About

It started out as a dream in 2002. “What if we can take an idea that we are passionate about and grow a business? A business that helps connect people? A business that allows one of us to be home with your children while they are young?” Pronto Spanish has now grown to teaching Spanish to thousands of new students online each year. 

In 2021, Pronto Spanish acquired the 8 Guatemalan tutors from SpeakShop – a nonprofit that built their organization around the concept of fair-trade language classes. The founder, Clay Cooper, believed that these tutors believed to earn a fair wage for their skills. He designed a program where the tutors could teach the language classes virtually all the way back in 2006 – before Zoom and Google Meet were even popular platforms! SpeakShop closed in 2021, but Clay did not want to see these wonderful tutors lose their income, so he sought out like-minded organizations that would keep the concept of fair-trade language lessons going. This is where the partnership with Pronto Spanish came in! While the online courses at Pronto Spanish are priced to allow for a business to operate, the tutoring branch of the Pronto Spanish is run more of a non-profit where the money goes back to the tutors in Guatemala.

Starting in 2024, these tutors are running their own independent organization. For ease, Pronto Spanish still keeps the infrastructure of the hosting platforms in the United States, but this site is managed by the tutors themselves! With the help of a volunteer ‘working group’ made up of Spanish students in the United States, the tutors manage their own marketing and technology that allows them to make their own decisions on how they want to operate.