better reporting ripples outward. When abuse is caught and addressed earlier, children can be spared years of trauma, leading to better long-term outcomes in health, education, and well-being. Families can receive interventions and support before situations escalate. Society benefits from lower costs of hospitalization, foster care, and legal proceedings that result from prolonged undetected abuse (3). Analysts have estimated the lifetime economic cost of one year’s worth of confirmed child maltreatment cases to be in the tens of billions of dollars. Even a modest improvement in prevention and early intervention (which starts with reporting) yields huge social returns. Investors in NORA’s expansion are not just capturing a market – they are funding a preventative approach that could reduce these societal costs and, more importantly, change life trajectories for countless children.
Path to Scale: Child abuse reporting is sadly a universal need, which means NORA’s model can scale internationally as well. While our initial focus is the U.S., countries around the world face similar challenges with underreporting and poor documentation of abuse. We envision adapting NORA for different legal systems and languages, becoming a global standard for technology-assisted child protection reporting. The opportunity for impact is global – for instance, the World Health Organization estimates up to 1 billion children worldwide experience violence each year. NORA’s approach could eventually empower communities worldwide to report and respond more effectively. Each new region we enter represents lives that can be protected through better information.

Last updated 1 month ago

Opportunity

Tackling a Nationwide Challenge: Every U.S. state has laws mandating certain professionals (and in 19 states, all adults) to report suspected child abuse (1). This means millions of potential users for NORA – teachers, healthcare workers, social workers, coaches, and more. For example, teachers have traditionally been the #1 source of abuse reports (2), and there are over 3 million teachers in the U.S. alone. Yet few modern tools exist to assist them in this duty. NORA can become the go-to platform for mandated reporters everywhere, filling a critical void in the market. Child welfare agencies and school systems across all 50 states represent a wide open market ready for innovation in reporting.
Improved Outcomes for Children: By ensuring reports are higher quality, NORA directly improves what happens after a report is made. Early data from our direct work in Child Welfare indicates that NORA can significantly speed up and sharpen the reporting process. As a result, we expect that CPS intake specialists will see a 50% reduction in report processing time for NORA-generated reports, thanks to their clarity and completeness. That means faster decisions to investigate and intervene, potentially saving children from ongoing abuse sooner. With more timely and thorough information, agencies can prioritize the most critical cases and allocate resources more effectively. The ultimate impact is more children getting help, faster. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this can save lives and prevent trauma.
Scale of Social Impact: The social impact of better reporting ripples outward. When abuse is caught and addressed earlier, children can be spared years of trauma, leading to better long-term outcomes in health, education, and well-being. Families can receive interventions and support before situations escalate. Society benefits from lower costs of hospitalization, foster care, and legal proceedings that result from prolonged undetected abuse (3). Analysts have estimated the lifetime economic cost of one year’s worth of confirmed child maltreatment cases to be in the tens of billions of dollars. Even a modest improvement in prevention and early intervention (which starts with reporting) yields huge social returns. Investors in NORA’s expansion are not just capturing a market – they are funding a preventative approach that could reduce these societal costs and, more importantly, change life trajectories for countless children.
Path to Scale: Child abuse reporting is sadly a universal need, which means NORA’s model can scale internationally as well. While our initial focus is the U.S., countries around the world face similar challenges with underreporting and poor documentation of abuse. We envision adapting NORA for different legal systems and languages, becoming a global standard for technology-assisted child protection reporting. The opportunity for impact is global – for instance, the World Health Organization estimates up to 1 billion children worldwide experience violence each year. NORA’s approach could eventually empower communities worldwide to report and respond more effectively. Each new region we enter represents lives that can be protected through better information.

Last updated 1 month ago