About
Why We Exist
Nanny Relief Fund was launched in April 2020 when the COVID-19 epidemic amplified the many inequities in the world of domestic employees, and the lack of protections and support accessible to nannies. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 1.1 million nannies currently working in the United States. This group is made up of 98% women (according to a survey by the International Nanny Association), has a high proportion of people of color and represents many different countries of origin. Unfortunately, over 90% of nannies are not paid legally, or paid ‘on the books’ by their employers, and many have been critically impacted financially during this pandemic.
For those nannies who are paid "under the table" or are misclassified as independent contractors, unemployment, paid sick leave, and expansions of the Family Medical Leave Act are often not available. The choice for employers to NOT provide their employees lawful protections leaves many nannies financially vulnerable.
Nannies face so many hurdles in their mission to have their profession treated with the seriousness it deserves. They stand at risk of immediate termination with no cause, lack of medical care, lack of retirement funds and contributions, and lack of being paid legally.
Nanny Relief Fund’s current mission is to help nannies inside the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking to the future, we hope to make aid available to nannies with different, unique needs.
Why Now?
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone. All nannies, regardless of legal pay status, age, color, hourly rate, and industry involvement have felt this in some way. Here are a few ways nannies across the US (and globe) are feeling this impact:
Some nannies suddenly lost their income when the pandemic hit. Employers chose to quarantine in a different location and did not invite domestic employees to join them.
Some nannies have been fired as a result of their employers being furloughed or fired from their own jobs.
Some nannies have been asked to come to work under circumstances that are unsafe and/or not following recommended guidelines by the WHO or the CDC.
Some nannies are unable to work due to school closures and/or caring for their own children or family members.
Some nannies have roommates and do not feel comfortable going to work out of fear of exposing their employers’ families to COVID-19 through their roommates’ essential status at work. Likewise, some nannies have been fired because they have roommates with COVID-19 bubbles that don’t align with their employer’s requirements.
Nannies in some states were classified as non-essential employees and fell under stay-at-home orders, but the families they work for have asked them to continue working against state laws and CDC recommendations. This forced many nannies to make hard decisions regarding their employment.
Nannies have been asked to live with their employers to mitigate COVID risk and cannot do so due to having children of their own, pets who cannot come along, or responsibilities at home that prevent them from shifting towards a live-in job.
Nannies are being asked to quit for unethical reasons.
Nannies have been asked to maintain isolation outside of the work place at levels their employers will not adhere to.
Nannies have gotten COVID-19 from their employers and were then let go.
Nannying can be a uniquely rewarding role, but it can also be incredibly isolating. When working in a private home, it is challenging for nannies to establish a sense of community and support. While there are organizations that provide fantastic resources to the nanny community, including International Nanny Association and National Domestic Worker’s Alliance, the vast majority of nannies function independently with minimal resources available to them. Our goal is to provide a sense of relief to these cherished and drastically undervalued caregivers who are often overlooked by laws, assistance, and regulations.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Rachael L. Lubin is a full-charge nanny living and working in Houston, Texas. Rachael studied at Hawaii Pacific University and graduated in 2009 with a BA of Geography. Why did she choose this school? It’s a diverse state and Rachael thrives around diversity. Why geography? She has a deep curiosity about people, places, and things. We’d expect nothing less from someone who lived in Brooklyn, Detroit, Canada, China, France, Texas, Nevada, Indiana, Virginia, Mississippi, and Nebraska.
Rachael is a Certified Professional Governess through the English Nanny and Governess School. She’s a credentialed nanny through the International Nanny Association, and has served on the International Nanny Association’s Board of Directors since 2017. For the past eight years, she has specialized in working with “Families Going through Major Life Transitions” across the USA and Canada.
She regularly attends trainings and conferences, including NannyGuards, Nannypalooza, interNational Nanny Training Day, the International Nanny Association’s Annual Conference, the APNA Conference, and additional child development workshops.
Rachael considers her greatest asset to be her connections and friendships with the best and brightest nannies, agency owners, and educators in the world. Prior to starting her career in personal service, Rachael worked for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and she also taught English in Xinzheng, Henan, China.
She loves to travel and explore, throws herself into her work, always makes time for meaningful conversations with humans who matter to her, and is all about inclusivity, awareness, and advocacy.
Why the Nanny Relief Fund?
Rachael is the heart behind the Nanny Relief Fund. Her love and vision spearheaded the project. Pulling from a past full of compassion and love for others, a knack for rolling up her sleeves and pitching in, and a desire to help bridge relationships for great people, Rachael’s whole life has been gearing up for this initiative. Providing nannies with tangible, fast, fair, and flowing support during a pandemic (or any crisis) is now at the center of her life’s mission statement and purpose. She will fight to ensure great human beings stay laser focused on what truly matters—the nannies. She’ll be serving the non-profit in many ways, ensuring everyone is on their game.
Chevelle Frederick is a well-known Newborn Care Specialist and one of the kindest, most genuine humans on planet earth. She’s a level head and voice of reason in our global caregiver community. She originally hails from San Diego but moved to Dallas in 2005. She’s a mother of 2 amazing kids (who are both grown up— but always her babies) and they are crushing in their own lives. Talk to her for 5 minutes and she’ll tell you all about them!
She began her career in clinical research and loved it for 13 years. Through a few major life changes, she found herself interested in pursuing a degree in psychology (with a minor in anthropology). She jokes that she began nannying in college (like most nannies), only Chevelle went to college in her 40s! Though she had a late start in this career, she knew she’d found her true passion.
She finished her degree and went into nannying full time. Utilizing the transferrable skills she obtained in college, she combined all her training and, in 2016 she became a Newborn Care Specialist. In January of 2020 (after only 4 years in this space) she brought on a business partner and launched her company, Harmony Baby Concierge. She aimed to change lives, thoughts, and the industry at large. Her company offers overnight care, newborn care, travel care, baby food delivery, and nanny referrals. She’s an amazing entrepreneur with an awesome vision for this industry— and an entrepreneur with a heart for advocacy, which we love!
Why the Nanny Relief Fund?
Chevelle took notice when Rachael launched Nanny Relief Fund and knew right away that she wanted to be involved. Anything that makes the lives of caregivers better is a priority for Chevelle. She’s been involved in educating and empowering nannies for the last few years, but has really done a deep dive into helping better the industry inside of 2020. Chevelle loves loving on people, and helping both her hyperlocal nanny community as well as the global nanny community. She’s a recogized heart throughout this industry for good reason! She’s loving being involved with the Nanny Relief Fund currently and has been instrumental in brainstorming new ways to raise awareness and funds and is excited for the changes (and many years) to come!
Cynthia Crovetto is a ray of positivity, inclusivity, advocacy, and support, and she is super excited to join the NRF mission. She was born in Peru and is passionate about advocating for the Latina nanny community. Her every move within this industry is in the hope of supporting and encouraging the nannies around her to advocate for themselves. Higher pay, fair and legal pay, benefits, and ultimately—respect—are all issues close to Cynthia’s heart. Gone are the days of feeling less than—Cynthia has your back!
Cynthia has been a nanny for 14 years and has loved every challenge, warm moment, teaching opportunity, and connection she made throughout her time in the industry. Six years ago, she made the conscious choice to not only work IN the industry but work ON the industry. Many in our community know her as the leader of Nalany, a powerful small group of Latina nannies who pride themselves on advocacy. Cynthia is the oldest of 3 and loves her family something fierce!
In all her “spare time” Cynthia loves on the humans around her. She resides in New York City and has remained there throughout COVID-19— which we all think was pretty awesome. NYC is close to many of our hearts and we’re grateful she’s a part of the expansive nanny community in that amazing city!
Why Nanny Relief Fund?
Cynthia’s superpower is connection. The word she loves the most—helping. She’s here to do just that. We’re excited to have her on our team. She’s a powerful communicator and executer of ideas and strategies and she loves to shower others in support and affection. She’s focused on helping Nanny Relief Fund translate our mission, and every word we pen into Spanish so that we can reach even more amazing nannies in need. She’s helped translate our website into Spanish and will be making sure that our application makes it into the hands of the LatinX community. She’s been a valuable advocate and resource for Nanny Relief Fund for months now and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have her on the team.
Shenandoah Davis is the CEO and co-Founder of Adventure Nannies and is also a board advisor to The Institute of Families and Nannies, as well as Vice Chair to Entrepreneur Organization’s Seattle Accelerator program. She has previously served on the APNA board and is a frequent speaker at both APNA and INA conferences. She has been a very active part of the nanny industry for the last 9 years and is known for being a kind, pragmatic, hardworking “doer” of sorts.
She studied opera performance at the University of Colorado in Denver and applied this degree to her music career. After school, she spent her twenties working in the restaurant industry. She moved her way up from barista to server to manager to Marketing Director of a large restaurant group in her hometown of Seattle. During this time, she also played over 600 shows as a solo musician and touring artist with other bands. She also spent several meaningful years as a nanny, reading tutor volunteer, and private music teacher.
In her 7-year tenure at Adventure Nannies, she has launched many initiatives to provide resources to the nanny community, including a monthly online learning series called Summit Sessions, the first-ever online version of International Nanny Training Day, and a bi-weekly podcast called Adventure Nannies On Air.
Shenandoah joined the APNA Board in 2017. In her time with this non-profit she created a media kit, planned an amazing (sell out) conference, helped create a more streamlined structure and leadership team, and formed strategic partnerships. Shenandoah was the 2019 recipient of APNA’s Excellence Award and Innovation Award.
As the oldest of 4 children, Shenandoah has always been a helper and a leader. She loves to travel and has been to all 50 states, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, the UK, Italy, and Germany. She currently resides in Marion, North Carolina with her dogs, Pawlina and Batman.
Why the Nanny Relief Fund?
Shenandoah is a visionary within the nanny industry and she is driven by a foundational need to provide value to those around her. She loves to ask questions, often saying, “How can I help? How can we partner on this?” She loves to provide educational resources to as many as she can and has delivered in spades, or rather, hearts. Helping pioneer a fund that provides relief to nannies impacted by COVID-19 is a logical next step in providing support to an underrepresented and unsupported industry and it cares for the humans that matter most—the nannies. Utilizing her skills in building strong foundations, systems, and infrastructures Shenandoah intends to make sure this fund helps support nannies during this crisis and for decades to come.
Austin Macfarlane is a passionate, dedicated entrepreneur who truly enjoys the projects she works on. She’s the founder of My Girl Friday in the Triangle area of North Carolina and helped launch Tribucha, a functional beverage company out of Cary, North Carolina. In 2022, Austin co-launched Clarity Strategic Investments— a group that focuses on investing and advising early stage startups with high growth potential. The group primarily invests in technology and software businesses. She enjoys working with her Nanny Relief Fund team and is on the Executive Board of the International Nanny Association.
She is an adventurous soul who loves hiking, throwing balls for her dogs (Arlo and Tuna Mae), hosting friends and family, traveling, exploring thrift stores for hours upon hours, and checking out new restaurants. She has quite a green thumb and loves to garden and love on her many houseplants.
Why the Nanny Relief Fund?
While all the world was settling into COVID-19 times, Austin looked around and noticed who was stepping up for different industries. The Restaurant Relief Fund, the Teacher’s Relief Fund, the Bartender’s Relief Fund… the helpers stepped forward and advocated. It was on a Monday in early April that Austin noticed her dear friend, Rachael Lubin, had single-handedly begun a relief fund of her own. Ever a believer in building solid teams, Austin knew we’d need some powerhouse superstar “doers” if we were going to blow this thing up to the size it could be. Weaving together a unique blend of unique skillsets, she reached out to the amazing humans on this board so that the hard work could begin. She’s focused on spearheading the fundraising effort itself and will tap into strategic partnerships and resources that will bring this relief effort to the scale it deserves.
OUR TRUSTED ADVISORS
Jim Geikie is a partner in One Better Ventures ( www.1BV.co ), a certified Benefit Corporation investment and advisory firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They work with growth stage consumer products companies whose missions seek to promote wellness and environmental sustainability and eliminate social injustice. Jim leads the marketing practice for the firm and focuses on brand strategy, integrated marketing and product development. His board service includes both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations including an executive committee role with Habitat for Humanity of Durham, NC. Jim is the former General Manager for Burt’s Bees.
Jeremy Zhang is currently the Chief of Staff for IBM Red Hat's OpenShift business unit. Previously, he spent seven years as a management consultant within Red Hat's Corporate Strategy team, where he advised senior stakeholders on strategic planning and M&A transactions. Jeremy has extensive experience in venture capital, software markets, financial strategy, and corporate development. In his spare time, Jeremy is involved with multiple startups in the NC Triangle area, including being the financial advisor/ investor to Tribucha Kombucha and CFO to My Girl Friday. He's been playing the piano and guitar since 3-years-old, and is an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan. Jeremy received his Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Finance from Washington University in St. Louis and his MBA from the University of Notre Dame.
Tyler Johnson is a Full-Stack Designer with 12+ years of multidisciplinary design experience. He specializes in online advertising, product design, user experience, and brand development. He has a proven history of delivering beautiful, original, and strategically sound creative solutions that excite consumers, and grow iconic brands. He attended The Art Institute of Philadelphia and received a Bachelors of Science in Media Arts and Animation. Tyler's interests include eco-friendly living, surfing, skateboarding, meditating, and making expressionist art. As an altruist, single father, and very appreciative employer of a wonderful nanny, he felt compelled to help the NRF movement.
Dr. Jennifer Powers is an Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Iowa. She hails from Moline, Illinois, where she spent her childhood before attending Harvard College, Vanderbilt School of Medicine, and Boston University. She has lived all over the Eastern half of the country, growing her family and holding faculty positions at Vanderbilt and Duke, where her husband has pursued his medical training to become a cardiologist. As a physician-wife, veteran mom of 3, and current employer to a phenomenal nanny, she is indebted to the nannies who have allowed her to pursue her dreams as a doctor, researcher, and innovator. Helping give back to the nanny industry is an absolute priority in her life, and she’s focused on advising this non-profit to the best of her ability as they develop and nurture strategic partnerships.
Our Volunteers
Shanae Lewis Whisonant
is co-founder of Nanny By Design. https://nannybydesign.com
Juliana Kulba is a career nanny with over 10 years of experience. She originally moved from Brazil to the US to work as an au pair and fell in love with the nannying profession. She lives in Boston, MA and loves exploring the city with children and going on nature walks in the summer months.
Daniella Herrera is the owner of Dani The Nanny LLC and Los Loquitos Childcare in Austin, TX.Daniella has a passion for using her domestic skills and political activism to help her nanny brothers and sisters, to provide high-quality childcare, to provide compassionate senior care, to volunteer with animals, and to fight for the human and civil rights of children and domestic workers.
Ashley Wainwright is a travel nanny based out of Connecticut with over a decade of experience in the industry. She’s passionate about mental health, business development and services geared towards household workers. It’s been an amazing experience to be part of this team to help nannies who have been impacted by the pandemic.
Cynthia Crovetto is a career nanny and newborn care specialist in the New York City area, working with children and families for nearly 15 years. As an industry leader and advocate, Cynthia is involved in different projects providing support and networking for the Latinx nannies in the NYC area. She is always willing to collaborate with organizations and other leaders in the industry.
Interested in becoming an advisor? Please email us at info@nannyrelieffund.org