Support crew

Three years ago when her partner Randal was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer Kelly Banks discovered just how difficult it can be asking for and accepting help. As Randal was going through gruelling surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation, people kept wanting to know what they could do to support her. “But I felt this massive need to take on the full burden myself,” she recalls. “It’s no one’s super-power is it? No one ever says, ‘I’m really good at asking for help.’” Kelly, 41, realised she wasn’t the only person acting as if everything was under control when it absolutely wasn’t. And she began to wonder, was there some way of harnessing modern technology to make life easier, both for those going through tough times, and the friends and family trying to support them? That is how Support Crew was born. It is basically an online help roster that makes it simple to co-ordinate giving anyone in need the practical help they require – whether that means supplying meals, transport to medical appointments, cleaning, or just giving companionship. Developing the platform has meant Kelly and her friend Janine Williams, 41, giving up successful corporate careers and taking a huge leap of faith. The pair had been working together for 10 years in sales, marketing and business development roles. “We were getting scratchy and feeling like we needed to do something bigger and more meaningful,” explains Janine. “I guess Randal’s journey nudged us along.” The prognosis for stage four bowel cancer isn’t great and it brought home just how short life can be. “That throws you into a bolder mindset,” says Kelly. “I didn’t want to look back in five years time and wonder what would have happened if I’d given it a go.” Support Crew is a social enterprise rather than a charity so it is run as a business. Setting it up, Janine and Kelly were able to use skills built during their careers, but there was still a lot to learn. “We believed in ourselves,” says Janine. “We thought, ‘We can do this, we can totally pull this together.’” They followed the Lean Startup method, which is about working cost-effectively to build your product and take it to market. “We had about 54 per cent of the skills we needed; we acquired some of the others, then out-sourced the rest,” says Kelly. “Although personally we find it difficult to ask for help, professionally, when it came to Support Crew, we were a lot braver. And we found when you’re doing something with such purpose, people want to help or connect with you.” While it is free for users to set up and run a Support Crew page, there is the potential for Kelly and Janine to make a living from products bought via the website – you can pay for a meal to be delivered to someone, for instance, and a gift store has been popular. Sponsorship from insurance company AMP helped get the project off the ground last year. Both women work from home – they live within a couple of kilometres of each other in Howick, Auckland – and Janine juggles work with parenting her sons, aged 10 and eight. “There’s a lot to do and only two of us, so it’s important to maintain our focus, but we’re sometimes blown away by how much we can achieve in a week and how quickly we can build momentum,” she says. Kelly even used the Support Crew service herself last year to organise an online meal roster when Randal was having more treatment. “We got meals from family in London and Whakatane and friends in Cambridge,” she says. “People don’t have to be physically close in order to help like they did in the past. Technology has isolated us from our communities in a lot of ways. This is bringing it back together and kind of creating a community again, but online.” Randal has now marked 12 months cancerfree and Support Crew has almost 2000 people using the platform, with about 150 pages created. There are still challenges to overcome but already they are seeing the difference it is making in the lives of people struggling with anything from mental health problems to cancer. One woman simply needed help to walk her energetic dog. Another wanted a play-date for her husband while she was having treatment. “It’s so cool to be working on something like this,” says Janine. “I love what we do every day. When you talk to people who are going through massive times, and you get to try to help them, it’s so rewarding.” AWW supportcrew.co