Most caregiving burns people out because one person carries it invisibly. CaresCircle helps your family write down who covers what, so the gaps show up before a crisis does.
63 million Americans are family caregivers. Most carry it alone. Answer a few questions, get a one-page map you can print or share.
Map who covers what — 2 minutesExample coverage map · made up
Robert's circle
4 of 6 areas covered
Press play. No sound unless you turn it on.
"Who's supposed to be handling that?"
Every area of care has one named owner
One sibling does everything
See at a glance who carries what
"Nobody knew she fell"
See who answers at 2am, or that no one does
The next family call starts from scratch
A one-page printout: who covers what, and the gaps
Guilt about not doing enough
Everyone's part is written down where all can see it
Gaps found in a crisis
Gaps found today, while there is still time to fill them
Everyone who cares. Not just family.
The daughter who lives nearby
Coordinates daily care, talks to doctors, manages medications
The son across the country
Handles finances, insurance calls, researches options
The neighbor who checks in
Brings meals, notices changes, checks in most days
The paid caregiver, when the family needs one
Covers the hours family can't. co-op.care is a worker-owned care cooperative forming in Boulder; paid care begins once it is licensed and staffed
The grandchild who visits weekends
Records stories, brings joy, learns family history
Their name and your relationship to them. That is all it takes to start.
Put yourself in, plus family, neighbors, friends, anyone who shows up. Mark each as primary, helper, or informed.
Six areas every care plan has to cover: nights, medical decisions, rides, daily contact, medications, bills. Pick an owner for each, or leave it blank if truly no one.
You get a coverage map with the gaps called out. Print it or copy it for the next family call. If a gap needs paid hands, co-op.care shows what help your family may qualify for. It is forming in Boulder, and paid care begins once it is licensed and staffed.
Most families don't fail at care because no one helps — they fail because no one knows who covers what. Build the circle, see the gaps, fill them before a crisis does it for you.
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The numbers are from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving’s most recent national report. They explain why coordination tools aren’t optional.
63 million
Americans are family caregivers
1 in 4 adults
45%
Increase in caregivers over the past decade
nearly 20M more since 2015
$1T
Annual economic value of unpaid care
more than total Medicaid spending (2024)
27 hrs
Average hours of care per week
more than a part-time job
Much of the strain of family caregiving is logistical and communicative: who knows what, who is doing what, and whose effort goes unseen. A written map of who covers what is the smallest first step.
Map who covers what →
About half of caregivers say caregiving has hurt their finances. One in five cannot afford basic needs like food, and a quarter have taken on debt. ComfortCard keeps care information in one place, on your own device.
See ComfortCard →
Over 40% of caregivers provide high-intensity care, including complex medical tasks, yet only 22% have received training. If your circle needs paid hands, co-op.care is forming in Boulder; paid care begins once it is licensed and staffed.
See co-op.care →
Seven in ten family caregivers hold jobs while providing care, including 18 million hourly wage workers who often lack supportive benefits. Coordinating care lands on people with little spare time.
A two-minute check-in for you →
Sources: Caregiving in the US 2025, AARP & National Alliance for Caregiving; AARP Valuing the Invaluable 2026 ($1.01 trillion in 2024); AARP Caregiving Out-of-Pocket Costs Study 2021. Not a substitute for medical advice. Figures checked September 2026.
$7,242
Typical annual out-of-pocket cost for a family caregiver (AARP, 2021)
See the AARP study
27 hrs
Average hours of care per week (AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, 2025)
Map who carries it in your family
64%
Of family caregivers report high emotional stress (AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, 2025)
A two-minute check-in for you
The circle doesn't eliminate the work. It makes sure nobody carries it alone.
CaresCircle is part of the co-op.care family of sites. These are the ones a caregiving family is most likely to need next.
A member-owned care cooperative forming in Boulder, Colorado first. Its assessment shows what help your family may qualify for.
Write down who speaks for you and what matters most. A values document, kept on your own device.
Emergency information and care preferences on one card, kept on your own device.
A home safety walkthrough that ends in a concrete action list.
Where this comes from
Sources: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving (Caregiving in the US 2025); AARP Valuing the Invaluable 2026. General education, not medical advice.
AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that 63 million Americans provide unpaid care to a family member. AARP puts the economic value of this care at about $1 trillion for 2024, more than total Medicaid spending that year. Yet this workforce is largely invisible, uncoordinated, and unsupported. Many caregivers describe the logistical and communicative load as part of the strain: missed information, duplicated effort, and the guilt of feeling they are never doing enough.
The primary coordination failure is fragmentation. One sibling handles medical appointments, another manages finances, a neighbor checks in informally, and a professional caregiver visits twice a week — but none of them are on the same page. CaresCircle starts with the simplest shared layer: one page that says who covers which area of care, so everyone is working from the same picture.
AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving found in 2025 that 64% of family caregivers report high emotional stress. Feeling alone in the role and having invisible contributions go unrecognized are part of what makes care heavy.
A map does not remove any work. It puts who does what in writing, so a family can talk about it: when everyone can see the full picture, the conversation can move from "why don't you do more?" to "what can I take off your plate?" CaresCircle makes each person's part visible on one page.
Effective family care coordination requires four information streams to stay synchronized: medical updates (appointments, diagnoses, medication changes), daily observations (behavioral changes, functional status, mood), logistical tasks (transportation, household management, prescription pickups), and emotional check-ins (how is Mom really doing; how is the nearby sibling holding up). Most families manage all four through a combination of text threads, phone calls, and memory — a system that fails predictably under stress.
CaresCircle today covers the first step: naming who owns each area. Beyond that, the CareGoals form is where a person writes down what matters most, and ComfortCard keeps emergency information on one card, on your own device.
A paid caregiver who is known to the whole family, rather than a stranger only one person deals with, can tell the whole circle what they notice. co-op.care is forming in Boulder as a cooperative where caregivers will be W-2 co-owners, earning $26 of every $35 hour once paid care begins. It is built to beat home care's roughly 75% annual caregiver turnover. Paid care has not begun yet.
In the coverage map, you can mark any area as covered by a paid caregiver, next to family members, so it is clear which hours are paid help and which are family.
The best time to set up a care circle is before a crisis. A hospitalization, a fall, a new serious diagnosis, or the first noticeable cognitive decline are all natural triggers — but by then, the family is already in reactive mode. Starting a circle when a parent is still largely independent allows the family to establish communication patterns, document baseline function, and build the shared context that makes urgent decisions easier.
The FallRisks home safety assessment is a natural starting point — a structured walkthrough that gives the family a shared picture of the home environment and produces a concrete action list. The Quality Death advance care planning conversation ensures that when hard decisions come, the family already knows what their loved one would want.
Sources: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the US 2025. Not a substitute for medical advice.
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