Helpr: Empowering Women Through Childcare
For Becka Klauber Richter and Kasey Edwards, co-founders of Helpr, the pursuit of gender equality is infused in every component of their entrepreneurial journey. As female founders, they have entered an industry that is disproportionately serviced by and targeted toward women: childcare. Helpr works directly with companies to offer their employees subsidized childcare through a co-pay model. Helpr’s primary offering is backup and wellness childcare support, in addition to a return-to-work program that helps parents transition back to work after having or adopting a child.
Helpr’s women’s empowerment mandate is two-sided; the company provides an elevated employment experience for a majority-female population of nannies, and also helps working women to wholeheartedly pursue their careers by filling childcare gaps. Helpr’s innovative approach of matching individually-screened childcare providers with parents who access reliable childcare through their employer is designed to provide safety and stability for both nannies and families.
Klauber Richter and Edwards have been childcare providers for their entire adult lives, and Helpr was the organic result of their own personal experiences as nannies. Helpr’s philosophy is that childcare providers ought to be respected for the great deal of emotional intelligence required to enter a home and honor each family’s individual approach to raising their children. “The childcare industry is really undervalued in the United States, so we’re trying to increase compensation for childcare providers and really honor that role,” said Klauber Richter.
The Helpr platform matches these talented nannies with working parents, both men and women, who need last-minute childcare to cover their child’s illness, school closure, or other sudden event. They believe that providing this backup childcare is a critical factor in helping parents, particularly working mothers, stay in the workforce if they choose to do so. “43 percent of moms with young children leave their careers or offramp hours to some extent. That’s a pretty large number. Of course, we totally support those who want to leave work, but a large number of moms do so out of necessity, which is who we’re trying to help,” explained Klauber Richter.
Helpr is also pioneering wellness childcare, wherein parents can request a nanny to cover while a parent takes a break from home and work to recharge, perhaps through an exercise class or other self-care activity. While offering a wellness childcare benefit is often a new proposition for companies, Helpr finds that the majority are interested in the service because they realize that offering employees time to take a personal wellness break improves their productivity at both home and work.
While Klauber Richter and Edwards are proud of their company’s focus on empowering women, whether as nannies or mothers, they are clear that they “don’t want to focus solely on women. We want to included dads in the parenting conversation,” said Klauber Richter. Helpr envisions a truly gender-equal world in which parenting responsibilities are shared equally among partners, facilitated by a workplace benefit that provides high-quality childcare support to help all parents gracefully balance raising their children and advancing their careers.
