KnowCapp and UD collaborate for pandemic financial health webinar series

When KnowCapp — the local fintech startup that assesses financial well-being and offers resources for individuals, businesses and nonprofits — launched in early March, it seemed like the ideal time to officially bring the business to life.

“I was really excited,” said founder Garry Johnson III, who had developed the startup over years in Horn Entrepreneurship’s Summer Founders program, Founder Gym, The Blueprint Project and Drexel University.

Soon after it went live, the state went into COVID-19 lockdown.

“It went live literally the week Delaware had its first COVID-19 case,” he said. “And I realized, this probably isn’t a good time.”

The fortunate part of this ill-fated timing was that KnowCapp in an online platform that could stay up and running. If it was going to stay that way, he needed a way to drive people to use it.

The concept was not designed to get people through a global financial crisis, but it’s not incompatible with helping people through one.

“Basically, it’s a financial health checkup assessment tool,” Johnson said. “It determines which ‘bucket’ you fall into: financially vulnerable, financially coping or financially healthy, with the goal to basically give a ‘prescription’ with the tools and resources you can use to improve financial health.”

KnowCapp quickly formed a collaboration with Johnson’s alma mater, University of Delaware, to provide a series of free webinars that tackle pandemic-relevant financial topics such as “Successfully Navigating Potential Changes in Income” and “Investing, Retiring & Planning in Times of Uncertainty,” which include access to the assessment tool.

On Wednesday, April 29, the last webinar in the series (at least for now), “Supporting our Community and Staying Afloat as a Small Business Owner,” will be held on Zoom at 11 a.m. It will feature panelists Noah Olson of the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, Denita Henderson of the Delaware Small Business Development Center and Mike Rinkunas of UD’s Horn Entrepreneurship. Johnson will moderate. Registration is required.