Workspace Invaders

[WORKSPACE INVADERS 👾] Meet the charity that uses Typeform to give carers free breaks

[WORKSPACE INVADERS 👾] Meet the charity that uses Typeform to give carers free breaks
Userlevel 3

Hi ’form fans! 🦩

 

Today we’re talking to Carefree, a dazzlingly smart, big-thinking UK charity. It’ll fill you with hope that tech can help us find solutions to big social issues! ✨✨

 

An unpaid carer is someone who looks after a loved one, friend or relative for free. There are about 9 million of them in the UK, and many are overworked and under-recognised. Carefree gives unpaid carers free breaks by matching them up with unbooked hotel rooms. Carer burnout is a huge problem, and this is a cheap way to reduce it.

 

Almost the whole charity runs through no-code software. Carefree isn't reliant on in-house developers, so they can help thousands of people - potentially millions - using tiny budgets. I had a chat with Joey Ceunen, their Chief Technology Officer about just one of their processes. 

 

What happens when a new carer is registered with Carefree 

 

 

As you can see, Carefree operates like a tech startup. One eye on improving lives, another one on growth, efficiency and scalability. It’s so inspiring to see a charity plan as ambitiously as any money-driven entrepreneur! 🤩

 

The video was a broad overview of their onboarding process. If you want to set up something similar yourself, here’s all the Help Center articles you’ll need.

 

How to set it up yourself: 

 

Here’s a cheeky diagram to accompany the video. 

 


 

Step by step: 

 

  1. There’s a website built in Webflow

First of all, Community Partners log into a webpage made in Webflow. This isn’t Carefree’s main website, it’s a Member’s Space, which means only Community Partners have access to it. A Community Partner is Carefree’s term for one of the local care charities and support groups they coordinate with. Community Partners tend to know the needs of individual carers really well, so they have the power to refer a carer to Carefree.

Here’s Webflow’s guide to getting started with Webflow

 

  1. There’s a typeform to refer new carers

A Community Partner fills out a typeform with the details of a carer who they want to refer for a break and then: 

Check out Webflow’s guide to embedding a Typeform into a Webflow page.

Here’s a good example of a guest registration typeform

 

  1. The typeform is connected to Zapier 

As you probably know, Zapier is a tool that can be used to integrate your typeform with many different applications. Here’s how to set it up

 

  1. Optional: a small custom script checks that this carer isn’t already registered

This is the one part of the process that doesn’t use no-code tech. Carefree commissioned an engineer to create a script which pushes the Care Partner’s details into the typeform as hidden fields. It then checks whether or not an entry already exists from this Care Partner, for a carer with this name in Pipedrive. If the carer is already registered, then the process stops here. If the carer isn’t already registered...

 

  1. An entry is made for the carer in Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM: a database software where Carefree stores all the information they have on Carers, Care Partners, and other contacts. Once the typeform is submitted, the carer’s information is automatically stored there. 

Here’s how to send leads from a Typeform into Pipedrive

 

  1. An entry is made for the carer in Knack

Knack is a database software that can be used to make apps. It’s different from Pipedrive because it can be used to trigger transactional emails. Knack also makes it easy to embed your databases onto websites to share the information in them. For example, every Community Partner registered with Carefree will see a database in their Members Space with the details of all the carers they’ve registered, powered by Knack. 

Here’s how to send information from a Typeform into a Knack database. 

Here’s how to connect Knack and Webflow using Zapier

 

  1. A confirmation email is sent to the referred carer via MailChimp Transactional Email (AKA Mandrill) 

MailChimp Transactional Email (which used to be called Mandrill) is a side product from Mailchimp that’s used to send transactional emails. That means: you can use it to send template emails to an individual, triggered by something that individual has done. For example, become registered as a carer. 

Here’s how to send an email with Mailchimp Transactional Email to an address in a Knack database, using Zapier. 

 

  1. A confirmation email is sent out to the Care Partner via MailChimp Transactional Email (AKA Mandrill) 

The same process as above! 

 

  1. A notification is sent to the Carefree team’s slack channels to say that a new carer has registered. 

Slack is an instant messaging tool that businesses use for their internal communications. Carefree has set up a Slack channel so that everyone in the team is notified when a new carer joins their books! 

Here’s how to get notifications on Slack when someone fills in your typeform

 

The carer referral typeform only takes a couple of minutes to fill out, but boom! All of the admin to register a new carer is automatically completed. Imagine how many hours of making phone calls and logging spreadsheets it would take for a human to do the same job. Wildly impressive. 

 

This has made you feel empowered, show Carefree some love! 


13 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

This is simply incredible - this organization has its heart in the right place (and their technology) 

@Mirandaparr - thank you for this great interview and demo.. and to Joey at Carefree: amazing!

When are you planning to come to the Canadian market? this is wonderful and I know that there are a lot of folks who could use this type of support here. 

des

Badge +5

Such a great use of tech to make a difference on people’s lives. Love the initiative and the ambition, Thanks @Mirandaparr and Joey for yet another great episode of Workspace Invaders. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

That's simply amazing, @Mirandaparr! Congrats to you for the great interview and to Joey for the inspiring initiative. Very happy to see Typeform contributing to such a great story! :heart_eyes:


I'm very curious to know more about it! When did they launch the referral program with all of these integrations? And do we have an idea of how many Carers got free breaks thanks to Carefree? 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

What a brilliantly insane setup! I’m amazed how they came up with this. Thanks for sharing @Mirandaparr !!

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Wow @Mirandaparr - what an incredible story!!! Congrats to Joey and team for making such a difference to people who really need a break.

 

Awesome to see such enthusiasm for the power of no code tools, too. As Joey points out, the great thing about all this software is that you can pick it up and use it as an early stage startup and the solutions will remain in place as you grow. Can’t wait to see how Carefree evolves – I hope many more carers across the world will be able to take advantage in the future :heart_eyes:

Userlevel 2

Thank you all for the kinds words! @john.desborough, @Gabriel, @Gabi Amaral, @Liz and @James 🙏

As a charity with limited resources, we have not other choice but to think outside of the box! So it’s really motivating to see all the love for the work we’ve been doing behind the scenes this last year. It’s a great time for us to go live with our entire platform, to finally send off those carers on a very well-deserved break!

Also thank you to @Mirandaparr for the brilliant interview. It’s incredible how you were able to distil such an understandable video from what’s quite a complex setup 🙌. It’s great we can start sharing our learnings with out charity, nonprofits, and even commercial startups!

The video zooms into one relatively small element of our architecture. We use many Typeforms in lots of different areas in our organisation; from user research, registrations, internal operations,… So feel free to reach out with any questions.

And of course, if you do know any unpaid carers in the UK that can do with a little break, or a hotel that would be up for donating some rooms; do spread the word by sharing our website: https://carefreespace.org

Userlevel 2

When are you planning to come to the Canadian market? this is wonderful and I know that there are a lot of folks who could use this type of support here. 

No concrete plans yet to cross the Atlantic just yet, but if you’d know anyone, do hook me up! 

Userlevel 2

I'm very curious to know more about it! When did they launch the referral program with all of these integrations? And do we have an idea of how many Carers got free breaks thanks to Carefree? 

 

Thanks Gabi! We currently have just under 2000 verified UK carers on our books, all eager to go on a (well-deserved) break with us. They come from different sources, from our registered Community Partners that can refer carers to us, to our new Self-Referral Pathway (that’s another really cool flow that starts with a Typeform (you can have a look here)).

In an attempt to make these referrals much more scaleable and automated (without losing that all-important human touch) we’ve created these new processes and are gradually launching them.

This particular flow described in the video - allowing one of our Community Partners to refer carers to us in an easy way - was launched last year in July.

The pandemic delayed our delivery quite a bit, as all hotels had to close for the majority of the time and it wasn’t safe to travel up until now. So we are planning on opening up our new booking hub where carers can select and request their break, within the next month! 

Our goal for this year is to send 1500 carers on a break, going up to 8000 in 2022. Carefree’s moonshot is for every full-time unpaid carer to have access to a break, and there are about 2 million of them in the UK alone, so we’ve still got a long way to go. But at the very least it’s a hugely exciting and promising start.

And to quote from our website:

The changes that we make now will shape the social care landscape for years to come and, as all of us will either give or receive care at some point in our lifetime, those changes have a particular significance for us all.

 

🚀✨

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

@Joey - hats off to you and your organization. incredible. starting to spread the word here in Canada for you and over ‘ome with friends and colleagues. Looking forward to the follow-up interview that has you folk on the front page of the interweb as success of the year in the charity space!

des

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Wow, so much potential @Joey:star:

Have you measured the impact of these new processes to refer a Carer? Maybe an increase in referral since July? I think you've done a great job in automating this process without losing the human touch! :hugging:

I'm sure that as soon as the pandemic is over, you'll have way more work (Carers and hotels will be all about Carefree!). That's amazing! :heart_eyes:

Thanks again for such an inspiring story! 
 

Userlevel 2


Have you measured the impact of these new processes to refer a Carer? Maybe an increase in referral since July?
 

 

Thanks Gabi! We haven’t gotten to precisely measuring all the new processes yet, as there are so many now! But before, everything was happening manually, while now, after the user’s (in this example our Community Partners) organisation is onboarded, everything happens automatically ✨

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Seeing human beings being humane always makes me happy (and emotional). Thank you so much for letting us community memebers know about this incredible initiative. When compassion and no-code tools meet, big things can happen :blush:

What a lovely interview, @Mirandaparr.

@Joey may your organization always be as awesome as it is now!

 

Hi ’form fans! 🦩

 

Today we’re talking to Carefree, a dazzlingly smart, big-thinking UK charity. It’ll fill you with hope that tech can help us find solutions to big social issues! ✨✨

 

An unpaid carer is someone who looks after a loved one, friend or relative for free. There are about 9 million of them in the UK, and many are overworked and under-recognised. Carefree gives unpaid carers free breaks by matching them up with unbooked hotel rooms. Carer burnout is a huge problem, and this is a cheap way to reduce it.

 

Almost the whole charity runs through no-code software. Carefree isn't reliant on in-house developers, so they can help thousands of people - potentially millions - using tiny budgets. I had a chat with Joey Ceunen, their Chief Technology Officer about just one of their processes. 

 

What happens when a new carer is registered with Carefree 

 

 

As you can see, Carefree operates like a tech startup. One eye on improving lives, another one on growth, efficiency and scalability. It’s so inspiring to see a charity plan as ambitiously as any money-driven entrepreneur! 🤩

 

The video was a broad overview of their onboarding process. If you want to set up something similar yourself, here’s all the Help Center articles you’ll need.

 

How to set it up yourself: 

 

Here’s a cheeky diagram to accompany the video. 

 


 

Step by step: 

 

  1. There’s a website built in Webflow

First of all, Community Partners log into a webpage made in Webflow. This isn’t Carefree’s main website, it’s a Member’s Space, which means only Community Partners have access to it. A Community Partner is Carefree’s term for one of the local care charities and support groups they coordinate with. Community Partners tend to know the needs of individual carers really well, so they have the power to refer a carer to Carefree.

Here’s Webflow’s guide to getting started with Webflow

 

  1. There’s a typeform to refer new carers

A Community Partner fills out a typeform with the details of a carer who they want to refer for a break and then: 

Check out Webflow’s guide to embedding a Typeform into a Webflow page.

Here’s a good example of a guest registration typeform

 

  1. The typeform is connected to Zapier 

As you probably know, Zapier is a tool that can be used to integrate your typeform with many different applications. Here’s how to set it up

 

  1. Optional: a small custom script checks that this carer isn’t already registered

This is the one part of the process that doesn’t use no-code tech. Carefree commissioned an engineer to create a script which pushes the Care Partner’s details into the typeform as hidden fields. It then checks whether or not an entry already exists from this Care Partner, for a carer with this name in Pipedrive. If the carer is already registered, then the process stops here. If the carer isn’t already registered...

 

  1. An entry is made for the carer in Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM: a database software where Carefree stores all the information they have on Carers, Care Partners, and other contacts. Once the typeform is submitted, the carer’s information is automatically stored there. 

Here’s how to send leads from a Typeform into Pipedrive

 

  1. An entry is made for the carer in Knack

Knack is a database software that can be used to make apps. It’s different from Pipedrive because it can be used to trigger transactional emails. Knack also makes it easy to embed your databases onto websites to share the information in them. For example, every Community Partner registered with Carefree will see a database in their Members Space with the details of all the carers they’ve registered, powered by Knack. 

Here’s how to send information from a Typeform into a Knack database. 

Here’s how to connect Knack and Webflow using Zapier

 

  1. A confirmation email is sent to the referred carer via MailChimp Transactional Email (AKA Mandrill) 

MailChimp Transactional Email (which used to be called Mandrill) is a side product from Mailchimp that’s used to send transactional emails. That means: you can use it to send template emails to an individual, triggered by something that individual has done. For example, become registered as a carer. 

Here’s how to send an email with Mailchimp Transactional Email to an address in a Knack database, using Zapier. 

 

  1. A confirmation email is sent out to the Care Partner via MailChimp Transactional Email (AKA Mandrill) 

The same process as above! 

 

  1. A notification is sent to the Carefree team’s slack channels to say that a new carer has registered. 

Slack is an instant messaging tool that businesses use for their internal communications. Carefree has set up a Slack channel so that everyone in the team is notified when a new carer joins their books! 

Here’s how to get notifications on Slack when someone fills in your typeform

 

The carer referral typeform only takes a couple of minutes to fill out, but boom! All of the admin to register a new carer is automatically completed. Imagine how many hours of making phone calls and logging spreadsheets it would take for a human to do the same job. Wildly impressive. 

 

This has made you feel empowered, show Carefree’s donations typeform some love! 

Just amazing. Guardians are here.

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