External Diversity Initiative Award Finalist

Care.com

Care.com, referred to as the ‘Amazon’ of care, was launched in 2007 to help families and caregivers find high quality care and employment opportunities. Its mission is to improve the lives of families and caregivers by helping them connect in a reliable and easy way. They strive to help their members – families and caregivers – pursue their passions and fulfill the basic human need of caring for each other.

Today, Care.com is the world’s largest online marketplace for finding and managing family care, with more than 9.7 million members, spanning 16 countries. Care.com operates as a two-side marketplace with an approximate 50-50% split between families and caregivers. On average, four out of five families subscribing to the site find their caregiver on Care.com, and a new job is posted every 30 seconds in the U.S.

Care.com takes a holistic approach to care, and sees its target audience as the entire family. At the same time, they recognize that women often shoulder a disproportionate burden of care duties for both children and aging parents. Indeed, CEO and Founder Sheila Lirio Marcelo’s motivation to start Care.com came in part through her own experience, caring simultaneously for her young son and aging father. With women and mothers in mind, Care.com engages in active outreach to mom’s groups and women’s organizations, and they are proud to have been named the ‘one-stop shop for the busy Mom’ by Parenting.com.

Their long-term vision is to help recast care as a family issue, not just a women’s/mother’s issue, and are tailoring more and more of their outreach to men and other caretakers. Their series of parenting blogs and newsletters target mothers, fathers, extended family and more, because they know it takes a village to raise a child, and they’re here to support that whole village.

Care.com’s external diversity and inclusion efforts are implemented under their signature philanthropic initiative, Women Up. Women Up’s mission is to accelerate the overall female entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Women Up Boston Pilot targets the entire lifespan of a female entrepreneur – from middle school to seasoned leader – to help women develop confidence, find support networks, and access skills and financing to help them become stronger leaders, professionals and/or entrepreneurs at any point in their lives.

Women Up and Care.com’s other offered programs do not have the company’s core business of care as their focal point. Instead, they seek to support the local Boston community by helping girls and women thrive, and have seen great reach and success in doing so. Through their efforts Care.com won more than 10,000 listeners of MAGIC 106.7’s Exceptional Women series, and allowed for 600 Women Up event attendees to engage in networking and shared inspiration. They were able to provide 120 Female Entrepreneurship Challenge applicants feedback on their business plans, and overall, the management team committed 250 hours of leadership mentorship to NFTE girls and Female Entrepreneurship Challenge women.