Multiple Guests

• The baby whose birth started a platform for supporting for one another (5:56)
• The devastating illness that prompted Dave and Jill Olecki to start using CaringBridge (11:41)
• How the emotional and spiritual support from CaringBridge helped Jill survive (15:43)
• The fundamental issue CaringBridge is trying to tackle (21:40)
• How Dave and Jill are paying forward the compassion they received through the website (34:31)

FRANK BLAKE: Well Tia, welcome to Crazy Good Turns. This is such a treat to meet you.

I will say one of the things that's been the most interesting to me in 10 years now of doing podcasts for Crazy Good Turns is finding people and organizations that really have in a positive way transformed and used modern technology.

And in looking at CaringBridge and what you and your team have done, I think you may be the best example we've ever found.

And so I'd love just at the start, for the few listeners who don't know what CaringBridge does, if you would give a description of what CaringBridge does?

TIA NEWCOMER: Absolutely. And I can't wait to dive into this.

So CaringBridge was founded 27 years ago.

And I like to share that because if you recall that time, that was 1997, the internet was two years old.

FRANK BLAKE: Yeah. Barely born.

TIA NEWCOMER: Right. Barely born.

And the other thing I like to say is that Mark Zuckerberg was all of 13 years old.

So I credit our founder Sona Mehring for truly founding the first social media platform for good and we have remained for good.

So you asked me a question. What is CaringBridge?

CaringBridge is a platform that allows you as a caregiver or a patient that's going through a significant health journey to activate and rally your community of your choice in support.

And so if you think about those acute moments when either you've been diagnosed with cancer, a sudden accident has happened, a tragic illness you've been diagnosed with, the first thing that people that love you and that are in your community are asking is what's going on and how can I help?

And that's how CaringBridge was born, is to really enable that globally, all of your network, whether it's five people or thousands of people, to be able to rally around you in support.

FRANK BLAKE: Which without this would've been so difficult to do.

As an individual, if you were trying to do this, whether you're a caregiver or the patient, incredibly difficult.

TIA NEWCOMER: Very. Very. And in fact ... Let me share the founder's story, Sona Mehring.

Her very best friend had a premature baby that was in the NICU.

So again, this is a critical ... You talk about those acute moments, unexpected health journeys that people go through.

And she reached out to Sona her best friend and said, "I am focusing a hundred percent on Brigid," their newborn baby.

"I need you to reach out to our friends and family and tell them what's going on."

And so Sona had a list of literally over a hundred people that were in their community of friendship and on her second call, 30 minutes, lots of emotions saying the same thing over and over.

She's like, "I've got 97 more people to call. There's got to be a better way."

And she went down to her basement as a woman in STEM and an entrepreneur and coded the first CaringBridge page.

So it is truly, to your point, it is the easy button for ensuring that your community knows what's going on, but also can show up in support, which is so, so important.

FRANK BLAKE: So I love this statistic and there are so many aspects of CaringBridge that are interesting to get into, but one of them is just how you've grown in the last 25-plus years.

I love the statistic. I think I've got this right.

That there are 1,600 positive messages an hour posted on CaringBridge. Now that's just crazy. And a million pages.

So instances of people using CaringBridge, a million created since 1997.

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. I always like to also share on top of that, and those numbers always blow me away when I talk about them and the power of community.

Especially when you think about the world right now where we're craving that social connection and the community.

Sometimes we forget that we have this great community around us. CaringBridge has been there to activate it.

The other stat that I like to share is we have over 300,000 people a day on the platform that are rallying around that person in support.

So if you think about the power of community, whether your next door neighbor or across the globe, a friend that you may have made along the way, that's the power of CaringBridge.

FRANK BLAKE: Yeah. Really extraordinary reach.

And yet for the extraordinary reach, I've heard you talk and I've heard you describe for example, for cancer, people who are suffering from cancer as broad as your reach is, you're still only reaching a small percentage of folks, right?

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. It's the biggest opportunity and the biggest pain point we have sitting here at 27 years of that. We have grown by word of mouth.

When people use CaringBridge, I have yet to meet someone that says, "Yeah, it didn't meet me where I needed ..." And fill in the blank.

Everyone I meet ... And it's the most humbling and rewarding experience that I have as the CEO is people share their stories with me all the time.

I think what's frustrating on the other hand is we need more people to know about it.

The team I have is an amazing team. We're small and mighty, and we're trying to get integrated at point of diagnosis or discharge because when people need CaringBridge.

And again, it's no cost. And so we're really drumming up a lot of attention and we're trying to integrate into hospital systems and clinics where people need us the most.

It's a big mission and it's a big task ahead, but that is one of the biggest ...

You scratch your head and you're like, "We know that people when they use it, love it and recommend it.

"And how do we get the either funding or that viral moment that enables everyone to know about CaringBridge?"

FRANK BLAKE: I love behind you as you're speaking, there's a wall with your mission statement, which is "a world where no one goes through a health journey alone."

What an amazing mission statement.

TIA NEWCOMER: It is. It's so powerful and so expansive and so grounding for what we do every day.

And we've got four values that we use as an organization that also ground us.

And I like to share these because when I think of the work that the team does ... And this importantly, yes, it's an internal values system, but it also reflects the values of the people that rely on CaringBridge every day.

And so when we look at things and make decisions, we look at is this helping to make connections? That's one of our values.

The second is, does this give hope? We see hope on the pages of CaringBridge every single day.

So how do we make that easier? Do we and are we enabling, offering guidance?

And so a lot of the things you see on CaringBridge, again, this resonates as much with my team as it does to the people who are using our platform.

FRANK BLAKE: As we said earlier, millions of people have set up a CaringBridge page since its launch in 1997.

Dave and Jill Olecki are just one example.

They first turned to CaringBridge in 2019, when Jill was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Jill was just 36 years old at the time. Here, she explains how they got started on the platform.

JILL OLECKI: So we just recently celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary, and about a year and a half after we were married, we had our oldest, Cooper.

And then we kept going, and in 10 years we had five kids. And we were loving it and still do, love it.

And when our youngest was, I don't know, maybe eight months old, I started getting these really weird symptoms, like a really, really bad hot flashes and night sweats in the middle of the night.

And then I'd get really, really, really cold with fever and then I'd get really, really hot.

My mom had already actually set up the CaringBridge because I was really sick and we just were in the middle of trying to figure it out sort of.

DAVE OLECKI: It probably took a month and a half to get to the diagnosis.

JILL OLECKI: Right. We had a pretty good idea at some point, and even when I went in the hospital, we hadn't finished all...

I never a PET scan at the beginning, and there was other tests I didn't get in advance that normally I would've got, but we ran out of time because one day my fever went to 106.8 when my mom was home helping me, and she's like, "You got to get in a cool bath."

And I was like, "No," because I was so cold, because I had the chills.

And when I had the chills, it was like rigors, I was shaking violently. And yeah, it was all very strange to me. I didn't know what was happening.

So it did take a while to diagnose.

So my mom, maybe she had started keeping updated like, "Jill was sick," and so maybe she started the meal train before we actually even had the diagnosis, which was also helpful because I didn't have a lot of pep in my step to cook dinner or anything.

And our kids are still pretty young then.

DAVE OLECKI: 11 and younger.

JILL OLECKI: Right, yeah.

It was more communication about what was happening with me and the rest of the family.

DAVE OLECKI: I mean, I would guess that she was asking for prayers.

JILL OLECKI: Yes, a lot of prayers.

DAVE OLECKI: And then eventually it turned into asking for help.

FRANK BLAKE: Jill battled cancer for two years. She went through chemotherapy, radiation, two relapses, and a donor stem cell transplant.

She suffered many setbacks along the way. At one point an infection that led to septic shock nearly took her life.

She survived, but the infection resulted in the amputation of both of her legs.

Throughout it all, CaringBridge served as a source of information for loved ones and desperately needed inspiration for Dave and Jill.

DAVE OLECKI: When Jill was in the worst condition, we used it and needed it more.

JILL OLECKI: CaringBridge for us was just an amazing tool, mostly for prayer.

Our family and friends and acquaintances and their friends and our friends' friends, family friends, we had so many people praying for me and for our family.

And it worked. I mean, I almost died three times on my last stint in the hospital. I was there for three months after sepsis and a couple infections. And every time the doctors were like, "We're not sure she's going to make it through the night," or one time it was, "If she makes it through the night, she'll have to be on oxygen for the rest of her life," and none of that happened.

DAVE OLECKI: What I would say is the times that were the hardest and the times we needed it the most, Jill already talked about the spiritual support that we got from it, but also the emotional support.

So when you make a post, everybody out in the community can make comments and a day later, two days later, you can go back and read through.

And sometimes there was 100 comments and it was all very uplifting, encouraging words from people-

JILL OLECKI: Sometimes good advice.

DAVE OLECKI: Yeah, good advice, prayers.

So when times are really tough, those uplifting comments and the volume of comments really makes a huge difference in keeping you strong and keeping you going and fighting so that-

JILL OLECKI: Right. To the point, you don't want to let people down.

DAVE OLECKI: Yeah.

When Jill was really sick and we were doing those daily updates and getting all the support in return, I remember telling somebody that it felt like the whole world, every person in the world was praying for and rooting for Jill, and that made such a huge difference to get through that tough time.

JILL OLECKI: Definitely I wouldn't be here I think, without it I think, and just all the hope and support.

Even still now it's still going, Dave just posted today.

Because I'm in-patient rehab working on walking, like intensive three hours a day therapy to get stronger so I can walk independently.

We're obviously posting way less, which when I'm reading CaringBridge and people are posting less, it's usually really good.

It means they're doing great and it's not an urgent matter for them to ask for tons of prayers.

But we do still try to post, because right now I'm back in an inpatient rehab to try to do some intense therapy for walking, because when I first got out of the hospital after my four month stay, I was so weak and I hadn't even had my amputations yet.

But we've been continuing to post about my amputations and I had to have a shoulder placement, all related to that original diagnosis and treatment.

So yeah, we still post. I don't know when it'll end.

I mean, hopefully we won't have to post too much anymore once I can get walking maybe.

DAVE OLECKI: Except I don't want all of the posts to be like a setback or something, only post when something bad happens.

So I do try to put posts out there when really great things are happening or something good happens or maybe a milestone is achieved. So I think we'll keep that going.

And then there are some setbacks every once in a while, like Jill mentioned she had to have a shoulder replacement surgery, she had to have a hip surgery.

So again, we definitely post those out right away to ask for prayers and ask for support and-

JILL OLECKI: Yeah, and also to share. Maybe you don't have cancer anymore, but it doesn't necessarily end.

For other cancer survivors, you want their family and friends to know to keep asking how they're doing, keep supporting them.

So hopefully sharing that helps other supporters think about that stuff.

FRANK BLAKE: The Olecki family's story is not an isolated one. Many families who use CaringBridge return to it in order to encourage others.

It's a great example of one good turn leading to another.

However, even with so many people using the platform, CaringBridge is only scratching the surface.

There are far more people facing health issues who are not on the platform than those who are.

We asked Tia how she planned to address the problem.

You got, last year alone, over a hundred million people using this platform, and yet you're still a very small percentage of the overall need.

I think one of the things that interests me just looking at this is so many people would I think approach the problem and say, "Okay now, how do I monetize this platform to extend it?"

I know that there's going to be a vast interest of people who would love to reach a community of caregivers and patients in need.

That is not what you are doing.

And I'd love for you to explain the why, because I think that's really important. And what I view as what you're doing with the Wilson Foundation is an alternative to that.

If you'd walk through that.

TIA NEWCOMER: Absolutely. Gosh, it's so crisp how you said that, the monetization, because I have many conversations and you can imagine my first year was spent fielding calls from hundreds of startups, great founders.

What they wanted was our audience. So funny enough, we want to grow reach, but they wanted the reach that we already had.

Also talking to big health systems, when you talk about privacy and you talk about data, they wanted access to the specific data that we've been sitting on for 27 years.

There's a gold mine of, as you can imagine, insights in that.

So we did a lot of reaching out to our current customer base, non-customers.

So we did a lot of research when I came in and thinking about how do we fund exponentially the mission while staying true to the fact that we are a trusted - and I'm going to come back to that - a trusted nonprofit, no cost platform.

And so that trust, as we dug into the data and the feedback that we were getting from our users and non-users was if we were a for-profit, we would not get the same trust nor would we get the same use if we sold ads, for example, you can imagine Facebook, you can imagine all of the ways that they've monetized and grown.

That was like a showstopper that we would probably lose 50% of our audience if we started to do that.

And let's go back to ... And this is probably the most important point.

The fundamental insight that we have, and it's only that we have, it's very well known in the healthcare and caregiver industry, is that caregivers are overwhelmed and overwhelmed with obviously the tasks that they're taking care of their loved one.

That loved one's trying to get better for all the reasons fill in all the treatments are going on.

So if you think about that fundamental ... I always call it the floating iceberg.

We're seeing this much of the chaos that's going on in that caregiver's life, taking care of that patient.

Underneath is a giant iceberg of other things from tasks, to emotional, to physical strain, all of the things.

And so when you come back to that fundamental insight to put ads in front of people to put ...

A lot of people want us to be the referral point.

So think of a giant marketplace of products that we would get recurring revenue from.

It became a no. That's not - we would lose our audience.

And if our whole goal is to increase impact and to increase reach, that then drives revenue.

I'm not saying we don't need revenue.

But we stay very true to our principles of does it drive impact for our caregivers and patients? Does it drive reach, meaning exponential number of people?

And then the revenue so to speak will fall out. There's challenges-

FRANK BLAKE: I just want to pause there because I, again, just approaching this not knowing that much about CaringBridge a little bit, but not that much, I believe that we all have a rooting interest in your success.

Because aside from the topic, having something that is trusted and pure as you describe it, is hugely important.

And, I think, can be one of the most important things for how we use the internet and how we communicate with each other.

So I congratulate you because I think the siren song of, oh gee, we can do ads and everybody will be going along with the ad without understanding the trust that you're undermining, the compromises that you're making.

You make it sound like an easy decision, but I'm sure there were a lot of people who were and probably still are weighing in pretty heavily with you.

TIA NEWCOMER: I appreciate you pausing because it is a constant.

I call it I'm holding two truths and they are sometimes at odds.

The reason we still exist. If you just think about the technology tsunami that has happened since 1997, again, I'll bring up Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok.

Think about all of the platforms that our communication platforms yet CaringBridge is still here, still existing.

And that was a question I had to scratch my head and ask the board when I was interviewing, why do you think-

FRANK BLAKE: Why isn't there a Facebook page that does this already? Yeah.

TIA NEWCOMER: Exactly.

So I appreciate you pausing there because the two truths are on one hand we have to grow our reach to continue to drive the impact to obviously continue to drive the revenue so that we still exist long term.

And the other truth that we hold is we know the trust that we have is the biggest thing, the biggest value that we have.

And so how do you hold those two truths and still grow an organization so that we can fulfill our mission of a world where no one goes through a health journey alone?

So, not easy.

FRANK BLAKE: Not easy. And again, and I may be misreading this, but I look at the work you're doing with the Wilson Foundation as part of the way of solving that puzzle.

Is that a fair statement?

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. And you're talking specifically about the grant they gave us to really uncover what is the impact that we're driving around solving loneliness, isolation and overwhelm for caregivers.

That's what-

FRANK BLAKE: Yeah. And making this a standard of care, making, CaringBridge a standard of care.

You had described and I was really intrigued by it.

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. Such generosity exists out there, as you can imagine.

And I think some of the data that we have ... Again, we de-identify, but we look for trends.

We have a great team. When I say team, team of two, one's an intern, of data analysts that really look at, okay, what's going on in these pages?

And we have a, it's an IRB, which is an internal review board scientific study that-

FRANK BLAKE: But this is very important for people to understand how the medical world works.

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes.

FRANK BLAKE: This is very important.

TIA NEWCOMER: Thank you, Frank.

Because the study that is funded is fundamentally doing two things.

We have four questions on the front, easy questions, and they measure ...

People have to opt in and they have to answer the questions, call it every 30 days.

But it's really four questions around how they are feeling emotionally, are they overwhelmed and what is meeting them ... Again, four simple questions.

They're actually from UCLA, so they've been used for 30 plus years.

And this is what Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation really liked is that we were using methodologies that already existed, but within a platform that has been around for 27 years.

So let me maybe talk a little bit about why that's important.

A lot of scientific research invents a tool that will never see the light of day to study outcomes with people that are opting into a study.

So I think the biggest power of what we're doing is here's a platform that is actually being out in the world.

Again, 300,000 people visiting every single day, 45,000 caregivers on our platform.

Here's a platform that we can actually get real-world tangible data. And oh, by the way, the product already exists and it can inform how we make the product better as we move forward.

So not only is it measuring the impact on that overwhelm and the feelings that lead to isolation and loneliness, it is also looking at ...

When you start with CaringBridge so it's usually at that diagnosis moment, okay, you've activated your community 30 days later, 60 days later, 90 days later.

So really looking at what I would call the longitudinal impact of rallying your community in support both emotional and physical.

And no one has done that at large with a tool, importantly, that is already in the market. So then we can take that data.

So your point of really getting integrated into healthcare, we need to be at point of diagnosis and discharge.

We can go in with real-world outcomes data and say, "This is no cost. We need you to sit next to a patient or a caregiver and make sure that they rally their community because here's the outcomes difference."

And that's the importance of the study.

FRANK BLAKE: I think what's so fascinating about this, it is you are taking the intuitive learning from this, which is ... And again, just stop me when I've got this wrong.

But that part of healing is a positive attitude and that sense of people around you caring that that's actually integral to the healing process.

You are going to prove that.

And by virtue of proving that and proving the availability through your platform, by virtue of proving that, you'll say to the hospitals, this needs to be your standard of care.

You need to link your patients with this. Am I reading that right?

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. I love that synthesis. I often say ... You'll hear me say this on different forums.

That CaringBridge fills in the messy middle that healthcare can't see and that their community often doesn't see.

And it makes it visible.

It doesn't only make it visible, it actually provides a solution around exactly what you're talking about, emotional, social, and that tangible support.

FRANK BLAKE: I think it's both exciting from a medical perspective, but also just exciting for what the potential is for CaringBridge.

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. That's the thing that keeps me and the team really rallied behind what we do because we know the power of CaringBridge and anyone that's used it knows the power of it.

We just want to shout with a megaphone.

FRANK BLAKE: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

And again, the siren song of give me ad revenues, and I'll do this all by my ad reach must be difficult to overcome.

But I love the fact too, you've accomplished this with ... You say you're mighty, lean team. It really is. You've got a small team.

TIA NEWCOMER: Yeah. I'll put it in perspective. So we have 40 people in our team, we have four engineers. So in context, Meta has 40,000.

Epic Health system that runs all of our records, has 20,000. You start whittling it down.

We have four engineers that are pumping out innovation honestly every week.

And I love talking to my product leads. Four engineers are creating some of the improvements that you're seeing.

I want to give a shout-out to my team. When I came in, and this happens all the time in any company. But we had 25 years of tech debt.

So what does that mean? Sona Mehring our founder who coded the first CaringBridge page.

We still underneath all this ball of yarn was her first code.

Unfortunately during COVID, when we had hospitals calling us, can you just tap into our EHR because no one can come and see patients? Can we tap in?

We couldn't because that code was so antiquated. So that's a real life example.

That team remediated and we are now on a tech stack for those of you that are tech geeks that can integrate with any new technology that is needed to help our caregivers and patients in a different way or integrate into hospitals if we so choose or that is a path forward.

So that's a huge lift.

And if you're a technologist, you are like, "Oh yeah, that is not easy."

It wasn't fun, let me tell you.

And for those of you out there that are listening and went through that first 30 days with us, any cutover with new technology has bumps.

And what was tough for us is we knew our caregivers and patients like we were saying, are overwhelmed and they're in this very vulnerable moment and all of a sudden the technology that they relied on had a lot of issues.

But wow, this small mighty team in 30 days got it fixed and continues to innovate.

FRANK BLAKE: I'm curious, are there features of CaringBridge that you've found that caregivers or patients really appreciate that are a bit surprising to you?

You say, "Oh gee, I didn't realize that would be such a hit."

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. This will seem obvious when I say it. And we are so thankful for the users that give us feedback.

When you share a CaringBridge page to social media, because we have a lot of people that will share the link to Facebook or all of the social medias, Instagram, et cetera.

In our first launch after we remediated the technology, it was just a simple link and it just showed our logo. It said, "Come see Tia's CaringBridge page."

The personalization, the ability for that link to show the picture that that person shows the personal site, that emotional connection you have with someone was leaps and bounds.

We saw lower engagement with people sharing their site link, their page link on Facebook.

The team just recently fixed that, I'll say.

But that directly came from a mom who was just so wonderful and came into our office and shared her experience going through that bumpy transition.

But she's like, "I got to show you something. I was just talking to the moms in the NICU."

By the way, this mom had just recently lost her child and was still so generous with her time because she cared so much about CaringBridge and knew how powerful it was that she came in and said, "Here's some things that I think need to be looked at."

That was one of them. And she was a hundred percent right.

So that's one that was you think a simple link share logo versus picture of the person that pulls in from the site. That's one that we all went, wow, personalization matters.

FRANK BLAKE: The personal connection is, in many ways, what keeps people coming back to CaringBridge.

Jill Olecki says the encouragement she received through the platform helped her get through the toughest times. It's something she's trying to pay forward today.

JILL OLECKI: CaringBridge gave us so much support and prayers and love, and it was so energizing and helpful to my soul and my heart that it was almost like overflowing.

It's like we got to keep this going and help others and hope It just keeps getting bigger and bigger so that it can reach as many people as possible.

Even if it's just one person that's mostly by themself.

If they can post and send it to one other person and then maybe send it to more people so they can read about them and try to help them, because it can be hard to know people that need help.

So CaringBridge is a wonderful way.

And since then, I think we've all encouraged either family or friends to start a CaringBridge for that thing they're going through in hopes that it will bless them as much as we've been blessed through it.

I also have many people I follow on CaringBridge.

Some I knew or know and some I don't know personally, but when I hear of friends of friends tell me about this, and I'm like, "Well, I want to follow and see if we can do something."

So a lot of times we will send a meal gift card or something. We try to pay it forward as well.

We were so blessed. I mean, we feel like we can never possibly repay that.

But any meal requests we get for a meal train or support on CaringBridge or any way we can help, we try to say yes every time in gratitude for how much we were blessed by so many people.

FRANK BLAKE: Jill's cancer has been in remission for four years. She continues to recover.

The Oleckis continues to use CaringBridge to keep family and friends updated on Jill's progress.

They are a CaringBridge success story - one of many. We wanted to know which stories affected Tia the most profoundly.

Do you have a CaringBridge story that made a particular impact on you? I'm sure there are thousands.

Just does one immediately pop up when I ask the question?

TIA NEWCOMER: Yeah. So many. I had a slideshow right now just going through my head, which one do I pick from?

But the one that I'll pick ...

So this made national news and it doesn't stand out in my head because it made national news, but what stands out is this ...

When you see the power of CaringBridge in the community that rallied, that's what stands out.

So this young woman, I think it was two summers ago, she was 13 years old with her mom and friends.

They were playing on the beach in Florida. They went out to a sandbar. She got attacked by a shark and lost her arm and her leg.

And in that moment, all the right places, the angels were looking over her and she was saved, but went from a star volleyball player to losing a leg in an arm and a whole different life.

They were traveling. So they immediately started a CaringBridge page, made it public.

So we do have privacy levels as well. That's another thing that social media doesn't give you. You can make it private, invite only.

You can make it public where anyone could search for it. They happen to make it public.

We saw over 10,000 people a day interacting with that site, giving this young woman words of encouragement, asking where they could donate.

We have a very strong partnership with GoFundMe. Clearly this was an unexpected medical event, and so they had a GoFundMe site.

So you just saw the power of community rallying around a young woman that many of those people did not know.

So not only did it help to keep her immediate family and friends informed in this very touch-and-go time, it rallied a national, if not international community, behind this young woman who just had this tragic, very life-changing event.

And she's now turned that into her own nonprofit and own speaking about her experience coming out of it.

And just watching the way she's so positive about, yes, I don't have an arm and a leg now, she has prosthetics, talked about her journey of getting into prosthetics.

So you just see this arc of this story from tragedy, to healing, to positivity coming out the other side.

That's a really big example that happens.

I have so many stories personally of people reaching out to me from my past. So again, I have a slideshow of so many examples, but that's one that popped in my head.

FRANK BLAKE: Well, you also have the wonderful video that I've seen.

One of the people featured is just a phenomenal woman from where I live in Atlanta.

Lovette Russell, who is featured on the video. We'll include that in the show notes because I think it captures very well just that story that you've given a positivity and the role of positivity and how having that community is so important both for the caregivers and for the patient.

TIA NEWCOMER: Absolutely. I'm glad you're going to share that.

Yes, she is an amazing force and yes, the power of CaringBridge shines through her testimony for sure.

FRANK BLAKE: I have a few concluding questions.

First, what do you think people who know CaringBridge, but know it in a general way, what is it that they may not know that they should know?

TIA NEWCOMER: It's more than a journaling platform.

You'll hear people use that word journaling. It is a communication platform.

What's the difference?

It enables you, yes, to communicate out to your community.

What people don't know and that we're really highlighting and seeing that's part of the research that's highlighting is ask for help.

And you know what, CaringBridge enables you to ask for all the help you need.

You can do it organically through a post. We just launched a feature called requests, which prompts and gives caregivers or patients categories of help that they might need.

And we're seeing off the charts engagement.

And off the charts by the way, I think it was 80% of requests are being filled within 24 hours by your community.

So it's not a journaling platform.

It's a communication platform that gets you emotional, social, and tangible support.

And I think that's the piece that people don't think of when they talk about CaringBridge.

They think of it as a journaling platform for you to communicate out.

FRANK BLAKE: That's hugely important.

And just listening to the way you talk and the way you have thought about your career, and I'm sure we'll continue to think about your career, who is inspiring to you?

I am sure people are listening to this and find you very inspiring.

Who do you go, boy, this person, what they're doing really. That's inspiring?

TIA NEWCOMER: Seth Godin.

What I learned from him, both through reading his books but then participating in the altMBA is own your truth, stay in grounded confidence.

And I think those two things oftentimes when you're in the business world, are seemingly challenged.

You have to show up a certain way. So I think Seth Godin is one.

The other ... And I'll make this more personal, is my husband.

He's not perfect of course.

However, having gone through cancer at a young age and that what you do today is important because you exchange a day of your life for it, has been hugely influential to me.

We met when I was 25.

When I look at him and the choices in his career and the things he's overcome, if you know a first responder that is not an easy job, not only physically, but mentally.

There's a lot of things that the weight of ... Imagine exiting out of the world, the things he's seen that people have done to each other or that do to themselves.

And so I think watching his resilience is pretty darn inspiring and makes me better, not only as a leader, but as I make choices for us as a family, but for me in my career as well.

FRANK BLAKE: That's awesome.

So I asked this question to everyone who's a guest on the show, and the question is, because we celebrate people who do great things for others, and you're doing great things for others, who's done a crazy good turn for you?

TIA NEWCOMER: So many people, but the ones that stand out are ...

I'm going to go way back when little Tia was in fourth grade and a gangly ...

You can't see me on screen, but I'm like six foot tall so I was a gangly girl.

And I had a coach, Coach Kakos in softball that knew how to bring out the best in me.

I wasn't an athlete. I'm not an athlete at heart. I have to work at it.

And I think what he saw is that I had the foundational elements that I didn't know I had, and he saw that I had the drive and he brought it out of me and carried me through to all-star teams, playing basketball, going off to college, playing basketball.

I look at that early ... He was the first example of someone that saw something in me that I didn't see and brought it out.

I just have so many examples after him of people that did that.

But it was probably because it started so young that I could recognize it and pick up on those things.

So he started the catalyst that made me who I am today.

FRANK BLAKE: We also wanted to hear from Dave and Jill Olecki.

So we asked: Who has done a crazy good turn for you?

JILL OLECKI: That is a really tough question. Oh my gosh.

How do we pick one or even... Oh gosh.

DAVE OLECKI: I would've to pick three. I can't narrow it down to one.

I would absolutely have to recognize my parents and Jill specifically for...

So to think back to my parents, they gave me an amazing upbringing, everything I can need, sports, school-

A wonderful family. But the number one greatest gift they ever gave me is passing on the Catholic faith to me.

And then to Jill, same thing, meeting Jill, Jill strengthened that in me and made it even stronger.

And the reason I can say this is because I know I don't think I would've survived this journey.

I don't think I would've made it without my faith. That is what gave me the strength to make it through the hardest times and to support Jill and the family.

So for sure, I got to thank my parents and Jill for instilling and strengthening that faith.

JILL OLECKI: I'd probably have to say the same.

My parents and my sister and her family and all of Dave's family, including you, and I have a large and close extended family that has been amazing too.

There's so many people. But yeah, my faith also has kept me going.

And Dave, I mean, he has definitely become a complete and total superhero. I mean, it's hard, not only he's worried about me and my health and safety, but he's also missing his main partner a lot of the times at home.

Or I used to take the kids to school. I used to make their lunches, I used to clean the house.

All these things that we have to adjust that now Dave does.

And I mean, not to mention physically, he has helped me so much physically lifting me from the ground or from my wheelchair or just I can't even imagine how many times you've had to help me do stuff like that.

DAVE OLECKI: Piggyback rides are fun.

JILL OLECKI: Yes, piggyback rides, yes, everything.

I mean I knew Dave was awesome and faithful when I married him, but I had no idea what he was going to become.

He didn't become some cartoon dad that just sits in his La-Z-Boy and drinks beer and watches football. He's the complete opposite of that.

He's a wonderful father and an amazing husband. And his faith has helped my faith, especially when my faith in a sort of more desperation mode, when it becomes harder to believe and I feel despair, he was there to help.

And he's raising our kids to be the same.

God completely, just without my knowledge even, gave me the best partner, spouse, friend, husband that I could have ever imagined.

I mean, what Dave does for me on a daily, weekly, monthly basis is too much to even capture, I think.

FRANK BLAKE: They also wanted to express their gratitude to Tia, and her team at CaringBridge.

JILL OLECKI: Can I just say we'd like to thank her personally.

For keeping it going and whoever founded it, that person too, it made such a difference in our life in a really difficult time. So tell her we are grateful, please.

FRANK BLAKE: As we talked about earlier, one of the biggest barriers CaringBridge faces today is awareness.

For all their success, not enough people know who they are or what they do.

So we wanted to wrap up by asking Tia about the best way to connect and spread the word.

For people who want to follow you and follow CaringBridge, where should they go? What should they do?

TIA NEWCOMER: Yes. Please go to caringbridge.org. That's our general website.

We have Facebook and Instagram. Please follow us there.

But yes. And most importantly, if you know someone that's going through a significant health journey, please tell them about CaringBridge.

I invite you to set up a page for them because often it's just that first step that they need someone to do that for.

So that's CaringBridge for me. I'm crazy poster on LinkedIn.

I probably post one or two times a week both on CaringBridge and the things that we're doing, but also on leadership and my musings on leadership and what I see for boards and leaders up and down organizations.

You can find me at Tia Newcomer on LinkedIn.

I do have an Instagram page that I keep forgetting.

Again, we have a small team, so everything you see by the way is written by me.

I don't have anyone that's writing things for me. So it is all me. I do have an Instagram page, Tia Newcomer, I think it's underscore CEO.

I need to get better at posting there. You're more likely to follow me on LinkedIn if you want real time.

FRANK BLAKE: That's fantastic. This has been such a treat and you're doing an amazing thing.

Your organization's doing an amazing thing.

Honestly, there would be less than 50 people accomplishing this and making such a difference is a testament to you, your team and the power of technology now, if it's used in truly a positive way.

So thank you.

TIA NEWCOMER: Thank you, Frank. Such a pleasure.