June 6, 2025 • 43 mins
At some point in your life, the chances are that you'll either become a carer or be cared for. For Charlotte Newman, this reality became the foundation for groundbreaking social innovation.
With 5.7 million unpaid carers in Britain saving the public purse £183 billion annually—more than the entire NHS budget—Charlotte saw an overlooked crisis. Her charity Carefree found an unexpected solution in an unlikely place: empty hotel rooms.
Running more like a tech startup than a traditional charity, Charlotte's team of just ten people has already transformed thousands of lives. But how do you scale compassion? How do you use AI without losing humanity? And why did they turn down £150k in funding to protect their model?
Join us to discover how lean teams can create sustainable solutions to society's most complex challenges, why Charlotte believes the future of care lies in partnerships not policy, and what every health and care organisation can learn from startup thinking.
If you're wrestling with how to do more with less, this conversation will change how you think about transformation.
Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for health, care and public services.
Find out more about our work at healthia.services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever thought about the fact that at some
point in your life, you'reeither going to become a carer
or be cared for?
Now?
Imagine being a carer 24 hoursa day, seven days a week, with
no time off to refuel or evenjust be yourself.
Today's guest found a way tochange that, using technology,
(00:20):
empathy and some very cleverthinking.
Hello, this is Problems WorthSolving the podcast where we
meet people transforming healthand care through human-centred
design and digital innovation.
I'm Sam Mentor, founder andManaging Director at Healthier,
(00:43):
the collaborative service designconsultancy.
If you enjoy listening, you cansubscribe to this podcast and
the accompanying newsletter athealthierservices.
Today's guest is CharlotteNewman, founding member and
chief executive of Carefree, acharity doing incredible things
for unpaid carers.
(01:04):
It's a brilliant example ofsocial innovation in action.
It's won multiple awards forservice design, technology and
sustainability, and is one ofthe UK's leading digital
charities.
Under Charlotte's leadership,carefree has grown fast.
With her team, she shaped thevision, secured funding,
designed the frontline serviceand built the operational
(01:24):
backbone, all while running thecharity more like a tech startup
than a traditional non-profit.
Today, we're going to talkabout what bigger organisations
can learn from lean,mission-driven teams, how AI can
help charities do more withless, and why Charlotte thinks
the future of care lies inpartnerships, not just policy.
Charlotte, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
(01:45):
Let's dive straight in.
What's the big problem you'vebeen trying to solve?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's access to respite for unpaid carers.
So a few of us realise it, butthere are 5.7 million unpaid
carers in the UK.
They're saving the public purse£183 billion a year, which is
more than the entire NHS budget.
They're providing 80% of homecare and yet 68% won't get
access to a break this year.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
How are you solving this problem?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So there are 1 million unsold hotel rooms in
the UK every week.
We have basically created atech platform that enables
hotels to easily donate theirexcess capacity to us that we
can then distribute out tounpaid carers, so they can
choose when and where they wantto take a break away.
They can take a companion withthem, they can get access to
overnight respite, which is justsomething that the system has
(02:33):
not been able to offer before,and with that access to
overnight respite, they're ableto really center in on finding
themselves again, getting goodnight's sleep, doing things like
going for a walk or going for aswim.
These are the types of thingsthat we take for granted as
being part of our everydayweekend, and it's just something
that is just not possible forsomebody who's looking after
(02:54):
somebody full-time in the home.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Why is this important ?
What's it like being afull-time carer in the UK at the
moment?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's really harrowing .
There's problems at so manydifferent levels.
So if you look at the fight totry and get the needs of your
cared for person met, that'spart of the journey is that
you're constantly trying tofight for access to services.
There's a reduction inprovision of, for example,
respite, so that you've got acare worker that would come in
for an hour to give you a breakand things like that.
(03:21):
So a lot of carers are runningon empty, like in a live-in role
with the person they're caringfor.
They'll be up through the nightbecause, depending on that
careful person's needs, theymight need to be doing kind of
personal hygiene stuff for thatcareful person through the night
, or giving them medication orchecking in on them.
So a lot of carers just won'thave slept for years at a time.
They'll become very sociallyisolated because in terms of
(03:45):
thinking through and navigating,where can I go, what places are
accessible, finding timeseparated from their careful
person to be able to meet upwith a friend or go out for
dinner with their husband,there's very little in the kind
of the norms of what it is tohave social connections, and so
there's a closing in of theirworld really shrinking, and so
there's a closing in of theirworld really shrinking, and then
, of course, there's thephysical exhaustion of it,
(04:05):
because typically they'll besupporting somebody with their
physical needs as well as theirother additional needs, and so
it's a huge amount of work, andthat's what's really sad about
this picture is that actually,this will affect every family at
some point.
You know you're either going tobe cared for or become a carer
at some point in your life, butwe're dealing with this in the
home.
(04:26):
It's not really spoken about ortalked about and it's just seen
as being kind of something thatwe have to do and something
that we just have to get on with, and very rarely do we step
back and recognize.
Actually, I am kind of part ofa big umbrella community of
people that are holding ourhealth and social care system
together, and I need supportstructures that can enable me to
(04:48):
carry on doing this.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
The psychological burden of it as well must be
hard.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, in lockdown.
I think I spent five and a halfmonths at home with my parents,
isolating.
We were going through theback-to-back cancer scenario
with my parents and I don'tthink I've ever recovered from
five and a half months of notleaving the house.
And for many carers thatjourney didn't end with lockdown
.
They are still very much stuckwithin the home for very deep
(05:14):
periods of time without socialinteraction.
I think it was the Universityof Essex that did some research
where one in six carers havecontemplated suicide.
Fewer have taken an.
But it is the desperation of Ican't go on tends to be the
critical point that people canreach because we don't have
enough prevention systems likeCarefree that are really trying
to get carers that interjectionof being able to step away from
(05:36):
their caring role to reset andpeople can dismiss Carefree and
say, oh, what difference does itmake to give somebody two
nights away and actually carerswill say to us this was totally
life-changing or this saved mylife.
And for us that's very clearwhen we're speaking with and
engaging with carers that theneed for carers to have a right
to respite is really acute andit's not something that's
(05:58):
actually prescribed within oursystem.
You know you're an informalworkforce.
It's not like you get rights ofholidays.
You don't.
The level of burnout within thesystem is really acute at the
moment.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Do you have a personal connection with the
mission?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, I mean.
My first encounter with howcare can disrupt your life was
when I was 10.
My grandmother, who was she,was blind and she had seen a
dementia, and she came to livewith us after my grandfather
passed away and the situationthat my parents faced and it's
so acute in my memory was reallydifficult.
It wasn't just the care burdenof looking after my grandmother.
(06:30):
I was the only person sherecognized, and so I ended up
taking on a lot of those kind ofyoung carer responsibilities.
I missed a lot of school,failed my 11 plus and it got to
the point where we really neededto make that move of putting
her into a care home.
And it got to the point wherewe really needed to make that
move of putting her into a carehome, and then that created a
huge amount of financialpressure, we lost our home.
You know, it's these sorts ofthings that kind of set you on a
(06:52):
bit of a journey with your life.
And then when I met Charlie andJames, who were the people that
had the original idea forCarefree, I just knew that this
was something that I could buildand really the difference that
it would make.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And tell me a bit about how your journey before
Carefree.
How did you go into this world?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
A lot of stuff in the social sector space.
You know, typical thing of whatdoes a work experience
placement do for you.
You know, when I was 15, Iworked at a youth magazine in
Haringey and the editor fromthat brought me into working
kind of social investment space.
I was doing internships withhim from when I was 18.
I always worked in thenonprofit sector.
I managed to get some exposureinto the startup space, which
was really interesting.
And I guess I startedconnecting the dots on wow, if
(07:34):
you really brought startupdesign methods into the social
sector and into the charitysector, what could you achieve?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
And I guess that laid the groundwork for Carefree One
of the things I was reallyinterested to talk to you about
when we were researching thispodcast was you've described
Carefree as a charity thatoperates like a startup, and I
wondered what does that reallymean in practice for you?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Oh gosh, I mean everything from.
If you look at the nature of ourteam, it's broken down into
product business development,marketing, customer support,
project management cycles.
You know, this sprint issomething that I guess we would
like to talk a lot about when westarted, but now we do a we do
a very fancy nct framework ofnarrative commitments and tasks
where we break down into quarter, into different projects and
(08:16):
everybody's kind of running toto sprint across a lot of the
different sides of theorganization.
I guess funding wise, the waywe think about our kind of burn
rate and how we're running, butalso our delivery system, is
tech based, and so the scalejourney that we're doing is
really centered on how manyusers are we bringing in, how
many new partnerships are webuilding, how much money are we
(08:39):
earning each month to be able tosustain our kind of baseline
operating costs?
And then I think, the pressuresthat we face, as well as an
organization where we've justturned to 10 people this week
We've been eight people sincebefore this week, but we have
35,000 users now and so theeconomies of scale that we're
trying to drive with ourinitiative are very much what
you would expect to see within astartup.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Have you previously worked in big organizations and
how does it feel different inCarefree?
No?
Have you previously worked inbig organizations and how does
it feel different in Carefree?
No?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I have never worked in a big organization.
I've always worked in very smallcharities.
To have a charity that goesfrom a two-person team to an
eight-person team and now a10-person team feels mega.
But we've always tried todeliver a corporate standard and
I think that I'm very luckywith my CTO, joey, who's an
incredible person.
He's kind of the machine behindwhat we're doing at the moment,
(09:29):
but we've always had this kindof vision of we want our brand
to be exceptional.
Any piece of work that we'redoing needs to be at corporate
standard, and the way we thinkabout things is, I think, what
you would expect to see within astartup that was trying to
deliver returns for itsinvestors, and for us, that's
the public benefit I mean weincorporated as a charity
(09:50):
because we truly believe in themission of working purely in the
public benefit.
But how we want to deliver thatsocial intervention is to
create game-changing scale andto really solve a problem for
carers that nobody else has beenable to do before, and to
really solve a problem forcarers that nobody else has been
able to do before.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
When you were thinking about the charity from
scratch?
How did you design the way thatyou wanted it to work?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, I mean the theory of change was absolutely
fundamental.
At the time we were reading alot and there was a Harvard
Business Review article oncreating social value, like
economic and social value at thesame time, and how that can
create this kind of win-winspace for innovation and growth.
We are very dependent on ourwork with corporate partners, so
the hotels that are donatingrooms to us are the linchpin in
(10:33):
this kind of ecosystem of ourtheory of change.
So we have to be delivering aservice to them that fits with
all of their operatingrequirements and doesn't create
any cost or friction to theirbusiness.
So the theory of change waslike a very key anchor that led
to kind of a picture of what dowe need to build a product level
.
So, in terms of the tech, soalthough Carefree is a very
(10:54):
simple idea or you've got theseunsold hotel rooms, you've got
carers in need of a break ourplatform has a number of
different sides.
So, for example, a lot of carersin the UK are hidden,
unidentified, they're notregistered with any care support
services.
So we had to build a wholedigital self-referral pathway
that's very sophisticated,literally meets NatWest Bank
(11:14):
standards of you know whenyou're doing digital identity
verification for a user.
We had to build a communityreferral pathway so that we
could easily connect in withlocal carer support
organizations to refer carers,an app for our hotel partners
where they could easily accesstheir kind of inventory and
impact dashboards, and then, ofcourse, you've got the Breaks
Hub platform for the carers, andthen our own internal operating
(11:38):
systems and tech, which is alot of like big customer support
systems run through Intercomand things like that huge number
of things to think about whenit comes to the architecture
that was built on top of thetheory of change to deliver what
we're doing and you're runningall that with 10 people eight
until this week, but, yes, 10now.
We've just had our first growthmarketing person and we've just
(12:01):
hired a development manager aswell oh wow, that's really
exciting yeah, then absolutelyfantastic.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Can I just go back to the theory of change you were
talking about there?
Can you summarise what yourtheory of change is for this?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah.
So it is about creating a moreregenerative social care system.
So the premise that we willalways be relying on unpaid
carers to provide this backboneof our health and social care
system.
We need them to be able tocarry on caring in their caring
role.
And so what's that funnel ofaccess to respite create for
them?
So for them, it createsincreased wellbeing outcomes
(12:36):
like more coping resiliencewithin their role.
For care support organisationsand local authorities, it means
that they are able to dosomething that can promote carer
well-being.
That doesn't come at a with abudget line attached to it for
them, so they can maximize theuse of their very limited
resources.
When it comes to the budgetsthat they have to support carers
(12:57):
, there was some research a fewyears ago that said that in
terms of kind of carer breaksfunding that was going through
from central government and thebetter care fund down to local
authority level, it's 19 poundsper person.
19 pounds is never going to payfor an overnight break for a
carer.
And so opening up that excesscapacity from the hotel industry
, again with the theory ofchange for our hotels, it means
(13:19):
that they can have direct impactat an individual level, but
also a societal.
Societal level again forsomething that's quite cost
neutral for them.
So they are subsidizing thecost of the turner of the room,
the laundry charge.
It's breakfast included, but itmight be that the carer has
dinner in the hotel or somethinglike that.
Hopefully it balances out forthem, but it does mean that they
(13:40):
can create what's called likemore resource efficiency from an
ESG perspective out of whatwould otherwise be wasted assets
.
And then, looking at the longwelfare picture, when we think
about the general public, threein five of us will become an
unpaid carer at some point inour lives and so, having this
system where, when it's yourturn and you can actually have a
respite mechanism, it'simportant to invest in a system
(14:03):
like this because that's what'sgoing to create long welfare in
this country.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
When you were first thinking about the model,
thinking about the whole waythis charity and service might
work, how did you test ideas andhow did you involve carers and
kind of hoteliers and otherpeople in this?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, it was such a joint effort around building a
small network of connectionsthat would foster the kind of
pilot period for what we weredoing.
So a friend of one of ourco-founders who had six hotel
properties that we could pilotwith going down and spending a
lot of time with what wasCornell Carer Service down in
Cornwall to understand whattheir needs would be in terms of
(14:45):
being part of an initiativelike this from a referrals
pathway and a verificationperspective.
And then we ran.
We tried to do.
Our first pilot was code basedon a kind of custom built code
platform that had been donatedto us, which was really
difficult, and we very quicklyrealized the mammoth challenge
of being a small organizationand trying to do anything with
(15:06):
custom code.
And then in our beta pilotwhere we worked with 1,200
carers, we ran all of thatthrough Airtable and so we were
able to have very extensivenotes on what each person's
barrier to booking a break mightbe, what they worked for them,
what didn't.
So there was just a huge amountof information that we were
gathering in our first kind ofcouple of years and then we
(15:28):
finished our beta pilot in 2019,had to pull in and stop because
we ran out of money as oftenhappens in that kind of journey
of small organizations trying toget a social innovation through
and then, of course, thepandemic hit, and so we had this
really, on the one hand,positive two and a half year
period where we'd secured somesocial investment that could
(15:48):
carry us through and thatenabled us to just focus on
building a no-code architecturethat we really believed could
run at volume for when we wantedto relaunch after the pandemic
and we wouldn't have had thatkind of heads down time without
being in a situation where therewasn't a pressure to run broke
delivery.
But when we went back online inkind of November 2021 with our
(16:11):
platform, we actually ended upbuilding another platform after
that in February 2022.
But since then we've deliveredover 14,000 breaks and
registered over 30,000 morecarers.
It's been a really powerfulkind of post-pandemic journey
for us.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
What were some of the challenges when you were
designing the model?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
A very typical one would be if you imagine kind of
hotel access capacity and whenthey think they're going to have
vacant rooms, that would belast minute for a carer wanting
to go on a break.
They need a lot of notice toorganize the interim care in
that process and so reallyfinding a way and means of
working that that kind of fittedfor both parties was.
(16:47):
There was a journey of like,very strong design journey and
now we've settled into hotels,release to us what they think
their forecast excess capacityis going to be 45 to 60 days in
advance.
So when you're logging onto ourplatform you're not seeing all
of our inventory for the year orat once You're seeing about 60
days worth of inventory.
So overall we'll have about40,000 nights on the platform
(17:10):
across the year, but that willbe reduced down into the kind of
three month chunks essentially.
But that will be reduced downinto the kind of three month
chunks essentially.
One of the things for Carefreeis that, as an issue, this has
been a pretty invisible issuefrom the Trusts and Foundations
space or the grant funders space.
There's a lot of traditionalcriticisms around our model.
So, for example, trusts andFoundations might say, well,
(17:31):
this can't be a sustainedintervention because it's just
two nights away for a carer.
That's not providing acontinuous support, and I think
that's just something thatreally doesn't fit with or
account with the digitalframeworks of delivery.
You know, if we're anorganization that's providing
continuous online support for35,000 users at the moment, that
(17:51):
is continuous support and it'sproviding a continuous service
that the carers can access.
It's also reflective of thething that carers say that they
need most, not what other peoplemight think that they should
need or they should want, and soit's.
It's really.
I do feel there's a very strongbeneficiary voice that's led our
journey in terms of this wasthe problem that needed solving.
(18:14):
That isn't mirrored on theoutside.
And then another thing thatpeople might accuse us of, which
again feels really unfair, isthat this would just be a
whitewashing initiative forhotels and really like a.
This is an initiative that wascreated for carers, by carers,
but also the hotel partners thatwe're working with could not
(18:34):
have been more generous in termsof really incubating the small
charity with a big idea to tocreate some really radical
social change.
And, yeah, I think that thatthere's a very, it's very weird
how corporate partnerships areinterpreted within the social
sector space and very easy linesthat people can say of oh,
that's just whitewashing orthat's just this and it actually
(18:55):
it really detracts from whenthere really are amazing things
that are happening.
Our most generous donor, theyhave a small number of
properties I think it's about 20properties and, my goodness, do
they go above and beyond forour carers?
They'll have flowers in theroom.
I mean, they really just throweverything at this initiative
and it's really amazing to see.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
That's fantastic.
And who's on your radar, whoyou'd love to work with but
isn't signed up yet?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We'd love to work with something like the Leonardo
Hotel Group, who have like verybig exposure in kind of the
northwest of England.
We're always looking for moreproperties in the southwest, in
Cornwall and Wales.
Northern Ireland is our kind ofdream boat scenario.
There's a very acute need inNorthern Ireland and just a huge
gulf of provision.
But actually with NorthernIreland you've got a lot of
(19:42):
independent owners and operatorsand so it's about really
finding those people and makingconnections with them.
And you know, our businessdevelopment capacity is capped.
Our amazing director ofdelivery is doing so much, and
when are you getting that spaceto step outside and go and try
and find hotel supply?
Like, when am I getting spaceto go outside and try and find
new funders?
(20:02):
There's always competingpriorities in this sort of setup
.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Do you see yourselves as a tech starter?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
As I say, fundamental to us isthat we are a charity and we
want to demonstrate what acharity that kind of is designed
with what tools are availableto us in the digital economy in
the 21st century can be when youpush the potential of what's
possible.
But at our core, because ourscale of our ambition is that
(20:29):
every full-time unpaid carer inthe UK can get access to an
annual break we want to go intoEurope and the US.
Yeah, that's really.
That really is our journey.
And also, from a brandperspective, we're trying to
cement our brand in the way thata tech startup would try to, or
any kind of corporate company.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
How about this concept of moving fast and
breaking things that'sfundamental to the way that lots
of these startups operate?
Is that something you apply toyour work, and how do you do
that if you're working withvulnerable people?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
yeah, absolutely not is what we would say so small,
continuous improvements.
We use a system called intercom, which is our kind of customer
service framework, and we areliterally catching every single
interaction and conversation andcommunication with the carer.
Any feedback that we're gettingon is acted on immediately and
that's what, you know, createslike we have tremendous customer
(21:17):
service satisfaction scoresloyalty.
Carers really feel like thisservice is there for them.
What we do like to do is alittle bit more of a kind of
start with a skateboard, andthis is very much our CTO, joe
Koonin Taylor's, philosophy ofstart with a skateboard.
Let's put something up as longas it can be reversed quickly.
If it doesn.
A skateboard, let's putsomething up as long as it can
be reversed quickly.
(21:37):
If it doesn't work, let's tryit.
And so, I think it was about 10days ago, joey said oh, I had an
idea about an AI travel agentthat we could.
You know, once the carers had abreak, confirmation, let's,
let's do something to help themget ready on their break journey
, send them potential travelroutes and what they could do in
terms of the area that they'regoing to, and 10 days later, we
(21:58):
pretty much have an AI travelbot that we'll be testing out.
Wow.
So we do like to try things,but we'll do them with segments
of our users.
We'll say, okay, we'll launchthis with.
We have funding from the CityBridge Foundation, so a lot of
our experimentation is actuallybeing fueled in London right now
.
So we'll say, ok, we'll launchthat travel agent chatbot with
(22:18):
carers registered in London andsee how that goes, and then
we'll expand out from there.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
What are some of the pivots or mindset shifts you've
had to make as you've gonethrough this journey?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, like, definitely no code was the major
one.
I mean, at some stage, when weneed to do API linkups with
hotel groups, we will have totransition to a custom code
platform, but for the next twoyears, we're working with a
fantastic company called Glide.
That's providing the baselineof our platform infrastructure
and really giving us a lot offlexibility to build and change
(22:50):
and shift and grow in the waythat we need to.
The big learning I had frommyself as a manager was, I think
, how to bring people along withyou.
When Joey came into theorganization, he really became a
translator for everybody elsein terms of the vision piece
that I had of how I thoughtthings could link together.
Actually, you asked me todescribe the theory of change
(23:11):
today written as a diagram.
It's an incredibly complex kindof cycle and so being able to
translate that for people andput things into a kind of a much
more simple framing, I thinkwe've learned a lot about
simplicity and actually, from amind shift perspective, the
thing that I'm most proud of isthat we really don't do big
strategies.
We do a strategy in a sentence.
(23:32):
In 2021, our strategy for theyear was let's make the
operation single on the outside.
And for us that was like wereally want to nail customer
service operations and how ourflow of monthly break bookings
and the next year we're like,okay, let's make the operation
single on the outside.
And then we're like, okay,let's look at our marketing
infrastructure and, you know,let's check out our external
comms and how we're takingpeople through the user journey
(23:55):
of from registration through tobookings.
And this year it's aboutgetting people to come to us and
we've set that as our kind ofour benchmark for the year and,
sure enough, healthier kind ofcame along and said, hey, would
you contribute to our ai report?
And now we're sitting doingthis podcast today fantastic.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I'd like to talk about the finances a little bit
and sustainability, becausethat's at the heart of what can
make things happen, and it'seasy to gloss over some of that
stuff sometimes, but in terms ofthe kind of the financial model
, how did you initially imaginethis would work and how are you
now funded?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
we had always set out to be a majority
self-sustaining charity.
So we charge a £33 fee for thebreaks that we facilitate.
That can be paid for by thecarer or by the carer service
referring them, or a localauthority, or there's lots of
mechanisms with how that can becovered.
And the other income streamthat we've had to introduce was
(24:53):
for our community partners.
We were shouldering a lot of.
We had designed this theory ofchange where we've had to
introduce was for our communitypartners.
We were we were shouldering alot of.
We had designed this theory ofchange where we really wanted to
be connected in and joined upto the existing social sector.
So we wanted communityorganizations to be able to
refer carers.
But it was costing us about150k a year to have that
infrastructure and so we startedasking for a flat rate
contribution of 0.1% of theirturnover as a kind of membership
(25:17):
contribution.
So our earned income today, Ithink, is probably going to
cover about 35% to 40% of ouroperating costs this year.
Social investment for the lastfew years we've done three very
small rounds of socialinvestment in comparison to what
around could be, but typicallywe would try to secure 150k of
(25:38):
social investment per year,which would be about 20% of our
costs, and then grant funding isthe other kind of 50% really,
and that's.
I would love it to be a littlebit more diversified, where we
had networks for publicfundraising or high net worth
donors or corporate sponsorship,but we're just not.
We're not a big enoughorganization yet to have that
(25:59):
visibility in those spaces to beable to generate income from
those sectors.
So in a couple of years time Ireally hope that we can, but for
the moment it is.
I guess the centerpiece of whatenables Carefree to keep going
is the earned income and thereliability that we know we're
going to bring in 20 or 30k amonth against a spend of 70 or
(26:21):
80k or something like that.
So for us, because we'refocused on volume, rather than
having a handful of partnerswhere we have to charge a lot of
money, we would rather have alot of partners where we can
charge as little as possible.
So for local authorities, we'redeveloping a new package which
is around three to five thousandpounds a year.
They will be able to have kindof group level access to see and
(26:42):
understand which serviceswithin the area are referring
carers to us, how many carersare signing up, how much
inventory has been being donatedby hotels in the area.
So a lot of very useful datafor them in terms of how they
can prove that they aresupporting carers and
contributing to thisinfrastructure for brakes
delivery, but it's somethingthat's really not hitting into a
(27:04):
major cost line for them.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Has it been quite intentional to not rely on local
authorities in your growth?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, there's been a few pressure points around and
there were a couple ofopportunities last year of local
authorities wanting to put.
There was something called theaccelerated reform fund.
That was a very a one-off pieceof funding from the government
to to fuel care innovation, andso a couple of local authorities
(27:29):
wanted to do a.
Can we set up a digitalplatform for breaks access,
donated breaks access and thingslike that and we didn't bid for
those opportunities because ourinfrastructure and way of
working is so tight, so lean, soefficient and also, like the
way in which we work we knowworks for carers and all the
(27:49):
parties involved a lot of thekind of the descriptions of how
people envisage these thingsshould work are different.
What they want you to deliveragainst is changing your model
into a different way that wewouldn't have as much confidence
in, and so we just said, no,we're going to.
We're just going to keep ourheads down and keep moving
forwards on what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
How do you balance supply and demand?
I would imagine there's a hugedemand for your service and the
supply might be more of achallenge.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, I think we are hitting a bit of a squeeze point
because it is more difficult tosign up new hotel groups at the
moment.
We immediately felt the effectsof the October budget with the,
the increase in employers,national insurance and the
hospitality industry just went alittle bit into free fall, and
so getting new hotels to thinkabout ESG and social impact when
(28:37):
they are very frightened withintheir businesses is harder than
it used to be.
So our timeline for signing upand converting a hotel group is
about nine months at the moment,which means that our inventory
is staying more static where andactually our existing hotel
groups are giving us more andmore, which is what's enabling
us to keep growing.
We're doing about 500 to 700breaks a month at the moment,
(29:01):
but our carer demand is verysteadily increasing.
So we're getting at least 1,000new carer referrals every month
.
That will be carers signing uppredominantly through the
self-referral pathway, and thatis word of mouth among carers,
that is, people just hearingabout the initiative.
We've reached a level ofmaturity now, at seven years old
, where we are a little bit moreknown, and I think that is
(29:22):
where our organic growth iscoming from.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Does it cost the hotels anything to work with you
?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, it costs them about.
Actually, we just commissionedsome economic research into this
.
It costs them about £25 perbreak that they're subsidising.
The reason why we'vecommissioned some economic
research into basically to valuewhat the breaks are doing at
the public sector level.
So if we're preventing fivepercent of carers from burning
(29:49):
out in their role, that couldlead to 200 million pounds worth
of public sector savings.
And so can we leverage thismodel to say to the government
if you would provide hotels witha nominal fixed corporate tax
rebate of, say, £25 for eachbreak that they give away, that
is what would really unlockvolume for us in terms of moving
(30:12):
this initiative to the scalethat we want it to be.
So that's where we'll be goingover the next year or two is
really focused on that agenda.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Let's move on to talking about technology.
So AI is the talk of the town.
Everyone's excited, terrified.
There's different ends of thespectrum.
You've been doing lots of workwith ai and I think that was how
we first connected, when wewere doing the research around
ways that people were runningsupport services using ai.
Can you tell me a bit moreabout how you've been using ai
(30:44):
to help your organization grow?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
yeah, sure, so sure.
So I think people have probablypicked up in this conversation
that our ability to expand ourheadcount is extremely limited
because we're not sure ofearning enough money to be able
to sustain kind of additionalroles.
And our customer service teamwas at the forefront of this.
Oh my gosh, we're adding athousand new users a month.
How do you deal with that?
(31:06):
And so we have a customerservice system that's built in
Intercom.
They launched a chatbot calledFinAI and we immediately stepped
into trying to develop FinAI assomething that could create
that kind of frontline for ourservice delivery.
It started with a kind of anout of office hours approach, so
(31:27):
when we trade kind of nine tofive, Monday to Friday, like
turning thin AI on for kind ofinquiries, and outside of that,
we were training it on both likeour big database of help
articles.
So they had and it's a closedsystem so it's not learning from
anything else other than theinformation that we're feeding
it.
So we had lots of help articles.
But if you just left a helparticles, the AI would get stuck
(31:48):
over if this, then that andthat wouldn't really get users
to a place where they werehaving their issues resolved.
So what it also has access tois anonymized data from.
We have about 3000 supportrequests a month, so it uses the
anonymized data from thoseconversations to learn and
understand.
Okay, this is what somebody isasking or this is what they need
(32:09):
in terms of their issue beingresolved, and it's been
fantastic.
I mean, we've obviously donethis in a very controlled way
and in a very staged way and inorder to get the balance right.
But if you think about 3000queries, we've got two people on
our customer support team.
If you're working off a normalformula of a full-time week, 15
minutes per customer, they wouldprobably only be able to deal
(32:31):
with 150 cases a week.
What we're now doing and wehave FinAI turned on all the
time is that basically onlyabout 30% of cases will be
surfaced through to our customersupport team, so a manageable
load for them, because over 70%of cases are now being resolved
by FinAI with a 93% satisfactionrate from our carers.
(32:54):
We're very transparent to ourcarers that this is a chatbot
and give it a go if it will help.
But what we're really proud ofis the people that are coming
through to our customer supportteam is that we're able to
surface through who are thehighest needs users, and then
we're able to put our time andattention onto those people that
kind of really need that humansupport.
So, yeah, it's been brilliantand I think it is what we will
(33:15):
be doing more of this as we growand move forward.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
How have you made sure that those chatbots are
able to reflect your core values?
That warmth and care and thatside of things.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, I mean I think this is the customer service
team and the language that theyalways use, the way in which
they behave.
They've really treated it likean additional team member in how
they talk to it and how theyadjust it.
Also, all of the FinAIconversations will be reviewed
by our director of delivery andour head of customer service and
putting in that base layer ofif FinAI has done something or
said something that doesn't feelquite right tonally, they'll
tell it like, they'll feed backto it, and so there is this kind
(33:52):
of constant feedback loopthat's happening as well.
That, I think, has been reallyimportant.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
So it's like training a new member of staff.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Totally yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And how do you think about the balance between kind
of technology and humanconnection in care?
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I mean, it varies in terms of I really believe that
in terms of, like socialservices and charity services,
being better able to meet peoplewhere they are.
At the end of the day, we welive in a digital world, with
digital devices making lifeeasier in terms of what we're
able to access from oursmartphones, and so much of a
carer's time is spent reallytrying to fight to kind of phone
(34:29):
calls, letters, trying to getaccess to the medical
appointments, all these thingsthat could, or even like
benefits applications.
There's so much scope in thatsense to make people's lives
easier in accessing servicesthrough the intervention of
digital technology.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Let's zoom out for a moment and look at the sector
and thinking about change in thesector.
What do you think are thebiggest blockers to change and
innovation in the care and thecharity world today?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I mean, financing is the thing that you can't avoid
talking about at this point.
You know, when we were startingout back in 2017, there were
some small parts of there wasSocial Tech Trust for 45 grand.
There was Comic Relief's Techfor Good pot for 45 grand Little
things like that.
The National Lottery did adigital fund program which we
got access to, but they only didthat for one year.
(35:18):
There is no centered digitalfunding within the sector and
that obviously criticallyaffects the pipeline of
organizations that would bestarting to try and set up now
from a charity base.
Obviously, there is a lot morekind of for-profit, for-purpose
organizations and they'll beincubated through things like
Zinc, vc or essential ventures,things like that.
(35:40):
So I think that if you look atthe charity sector as a whole
trying to do something in thedigital space, there isn't
really the support frameworkthere within the funding space
From a block.
In terms of the innovationstandpoint, yeah, it amazes me
how, if you contrast the smallbusiness community with the
(36:03):
charity sector, community withthe charity sector, so apps like
air table or no code softwareproducts like air table, which
can automate a huge amount ofkind of back office processes
for you, your stripe payments,your zero cloud accounting with
this, that and the other, yourslack your.
It really surprises me that inthe small business sector there
(36:23):
is such a fast level of adoptionof no code products.
That in the small businesssector there is such a fast
level of adoption of no-codeproducts.
That is the basis of theirbusiness models.
They charge $12 a user becausethey're expecting that they're
going to get lots and lots ofsmall businesses to sign up to
use their services because itmakes their businesses more
efficient.
Weirdly, with charities, wedon't just take the leap to oh,
that could help.
(36:43):
There is something in thewhether it's the way that
everything needs to be veryheavily vetted before it's
applied.
There needs to be so muchsign-off at so many different
levels, but there isn't a oh, wecould just use this tool and
get that done and that wouldmake our lives easier.
And I just fundamentally thinkthat there's a missing piece of
(37:04):
the jigsaw puzzle under the hoodof making everybody's lives
easier by adopting really basicno-code products into very small
business processes.
That gives you a lot more spaceto do the more radical
innovation stuff.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
If you could wave a magic wand, what would you
change and how would youredesign the system?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I mean, I think, the recognising.
I think it was the Centre forSocial Justice that came out
with a report a couple of monthsago that over 70,000 grant pots
closed in the charity sectorlast year.
Also, withdrawal ofgovernmental funding and of
corporate sponsorship.
There's hundreds of millionsgoing out of the sector right
now, which means that charitiesreally need to switch into more
(37:43):
of a social enterprise model inorder to be able to sustain
their operating base and, likecarefree, have some sort of
earned income stream tosupplement their services.
The magic wand that I think weneed is how do we open up social
investment to enable charitiesto do that?
And currently social investmentis completely unaffordable for
the charity sector.
It's eight to twelve percent interms of the repayments and you
(38:06):
also in terms of the interest.
The repayment period is five tosix years.
If you're having to start anincome stream and get it rolling
, the biggest single switch thatI think we could do is just say
okay, flat rate 10-yearrepayment periods.
That's going to offset thenegative impacts of the high
interest rates, it's going tomake the financing much more
affordable to organizations andit's going to create a wider
(38:29):
spread of how many organizationscan actually get access to that
money.
So that would be.
My big wish is that we try touse the social investment space
for what it was designed for.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
What's next for Carefree?
What are you excited about?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Well, we've just filed all of our trademarks
around our brand, so that feltlike a bit of a moment.
Apparently, it's 18 monthsuntil the trademarking people
actually give you the trademark.
There'll be a wait.
What I would love to see is anexpansion of the hotels that
become involved with ourinitiative.
Getting a bit more mainstreammedia coverage.
(39:04):
We've been very under the radargetting a bit more mainstream
media coverage.
We've been very under the radarand I really hope that when we
have this economic researchthat's being being released in
September, that it doesbasically become a bit of a
turning point in our ability toreally move into that public
policy space and to startgetting people to see that this
isn't just a nice to have littlecare of breaks initiative.
This is about how do we createa better care future for us all.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
How can people help?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
If they know a hotel group, send them our way.
If they know a carer that wantsa break, please do send them to
our website.
And also, if they're interestedin I think we're going to be
looking at more socialinvestment this year, so if they
want to get involved on thatlevel, please do give me a call.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
If someone's thinking of starting a mission-led
organization today, what advicewould you give them?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Product market fit first.
There's a trend in the startupspace that try something if it's
not working, pivot.
We don't have the time or thefinancial bandwidth to be able
to do pivots when we're workingwithin the resource constraints
that we have.
So nailing in that you youreally have an idea that will
fix a need, that will solve aproblem and that people are
going to want and that has anearned income stream that people
(40:17):
will pay for behind it.
Those are the most importantthings, because if you just have
something that you think wouldbe great and you think would be
nice and you think people wouldwant that's really, you're going
to line yourself up for yearsand years of sleepless nights
and stress because it's not goodenough to think that
something's a good thing.
Unfortunately, it has to reallybe proven out that this is
(40:40):
something people will want, needand pay for.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And at the other end of the spectrum, what advice
would you give to biggerorganizations who want to
operate in a more agile way?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Take down your internal barriers to change.
That is the key thing and a lotof those organizations are
still.
They have a very fixed ITinfrastructure and within the
tech and the software space,there's much more of a
transition to DevOps and tobasically project management is
really being phased out withinthe tech sector.
So having more of a focus onproduct management, being able
(41:16):
to understand what are your forwant of a better word like
business processes or operatingprocesses, what tech tools can
support those operatingprocesses to operate more
efficiently?
Just unhook yourself from theIT infrastructure that you've
had and be more experimental.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
To end with, I'd like to know one belief that you
hold that others might not agreewith, but you think is true,
and it doesn't have to berelated to care or to health.
I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I really believe in the value of having like
business values and businessprinciples and that you
benchmark your decisions againstthat and I said I mentioned
earlier about like single linephrases that we have, but the
things that I'm really proud ofwith carefree is one of the
phrases that we had was carerswill never have to sing for
their supper.
So everything that we designwill be as easy as possible for
(42:05):
people.
But you've got to find yourhallmark phrases and your
mantras that kind of reallybecome the belief system of how
you build what you're building,and I think people, people don't
take the time to define whatthose things are for themselves
and they should really do a lotmore of that thank you,
charlotte.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It's been a privilege to talk to you.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to come along.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Thank you, sam, really appreciate the
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by
Healthier, the collaborativeservice design consultancy for
transformation in health careand public services.
Find out more about how we canhelp you deliver user-centered
change at healthierservices.
Have you ever thought about the fact that at some
point in your life, you'reeither going to become a carer
or be cared for?
Now?
Imagine being a carer 24 hoursa day, seven days a week, with
no time off to refuel or evenjust be yourself.
Today's guest found a way tochange that, using technology,
(00:20):
empathy and some very cleverthinking.
Hello, this is Problems WorthSolving the podcast where we
meet people transforming healthand care through human-centred
design and digital innovation.
I'm Sam Mentor, founder andManaging Director at Healthier,
(00:43):
the collaborative service designconsultancy.
If you enjoy listening, you cansubscribe to this podcast and
the accompanying newsletter athealthierservices.
Today's guest is CharlotteNewman, founding member and
chief executive of Carefree, acharity doing incredible things
for unpaid carers.
(01:04):
It's a brilliant example ofsocial innovation in action.
It's won multiple awards forservice design, technology and
sustainability, and is one ofthe UK's leading digital
charities.
Under Charlotte's leadership,carefree has grown fast.
With her team, she shaped thevision, secured funding,
designed the frontline serviceand built the operational
(01:24):
backbone, all while running thecharity more like a tech startup
than a traditional non-profit.
Today, we're going to talkabout what bigger organisations
can learn from lean,mission-driven teams, how AI can
help charities do more withless, and why Charlotte thinks
the future of care lies inpartnerships, not just policy.
Charlotte, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
(01:45):
Let's dive straight in.
What's the big problem you'vebeen trying to solve?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's access to respite for unpaid carers.
So a few of us realise it, butthere are 5.7 million unpaid
carers in the UK.
They're saving the public purse£183 billion a year, which is
more than the entire NHS budget.
They're providing 80% of homecare and yet 68% won't get
access to a break this year.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
How are you solving this problem?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
So there are 1 million unsold hotel rooms in
the UK every week.
We have basically created atech platform that enables
hotels to easily donate theirexcess capacity to us that we
can then distribute out tounpaid carers, so they can
choose when and where they wantto take a break away.
They can take a companion withthem, they can get access to
overnight respite, which is justsomething that the system has
(02:33):
not been able to offer before,and with that access to
overnight respite, they're ableto really center in on finding
themselves again, getting goodnight's sleep, doing things like
going for a walk or going for aswim.
These are the types of thingsthat we take for granted as
being part of our everydayweekend, and it's just something
that is just not possible forsomebody who's looking after
(02:54):
somebody full-time in the home.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Why is this important ?
What's it like being afull-time carer in the UK at the
moment?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's really harrowing .
There's problems at so manydifferent levels.
So if you look at the fight totry and get the needs of your
cared for person met, that'spart of the journey is that
you're constantly trying tofight for access to services.
There's a reduction inprovision of, for example,
respite, so that you've got acare worker that would come in
for an hour to give you a breakand things like that.
(03:21):
So a lot of carers are runningon empty, like in a live-in role
with the person they're caringfor.
They'll be up through the nightbecause, depending on that
careful person's needs, theymight need to be doing kind of
personal hygiene stuff for thatcareful person through the night
, or giving them medication orchecking in on them.
So a lot of carers just won'thave slept for years at a time.
They'll become very sociallyisolated because in terms of
(03:45):
thinking through and navigating,where can I go, what places are
accessible, finding timeseparated from their careful
person to be able to meet upwith a friend or go out for
dinner with their husband,there's very little in the kind
of the norms of what it is tohave social connections, and so
there's a closing in of theirworld really shrinking, and so
there's a closing in of theirworld really shrinking, and then
, of course, there's thephysical exhaustion of it,
(04:05):
because typically they'll besupporting somebody with their
physical needs as well as theirother additional needs, and so
it's a huge amount of work, andthat's what's really sad about
this picture is that actually,this will affect every family at
some point.
You know you're either going tobe cared for or become a carer
at some point in your life, butwe're dealing with this in the
home.
(04:26):
It's not really spoken about ortalked about and it's just seen
as being kind of something thatwe have to do and something
that we just have to get on with, and very rarely do we step
back and recognize.
Actually, I am kind of part ofa big umbrella community of
people that are holding ourhealth and social care system
together, and I need supportstructures that can enable me to
(04:48):
carry on doing this.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
The psychological burden of it as well must be
hard.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, in lockdown.
I think I spent five and a halfmonths at home with my parents,
isolating.
We were going through theback-to-back cancer scenario
with my parents and I don'tthink I've ever recovered from
five and a half months of notleaving the house.
And for many carers thatjourney didn't end with lockdown
.
They are still very much stuckwithin the home for very deep
(05:14):
periods of time without socialinteraction.
I think it was the Universityof Essex that did some research
where one in six carers havecontemplated suicide.
Fewer have taken an.
But it is the desperation of Ican't go on tends to be the
critical point that people canreach because we don't have
enough prevention systems likeCarefree that are really trying
to get carers that interjectionof being able to step away from
(05:36):
their caring role to reset andpeople can dismiss Carefree and
say, oh, what difference does itmake to give somebody two
nights away and actually carerswill say to us this was totally
life-changing or this saved mylife.
And for us that's very clearwhen we're speaking with and
engaging with carers that theneed for carers to have a right
to respite is really acute andit's not something that's
(05:58):
actually prescribed within oursystem.
You know you're an informalworkforce.
It's not like you get rights ofholidays.
You don't.
The level of burnout within thesystem is really acute at the
moment.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Do you have a personal connection with the
mission?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, I mean.
My first encounter with howcare can disrupt your life was
when I was 10.
My grandmother, who was she,was blind and she had seen a
dementia, and she came to livewith us after my grandfather
passed away and the situationthat my parents faced and it's
so acute in my memory was reallydifficult.
It wasn't just the care burdenof looking after my grandmother.
(06:30):
I was the only person sherecognized, and so I ended up
taking on a lot of those kind ofyoung carer responsibilities.
I missed a lot of school,failed my 11 plus and it got to
the point where we really neededto make that move of putting
her into a care home.
And it got to the point wherewe really needed to make that
move of putting her into a carehome, and then that created a
huge amount of financialpressure, we lost our home.
You know, it's these sorts ofthings that kind of set you on a
(06:52):
bit of a journey with your life.
And then when I met Charlie andJames, who were the people that
had the original idea forCarefree, I just knew that this
was something that I could buildand really the difference that
it would make.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And tell me a bit about how your journey before
Carefree.
How did you go into this world?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
A lot of stuff in the social sector space.
You know, typical thing of whatdoes a work experience
placement do for you.
You know, when I was 15, Iworked at a youth magazine in
Haringey and the editor fromthat brought me into working
kind of social investment space.
I was doing internships withhim from when I was 18.
I always worked in thenonprofit sector.
I managed to get some exposureinto the startup space, which
was really interesting.
And I guess I startedconnecting the dots on wow, if
(07:34):
you really brought startupdesign methods into the social
sector and into the charitysector, what could you achieve?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
And I guess that laid the groundwork for Carefree One
of the things I was reallyinterested to talk to you about
when we were researching thispodcast was you've described
Carefree as a charity thatoperates like a startup, and I
wondered what does that reallymean in practice for you?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Oh gosh, I mean everything from.
If you look at the nature of ourteam, it's broken down into
product business development,marketing, customer support,
project management cycles.
You know, this sprint issomething that I guess we would
like to talk a lot about when westarted, but now we do a we do
a very fancy nct framework ofnarrative commitments and tasks
where we break down into quarter, into different projects and
(08:16):
everybody's kind of running toto sprint across a lot of the
different sides of theorganization.
I guess funding wise, the waywe think about our kind of burn
rate and how we're running, butalso our delivery system, is
tech based, and so the scalejourney that we're doing is
really centered on how manyusers are we bringing in, how
many new partnerships are webuilding, how much money are we
(08:39):
earning each month to be able tosustain our kind of baseline
operating costs?
And then I think, the pressuresthat we face, as well as an
organization where we've justturned to 10 people this week
We've been eight people sincebefore this week, but we have
35,000 users now and so theeconomies of scale that we're
trying to drive with ourinitiative are very much what
you would expect to see within astartup.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Have you previously worked in big organizations and
how does it feel different inCarefree?
No?
Have you previously worked inbig organizations and how does
it feel different in Carefree?
No?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I have never worked in a big organization.
I've always worked in very smallcharities.
To have a charity that goesfrom a two-person team to an
eight-person team and now a10-person team feels mega.
But we've always tried todeliver a corporate standard and
I think that I'm very luckywith my CTO, joey, who's an
incredible person.
He's kind of the machine behindwhat we're doing at the moment,
(09:29):
but we've always had this kindof vision of we want our brand
to be exceptional.
Any piece of work that we'redoing needs to be at corporate
standard, and the way we thinkabout things is, I think, what
you would expect to see within astartup that was trying to
deliver returns for itsinvestors, and for us, that's
the public benefit I mean weincorporated as a charity
(09:50):
because we truly believe in themission of working purely in the
public benefit.
But how we want to deliver thatsocial intervention is to
create game-changing scale andto really solve a problem for
carers that nobody else has beenable to do before, and to
really solve a problem forcarers that nobody else has been
able to do before.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
When you were thinking about the charity from
scratch?
How did you design the way thatyou wanted it to work?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, I mean the theory of change was absolutely
fundamental.
At the time we were reading alot and there was a Harvard
Business Review article oncreating social value, like
economic and social value at thesame time, and how that can
create this kind of win-winspace for innovation and growth.
We are very dependent on ourwork with corporate partners, so
the hotels that are donatingrooms to us are the linchpin in
(10:33):
this kind of ecosystem of ourtheory of change.
So we have to be delivering aservice to them that fits with
all of their operatingrequirements and doesn't create
any cost or friction to theirbusiness.
So the theory of change waslike a very key anchor that led
to kind of a picture of what dowe need to build a product level
.
So, in terms of the tech, soalthough Carefree is a very
(10:54):
simple idea or you've got theseunsold hotel rooms, you've got
carers in need of a break ourplatform has a number of
different sides.
So, for example, a lot of carersin the UK are hidden,
unidentified, they're notregistered with any care support
services.
So we had to build a wholedigital self-referral pathway
that's very sophisticated,literally meets NatWest Bank
(11:14):
standards of you know whenyou're doing digital identity
verification for a user.
We had to build a communityreferral pathway so that we
could easily connect in withlocal carer support
organizations to refer carers,an app for our hotel partners
where they could easily accesstheir kind of inventory and
impact dashboards, and then, ofcourse, you've got the Breaks
Hub platform for the carers, andthen our own internal operating
(11:38):
systems and tech, which is alot of like big customer support
systems run through Intercomand things like that huge number
of things to think about whenit comes to the architecture
that was built on top of thetheory of change to deliver what
we're doing and you're runningall that with 10 people eight
until this week, but, yes, 10now.
We've just had our first growthmarketing person and we've just
(12:01):
hired a development manager aswell oh wow, that's really
exciting yeah, then absolutelyfantastic.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Can I just go back to the theory of change you were
talking about there?
Can you summarise what yourtheory of change is for this?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah.
So it is about creating a moreregenerative social care system.
So the premise that we willalways be relying on unpaid
carers to provide this backboneof our health and social care
system.
We need them to be able tocarry on caring in their caring
role.
And so what's that funnel ofaccess to respite create for
them?
So for them, it createsincreased wellbeing outcomes
(12:36):
like more coping resiliencewithin their role.
For care support organisationsand local authorities, it means
that they are able to dosomething that can promote carer
well-being.
That doesn't come at a with abudget line attached to it for
them, so they can maximize theuse of their very limited
resources.
When it comes to the budgetsthat they have to support carers
(12:57):
, there was some research a fewyears ago that said that in
terms of kind of carer breaksfunding that was going through
from central government and thebetter care fund down to local
authority level, it's 19 poundsper person.
19 pounds is never going to payfor an overnight break for a
carer.
And so opening up that excesscapacity from the hotel industry
, again with the theory ofchange for our hotels, it means
(13:19):
that they can have direct impactat an individual level, but
also a societal.
Societal level again forsomething that's quite cost
neutral for them.
So they are subsidizing thecost of the turner of the room,
the laundry charge.
It's breakfast included, but itmight be that the carer has
dinner in the hotel or somethinglike that.
Hopefully it balances out forthem, but it does mean that they
(13:40):
can create what's called likemore resource efficiency from an
ESG perspective out of whatwould otherwise be wasted assets
.
And then, looking at the longwelfare picture, when we think
about the general public, threein five of us will become an
unpaid carer at some point inour lives and so, having this
system where, when it's yourturn and you can actually have a
respite mechanism, it'simportant to invest in a system
(14:03):
like this because that's what'sgoing to create long welfare in
this country.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
When you were first thinking about the model,
thinking about the whole waythis charity and service might
work, how did you test ideas andhow did you involve carers and
kind of hoteliers and otherpeople in this?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, it was such a joint effort around building a
small network of connectionsthat would foster the kind of
pilot period for what we weredoing.
So a friend of one of ourco-founders who had six hotel
properties that we could pilotwith going down and spending a
lot of time with what wasCornell Carer Service down in
Cornwall to understand whattheir needs would be in terms of
(14:45):
being part of an initiativelike this from a referrals
pathway and a verificationperspective.
And then we ran.
We tried to do.
Our first pilot was code basedon a kind of custom built code
platform that had been donatedto us, which was really
difficult, and we very quicklyrealized the mammoth challenge
of being a small organizationand trying to do anything with
(15:06):
custom code.
And then in our beta pilotwhere we worked with 1,200
carers, we ran all of thatthrough Airtable and so we were
able to have very extensivenotes on what each person's
barrier to booking a break mightbe, what they worked for them,
what didn't.
So there was just a huge amountof information that we were
gathering in our first kind ofcouple of years and then we
(15:28):
finished our beta pilot in 2019,had to pull in and stop because
we ran out of money as oftenhappens in that kind of journey
of small organizations trying toget a social innovation through
and then, of course, thepandemic hit, and so we had this
really, on the one hand,positive two and a half year
period where we'd secured somesocial investment that could
(15:48):
carry us through and thatenabled us to just focus on
building a no-code architecturethat we really believed could
run at volume for when we wantedto relaunch after the pandemic
and we wouldn't have had thatkind of heads down time without
being in a situation where therewasn't a pressure to run broke
delivery.
But when we went back online inkind of November 2021 with our
(16:11):
platform, we actually ended upbuilding another platform after
that in February 2022.
But since then we've deliveredover 14,000 breaks and
registered over 30,000 morecarers.
It's been a really powerfulkind of post-pandemic journey
for us.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
What were some of the challenges when you were
designing the model?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
A very typical one would be if you imagine kind of
hotel access capacity and whenthey think they're going to have
vacant rooms, that would belast minute for a carer wanting
to go on a break.
They need a lot of notice toorganize the interim care in
that process and so reallyfinding a way and means of
working that that kind of fittedfor both parties was.
(16:47):
There was a journey of like,very strong design journey and
now we've settled into hotels,release to us what they think
their forecast excess capacityis going to be 45 to 60 days in
advance.
So when you're logging onto ourplatform you're not seeing all
of our inventory for the year orat once You're seeing about 60
days worth of inventory.
So overall we'll have about40,000 nights on the platform
(17:10):
across the year, but that willbe reduced down into the kind of
three month chunks essentially.
But that will be reduced downinto the kind of three month
chunks essentially.
One of the things for Carefreeis that, as an issue, this has
been a pretty invisible issuefrom the Trusts and Foundations
space or the grant funders space.
There's a lot of traditionalcriticisms around our model.
So, for example, trusts andFoundations might say, well,
(17:31):
this can't be a sustainedintervention because it's just
two nights away for a carer.
That's not providing acontinuous support, and I think
that's just something thatreally doesn't fit with or
account with the digitalframeworks of delivery.
You know, if we're anorganization that's providing
continuous online support for35,000 users at the moment, that
(17:51):
is continuous support and it'sproviding a continuous service
that the carers can access.
It's also reflective of thething that carers say that they
need most, not what other peoplemight think that they should
need or they should want, and soit's.
It's really.
I do feel there's a very strongbeneficiary voice that's led our
journey in terms of this wasthe problem that needed solving.
(18:14):
That isn't mirrored on theoutside.
And then another thing thatpeople might accuse us of, which
again feels really unfair, isthat this would just be a
whitewashing initiative forhotels and really like a.
This is an initiative that wascreated for carers, by carers,
but also the hotel partners thatwe're working with could not
(18:34):
have been more generous in termsof really incubating the small
charity with a big idea to tocreate some really radical
social change.
And, yeah, I think that thatthere's a very, it's very weird
how corporate partnerships areinterpreted within the social
sector space and very easy linesthat people can say of oh,
that's just whitewashing orthat's just this and it actually
(18:55):
it really detracts from whenthere really are amazing things
that are happening.
Our most generous donor, theyhave a small number of
properties I think it's about 20properties and, my goodness, do
they go above and beyond forour carers?
They'll have flowers in theroom.
I mean, they really just throweverything at this initiative
and it's really amazing to see.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
That's fantastic.
And who's on your radar, whoyou'd love to work with but
isn't signed up yet?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We'd love to work with something like the Leonardo
Hotel Group, who have like verybig exposure in kind of the
northwest of England.
We're always looking for moreproperties in the southwest, in
Cornwall and Wales.
Northern Ireland is our kind ofdream boat scenario.
There's a very acute need inNorthern Ireland and just a huge
gulf of provision.
But actually with NorthernIreland you've got a lot of
(19:42):
independent owners and operatorsand so it's about really
finding those people and makingconnections with them.
And you know, our businessdevelopment capacity is capped.
Our amazing director ofdelivery is doing so much, and
when are you getting that spaceto step outside and go and try
and find hotel supply?
Like, when am I getting spaceto go outside and try and find
new funders?
(20:02):
There's always competingpriorities in this sort of setup
.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Do you see yourselves as a tech starter?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
As I say, fundamental to us isthat we are a charity and we
want to demonstrate what acharity that kind of is designed
with what tools are availableto us in the digital economy in
the 21st century can be when youpush the potential of what's
possible.
But at our core, because ourscale of our ambition is that
(20:29):
every full-time unpaid carer inthe UK can get access to an
annual break we want to go intoEurope and the US.
Yeah, that's really.
That really is our journey.
And also, from a brandperspective, we're trying to
cement our brand in the way thata tech startup would try to, or
any kind of corporate company.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
How about this concept of moving fast and
breaking things that'sfundamental to the way that lots
of these startups operate?
Is that something you apply toyour work, and how do you do
that if you're working withvulnerable people?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
yeah, absolutely not is what we would say so small,
continuous improvements.
We use a system called intercom, which is our kind of customer
service framework, and we areliterally catching every single
interaction and conversation andcommunication with the carer.
Any feedback that we're gettingon is acted on immediately and
that's what, you know, createslike we have tremendous customer
(21:17):
service satisfaction scoresloyalty.
Carers really feel like thisservice is there for them.
What we do like to do is alittle bit more of a kind of
start with a skateboard, andthis is very much our CTO, joe
Koonin Taylor's, philosophy ofstart with a skateboard.
Let's put something up as longas it can be reversed quickly.
If it doesn.
A skateboard, let's putsomething up as long as it can
be reversed quickly.
(21:37):
If it doesn't work, let's tryit.
And so, I think it was about 10days ago, joey said oh, I had an
idea about an AI travel agentthat we could.
You know, once the carers had abreak, confirmation, let's,
let's do something to help themget ready on their break journey
, send them potential travelroutes and what they could do in
terms of the area that they'regoing to, and 10 days later, we
(21:58):
pretty much have an AI travelbot that we'll be testing out.
Wow.
So we do like to try things,but we'll do them with segments
of our users.
We'll say, okay, we'll launchthis with.
We have funding from the CityBridge Foundation, so a lot of
our experimentation is actuallybeing fueled in London right now
.
So we'll say, ok, we'll launchthat travel agent chatbot with
(22:18):
carers registered in London andsee how that goes, and then
we'll expand out from there.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
What are some of the pivots or mindset shifts you've
had to make as you've gonethrough this journey?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, like, definitely no code was the major
one.
I mean, at some stage, when weneed to do API linkups with
hotel groups, we will have totransition to a custom code
platform, but for the next twoyears, we're working with a
fantastic company called Glide.
That's providing the baselineof our platform infrastructure
and really giving us a lot offlexibility to build and change
(22:50):
and shift and grow in the waythat we need to.
The big learning I had frommyself as a manager was, I think
, how to bring people along withyou.
When Joey came into theorganization, he really became a
translator for everybody elsein terms of the vision piece
that I had of how I thoughtthings could link together.
Actually, you asked me todescribe the theory of change
(23:11):
today written as a diagram.
It's an incredibly complex kindof cycle and so being able to
translate that for people andput things into a kind of a much
more simple framing, I thinkwe've learned a lot about
simplicity and actually, from amind shift perspective, the
thing that I'm most proud of isthat we really don't do big
strategies.
We do a strategy in a sentence.
(23:32):
In 2021, our strategy for theyear was let's make the
operation single on the outside.
And for us that was like wereally want to nail customer
service operations and how ourflow of monthly break bookings
and the next year we're like,okay, let's make the operation
single on the outside.
And then we're like, okay,let's look at our marketing
infrastructure and, you know,let's check out our external
comms and how we're takingpeople through the user journey
(23:55):
of from registration through tobookings.
And this year it's aboutgetting people to come to us and
we've set that as our kind ofour benchmark for the year and,
sure enough, healthier kind ofcame along and said, hey, would
you contribute to our ai report?
And now we're sitting doingthis podcast today fantastic.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I'd like to talk about the finances a little bit
and sustainability, becausethat's at the heart of what can
make things happen, and it'seasy to gloss over some of that
stuff sometimes, but in terms ofthe kind of the financial model
, how did you initially imaginethis would work and how are you
now funded?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
we had always set out to be a majority
self-sustaining charity.
So we charge a £33 fee for thebreaks that we facilitate.
That can be paid for by thecarer or by the carer service
referring them, or a localauthority, or there's lots of
mechanisms with how that can becovered.
And the other income streamthat we've had to introduce was
(24:53):
for our community partners.
We were shouldering a lot of.
We had designed this theory ofchange where we've had to
introduce was for our communitypartners.
We were we were shouldering alot of.
We had designed this theory ofchange where we really wanted to
be connected in and joined upto the existing social sector.
So we wanted communityorganizations to be able to
refer carers.
But it was costing us about150k a year to have that
infrastructure and so we startedasking for a flat rate
contribution of 0.1% of theirturnover as a kind of membership
(25:17):
contribution.
So our earned income today, Ithink, is probably going to
cover about 35% to 40% of ouroperating costs this year.
Social investment for the lastfew years we've done three very
small rounds of socialinvestment in comparison to what
around could be, but typicallywe would try to secure 150k of
(25:38):
social investment per year,which would be about 20% of our
costs, and then grant funding isthe other kind of 50% really,
and that's.
I would love it to be a littlebit more diversified, where we
had networks for publicfundraising or high net worth
donors or corporate sponsorship,but we're just not.
We're not a big enoughorganization yet to have that
(25:59):
visibility in those spaces to beable to generate income from
those sectors.
So in a couple of years time Ireally hope that we can, but for
the moment it is.
I guess the centerpiece of whatenables Carefree to keep going
is the earned income and thereliability that we know we're
going to bring in 20 or 30k amonth against a spend of 70 or
(26:21):
80k or something like that.
So for us, because we'refocused on volume, rather than
having a handful of partnerswhere we have to charge a lot of
money, we would rather have alot of partners where we can
charge as little as possible.
So for local authorities, we'redeveloping a new package which
is around three to five thousandpounds a year.
They will be able to have kindof group level access to see and
(26:42):
understand which serviceswithin the area are referring
carers to us, how many carersare signing up, how much
inventory has been being donatedby hotels in the area.
So a lot of very useful datafor them in terms of how they
can prove that they aresupporting carers and
contributing to thisinfrastructure for brakes
delivery, but it's somethingthat's really not hitting into a
(27:04):
major cost line for them.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Has it been quite intentional to not rely on local
authorities in your growth?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, there's been a few pressure points around and
there were a couple ofopportunities last year of local
authorities wanting to put.
There was something called theaccelerated reform fund.
That was a very a one-off pieceof funding from the government
to to fuel care innovation, andso a couple of local authorities
(27:29):
wanted to do a.
Can we set up a digitalplatform for breaks access,
donated breaks access and thingslike that and we didn't bid for
those opportunities because ourinfrastructure and way of
working is so tight, so lean, soefficient and also, like the
way in which we work we knowworks for carers and all the
(27:49):
parties involved a lot of thekind of the descriptions of how
people envisage these thingsshould work are different.
What they want you to deliveragainst is changing your model
into a different way that wewouldn't have as much confidence
in, and so we just said, no,we're going to.
We're just going to keep ourheads down and keep moving
forwards on what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
How do you balance supply and demand?
I would imagine there's a hugedemand for your service and the
supply might be more of achallenge.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, I think we are hitting a bit of a squeeze point
because it is more difficult tosign up new hotel groups at the
moment.
We immediately felt the effectsof the October budget with the,
the increase in employers,national insurance and the
hospitality industry just went alittle bit into free fall, and
so getting new hotels to thinkabout ESG and social impact when
(28:37):
they are very frightened withintheir businesses is harder than
it used to be.
So our timeline for signing upand converting a hotel group is
about nine months at the moment,which means that our inventory
is staying more static where andactually our existing hotel
groups are giving us more andmore, which is what's enabling
us to keep growing.
We're doing about 500 to 700breaks a month at the moment,
(29:01):
but our carer demand is verysteadily increasing.
So we're getting at least 1,000new carer referrals every month
.
That will be carers signing uppredominantly through the
self-referral pathway, and thatis word of mouth among carers,
that is, people just hearingabout the initiative.
We've reached a level ofmaturity now, at seven years old
, where we are a little bit moreknown, and I think that is
(29:22):
where our organic growth iscoming from.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Does it cost the hotels anything to work with you
?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, it costs them about.
Actually, we just commissionedsome economic research into this
.
It costs them about £25 perbreak that they're subsidising.
The reason why we'vecommissioned some economic
research into basically to valuewhat the breaks are doing at
the public sector level.
So if we're preventing fivepercent of carers from burning
(29:49):
out in their role, that couldlead to 200 million pounds worth
of public sector savings.
And so can we leverage thismodel to say to the government
if you would provide hotels witha nominal fixed corporate tax
rebate of, say, £25 for eachbreak that they give away, that
is what would really unlockvolume for us in terms of moving
(30:12):
this initiative to the scalethat we want it to be.
So that's where we'll be goingover the next year or two is
really focused on that agenda.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Let's move on to talking about technology.
So AI is the talk of the town.
Everyone's excited, terrified.
There's different ends of thespectrum.
You've been doing lots of workwith ai and I think that was how
we first connected, when wewere doing the research around
ways that people were runningsupport services using ai.
Can you tell me a bit moreabout how you've been using ai
(30:44):
to help your organization grow?
Speaker 2 (30:46):
yeah, sure, so sure.
So I think people have probablypicked up in this conversation
that our ability to expand ourheadcount is extremely limited
because we're not sure ofearning enough money to be able
to sustain kind of additionalroles.
And our customer service teamwas at the forefront of this.
Oh my gosh, we're adding athousand new users a month.
How do you deal with that?
(31:06):
And so we have a customerservice system that's built in
Intercom.
They launched a chatbot calledFinAI and we immediately stepped
into trying to develop FinAI assomething that could create
that kind of frontline for ourservice delivery.
It started with a kind of anout of office hours approach, so
(31:27):
when we trade kind of nine tofive, Monday to Friday, like
turning thin AI on for kind ofinquiries, and outside of that,
we were training it on both likeour big database of help
articles.
So they had and it's a closedsystem so it's not learning from
anything else other than theinformation that we're feeding
it.
So we had lots of help articles.
But if you just left a helparticles, the AI would get stuck
(31:48):
over if this, then that andthat wouldn't really get users
to a place where they werehaving their issues resolved.
So what it also has access tois anonymized data from.
We have about 3000 supportrequests a month, so it uses the
anonymized data from thoseconversations to learn and
understand.
Okay, this is what somebody isasking or this is what they need
(32:09):
in terms of their issue beingresolved, and it's been
fantastic.
I mean, we've obviously donethis in a very controlled way
and in a very staged way and inorder to get the balance right.
But if you think about 3000queries, we've got two people on
our customer support team.
If you're working off a normalformula of a full-time week, 15
minutes per customer, they wouldprobably only be able to deal
(32:31):
with 150 cases a week.
What we're now doing and wehave FinAI turned on all the
time is that basically onlyabout 30% of cases will be
surfaced through to our customersupport team, so a manageable
load for them, because over 70%of cases are now being resolved
by FinAI with a 93% satisfactionrate from our carers.
(32:54):
We're very transparent to ourcarers that this is a chatbot
and give it a go if it will help.
But what we're really proud ofis the people that are coming
through to our customer supportteam is that we're able to
surface through who are thehighest needs users, and then
we're able to put our time andattention onto those people that
kind of really need that humansupport.
So, yeah, it's been brilliantand I think it is what we will
(33:15):
be doing more of this as we growand move forward.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
How have you made sure that those chatbots are
able to reflect your core values?
That warmth and care and thatside of things.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, I mean I think this is the customer service
team and the language that theyalways use, the way in which
they behave.
They've really treated it likean additional team member in how
they talk to it and how theyadjust it.
Also, all of the FinAIconversations will be reviewed
by our director of delivery andour head of customer service and
putting in that base layer ofif FinAI has done something or
said something that doesn't feelquite right tonally, they'll
tell it like, they'll feed backto it, and so there is this kind
(33:52):
of constant feedback loopthat's happening as well.
That, I think, has been reallyimportant.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
So it's like training a new member of staff.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Totally yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And how do you think about the balance between kind
of technology and humanconnection in care?
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I mean, it varies in terms of I really believe that
in terms of, like socialservices and charity services,
being better able to meet peoplewhere they are.
At the end of the day, we welive in a digital world, with
digital devices making lifeeasier in terms of what we're
able to access from oursmartphones, and so much of a
carer's time is spent reallytrying to fight to kind of phone
(34:29):
calls, letters, trying to getaccess to the medical
appointments, all these thingsthat could, or even like
benefits applications.
There's so much scope in thatsense to make people's lives
easier in accessing servicesthrough the intervention of
digital technology.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Let's zoom out for a moment and look at the sector
and thinking about change in thesector.
What do you think are thebiggest blockers to change and
innovation in the care and thecharity world today?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I mean, financing is the thing that you can't avoid
talking about at this point.
You know, when we were startingout back in 2017, there were
some small parts of there wasSocial Tech Trust for 45 grand.
There was Comic Relief's Techfor Good pot for 45 grand Little
things like that.
The National Lottery did adigital fund program which we
got access to, but they only didthat for one year.
(35:18):
There is no centered digitalfunding within the sector and
that obviously criticallyaffects the pipeline of
organizations that would bestarting to try and set up now
from a charity base.
Obviously, there is a lot morekind of for-profit, for-purpose
organizations and they'll beincubated through things like
Zinc, vc or essential ventures,things like that.
(35:40):
So I think that if you look atthe charity sector as a whole
trying to do something in thedigital space, there isn't
really the support frameworkthere within the funding space
From a block.
In terms of the innovationstandpoint, yeah, it amazes me
how, if you contrast the smallbusiness community with the
(36:03):
charity sector, community withthe charity sector, so apps like
air table or no code softwareproducts like air table, which
can automate a huge amount ofkind of back office processes
for you, your stripe payments,your zero cloud accounting with
this, that and the other, yourslack your.
It really surprises me that inthe small business sector there
(36:23):
is such a fast level of adoptionof no code products.
That in the small businesssector there is such a fast
level of adoption of no-codeproducts.
That is the basis of theirbusiness models.
They charge $12 a user becausethey're expecting that they're
going to get lots and lots ofsmall businesses to sign up to
use their services because itmakes their businesses more
efficient.
Weirdly, with charities, wedon't just take the leap to oh,
that could help.
(36:43):
There is something in thewhether it's the way that
everything needs to be veryheavily vetted before it's
applied.
There needs to be so muchsign-off at so many different
levels, but there isn't a oh, wecould just use this tool and
get that done and that wouldmake our lives easier.
And I just fundamentally thinkthat there's a missing piece of
(37:04):
the jigsaw puzzle under the hoodof making everybody's lives
easier by adopting really basicno-code products into very small
business processes.
That gives you a lot more spaceto do the more radical
innovation stuff.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
If you could wave a magic wand, what would you
change and how would youredesign the system?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I mean, I think, the recognising.
I think it was the Centre forSocial Justice that came out
with a report a couple of monthsago that over 70,000 grant pots
closed in the charity sectorlast year.
Also, withdrawal ofgovernmental funding and of
corporate sponsorship.
There's hundreds of millionsgoing out of the sector right
now, which means that charitiesreally need to switch into more
(37:43):
of a social enterprise model inorder to be able to sustain
their operating base and, likecarefree, have some sort of
earned income stream tosupplement their services.
The magic wand that I think weneed is how do we open up social
investment to enable charitiesto do that?
And currently social investmentis completely unaffordable for
the charity sector.
It's eight to twelve percent interms of the repayments and you
(38:06):
also in terms of the interest.
The repayment period is five tosix years.
If you're having to start anincome stream and get it rolling
, the biggest single switch thatI think we could do is just say
okay, flat rate 10-yearrepayment periods.
That's going to offset thenegative impacts of the high
interest rates, it's going tomake the financing much more
affordable to organizations andit's going to create a wider
(38:29):
spread of how many organizationscan actually get access to that
money.
So that would be.
My big wish is that we try touse the social investment space
for what it was designed for.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
What's next for Carefree?
What are you excited about?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Well, we've just filed all of our trademarks
around our brand, so that feltlike a bit of a moment.
Apparently, it's 18 monthsuntil the trademarking people
actually give you the trademark.
There'll be a wait.
What I would love to see is anexpansion of the hotels that
become involved with ourinitiative.
Getting a bit more mainstreammedia coverage.
(39:04):
We've been very under the radargetting a bit more mainstream
media coverage.
We've been very under the radarand I really hope that when we
have this economic researchthat's being being released in
September, that it doesbasically become a bit of a
turning point in our ability toreally move into that public
policy space and to startgetting people to see that this
isn't just a nice to have littlecare of breaks initiative.
This is about how do we createa better care future for us all.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
How can people help?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
If they know a hotel group, send them our way.
If they know a carer that wantsa break, please do send them to
our website.
And also, if they're interestedin I think we're going to be
looking at more socialinvestment this year, so if they
want to get involved on thatlevel, please do give me a call.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
If someone's thinking of starting a mission-led
organization today, what advicewould you give them?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Product market fit first.
There's a trend in the startupspace that try something if it's
not working, pivot.
We don't have the time or thefinancial bandwidth to be able
to do pivots when we're workingwithin the resource constraints
that we have.
So nailing in that you youreally have an idea that will
fix a need, that will solve aproblem and that people are
going to want and that has anearned income stream that people
(40:17):
will pay for behind it.
Those are the most importantthings, because if you just have
something that you think wouldbe great and you think would be
nice and you think people wouldwant that's really, you're going
to line yourself up for yearsand years of sleepless nights
and stress because it's not goodenough to think that
something's a good thing.
Unfortunately, it has to reallybe proven out that this is
(40:40):
something people will want, needand pay for.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And at the other end of the spectrum, what advice
would you give to biggerorganizations who want to
operate in a more agile way?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Take down your internal barriers to change.
That is the key thing and a lotof those organizations are
still.
They have a very fixed ITinfrastructure and within the
tech and the software space,there's much more of a
transition to DevOps and tobasically project management is
really being phased out withinthe tech sector.
So having more of a focus onproduct management, being able
(41:16):
to understand what are your forwant of a better word like
business processes or operatingprocesses, what tech tools can
support those operatingprocesses to operate more
efficiently?
Just unhook yourself from theIT infrastructure that you've
had and be more experimental.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
To end with, I'd like to know one belief that you
hold that others might not agreewith, but you think is true,
and it doesn't have to berelated to care or to health.
I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I really believe in the value of having like
business values and businessprinciples and that you
benchmark your decisions againstthat and I said I mentioned
earlier about like single linephrases that we have, but the
things that I'm really proud ofwith carefree is one of the
phrases that we had was carerswill never have to sing for
their supper.
So everything that we designwill be as easy as possible for
(42:05):
people.
But you've got to find yourhallmark phrases and your
mantras that kind of reallybecome the belief system of how
you build what you're building,and I think people, people don't
take the time to define whatthose things are for themselves
and they should really do a lotmore of that thank you,
charlotte.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It's been a privilege to talk to you.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to come along.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Thank you, sam, really appreciate the
opportunity.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by
Healthier, the collaborativeservice design consultancy for
transformation in health careand public services.
Find out more about how we canhelp you deliver user-centered
change at healthierservices.
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