‘Bachelor’ Alum Sarah Trott Opens Up About Joining Fintech Startup Aidaly, Modernizing Care Resources, More In New Interview

Those who read the column on a regular basis may remember the interview I did in November Bachelor alum and former broadcast journalist Sarah Trott. Her late father was diagnosed with ALS, colloquially known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. After realizing her mother was in dire need of help, she left her weekend anchor position at the ABC affiliate in Palm Desert, California in 2019 to settle in at home.

It was a fateful decision that would change her life.

Trott used her share of celebrity and her lived experiences to, with the power of social media, help empower other young female caregivers who may need support – practical and/or emotional – to cope with the stress of caring for a family member or other loved ones. one. “I had so much love for my father and [wanted] to provide his care that we sort of jumped in to help with [the things] he could no longer do for himself,” Trott said of diving headfirst into caregiver life.

A few months after that initial interview, Trott recently sat down with me again virtually to discuss her new role as Director of Digital Marketing at Aidaly. Aidaly is a company whose mission is to, according to its website, “help all family caregivers get paid.” The idea is simple: caregiving is a full-time job, and caregivers should be properly compensated for their time, dammit. On its website, Aidaly states that caregivers provided more than 34 billion hours of care in 2020, worth up to $470 billion to the economy. There are avenues for people to be compensated for their duties, but they are not easy to navigate and sit on top of archaic infrastructure that does not reflect this digitally dominated era. That’s why it’s part of Aidaly’s mission to help caregivers recoup that time and money by empowering them to “provide care at home by improving access to existing benefits.”

The Miami-based startup has seen funding from high-profile investors such as Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, among others. Last June, it was reported that Aidaly secured $8.5 million in venture capital led by Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six.

“It’s truly unprecedented to see such high-profile investors see this cultural shift [needing to] recognize and support family caregivers and that family caregiving is a real job, Trott said. “It’s a lot of W work. The care that spouses or loved ones give each other … you can put a number on how much it’s worth.”

Trott cited the aforementioned statistics about what caregivers contribute to the economy. As she emphasized, $470 billion is not a trivial figure. She went on to say that there are more than 3 million caregivers in the United States, and told me that all of the numbers are research-based, supported by organizations such as the American Association of Retired Persons and the National Alliance on Caregiving. In a nutshell, Trott told me Aidaly’s whole raison d’être is really about “coming together and thinking that something needs to be done about this to compensate family caregivers and make it easier to access the financial compensation caregivers deserve.”

When asked why she chose to join Aidaly, Trott replied that it was about the mission.

She explained that she was struck by the company’s mission to “pionage” a new way of looking at family care with an embrace of today’s digital-first modalities. “In the modern age, we’re no longer in the days of ‘Here’s a brochure and go in person and try to talk to this person.'” There are so many broken public systems that impede a caregiver’s journey to receive compensation, she said of the the current state of care.” Aidaly is trying to make that process easier. I saw that experience from my mother, who is a teacher… how difficult the financial burden was on our family personally during our caregiving journey, what it looks like and how it can be amplified in so many different scenarios. If you have many other financial struggles and challenges or [are] low income, things like that, there are so many barriers. I experienced that. I was drawn to Aidaly for all these reasons.”

Aidaly founder and CEO Maggie Norris confirmed the need for modernization.

“In the world of ChatGPT, where artificial intelligence can argue case law for you, there is no reason for health systems to send a caregiver home with a binder full of brochures,” she told me in a brief email interview. “The speed of innovation in other industries is far ahead of innovation in the care area.”

She added: “We have the technology to provide meaningful support in the home.”

Norris’s path to caring parallels Trott’s. She has experience as a carer twice, once for her father and once for her stepfather. The choice to start Aidaly reflects much of why Trott joined – she wanted to help caregivers, for all intents and purposes, gain some respect. As mentioned, the current system for caregivers is a tangled web of ideas that is difficult to unravel. For Norris, taking care of her family meant facing a series of professional and especially financial setbacks such as not paying into Social Security or getting medical insurance. “Having been a caregiver for both my father and my stepfather at two different times in my life, I understand the struggles and setbacks caregivers face,” Norris said of her lived experience in the caretaker realm. “Especially after being a young woman embarking on my career and balancing serious family responsibilities.”

The stories from Trott and Norris are particularly suitable to tell now as March is Women’s History Month. To know that the care industry is one dominated by women. Norris told me that research has shown that two-thirds, or 66%, of caregivers are women, adding that the average person is 49 years old. This person, she said, works outside the home and “gives 20 hours a week of unpaid care to the mother.”

Norris called the economic data “overwhelming” and noted that women are disproportionately affected by what she called the “financial strains and shocks” associated with the life of a caregiver. Also, “many are choosing to leave the workforce or stop their careers altogether” in the same way that Trott sacrificed for his father.

In the long term, Trott said the overall goal for Aidaly is really just to raise awareness. Caregivers are in short supply, she told me, and “we know the cost of care to support people is going to go up significantly” because of the preponderance of people in the U.S. being diagnosed with chronic health conditions.

“We [Aidaly] want to put these tools in place to empower family caregivers before it’s too late,” Trott said of the company’s key long-term goals. “That’s also a big reason why I want to be part of this change. We talk about what is a family carer: we label it, we recognize that people who provide care in the home. A lot of people think: ‘Well, I take just take care of my spouse, I’m doing my duty as a wife or daughter.’ But what it really is is actual work – you put in significant hours [into] the type of care you provide is compensable. It’s just a mindset shift [that must collectively happen] that [caregiving] is valuable work and your time deserves to be compensated through many different avenues out there. It’s about making these accessible and understandable to all kinds of people from different backgrounds.”

As I wrote in the original interview with Trott last autumn, the reason why care is so relevant to accessibility, aids and disability lies in the way they are connected. Caregiving can be as disabling in itself, physically and emotionally, for the donor as whatever the condition is for the sufferer. For Trott’s point, this deserves recognition. Likewise, when it comes to harnessing the power of technology for good, startups like Aidaly are hell-bent on making educational resources more accessible in a modernized, easily digestible format for caregivers everywhere.

To reiterate Norris’s point, technology exists to provide meaningful change.

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