Adventure Nannies Turns 6 This Year
And We Have So Much To Celebrate!
We’ve come such a long way since 2012…
A Note From Brandy
Adventure Nannies began 6 years ago out of necessity – I had worked for many families as a nanny, often traveling with them to destinations that were not for the faint-of-heart. As a Wilderness First Responder and seasoned traveler, I found a niche of families who were looking for someone with an x-factor that allowed them to educate and care for their kids at destinations like Burning Man, the Canadian wilderness, and the far reaches of the world. Eventually, I began to market myself as THE Adventure Nanny, and as my network of families grew, I became overbooked and began referring my eclectic group of friends to fill travel jobs. Around the same time, I also fell in love with a struggling musician. I assumed I would be the breadwinner in the relationship, and needed to earn more to support us. I had maxed out my earning potential as a travel nanny so I decided to launch Adventure Nannies to support us.
What started as a one-woman company has evolved into a team of 9 amazing ladies with a database of over 14,000 applicants. We have helped over 600 families find their own incredible role models to their children and partner in parenting.
Adventure Nannies is run by compassionate, business-minded women who have also founded an oyster catering company, a non-profit yoga studio, a high-end cookie delivery service, a digital marketing firm, and a screen-printing studio between them. We have two musicians, an actress, a yoga instructor and a nursing student on our team and are proud to have a diverse group of employees who are able to pursue their passions and other interests while still committing fully to the goals of Adventure Nannies.
We embrace this spirit in our nanny applicants as well. Some of our favorite non-nannying careers and positions Adventure Nannies have had include Olympic athletes, art therapists, macrobiotic chefs, professional fisherwomen, baby yoga instructors, skiers and snowboarders, welders, equestrians, herbalists, classical musicians, speech therapists, dog mushers, computer programmers, historians, underwater photographers, published authors and illustrators, trapeze instructors, rock climbing teachers, and NOLS and STEAM instructors.
Whether you were an early adopter of Adventure Nannies or have only been introduced to us recently, and whether you are a family, a nanny, an educator, or just a fan, we are so grateful for your support. Thank you for your role in our growth, and here’s to many more years!
-Brandy Schultz
Founder of Adventure Nannies
A Note From Shenandoah
Adventure Nannies has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception and is particularly relevant now as more and more families, and particularly mothers, are looking for new ways to assist them as they pursue their passions and careers while caring for their family. We are proud to be innovators in our industry and guide families through the process of finding and hiring a nanny or private educator while advocating for contracts, salaries and benefits for the candidates we work with and ensuring our families are treating their employees well and educating them on state and federal employment laws.
In 2018, women are getting so much attention through the ‘Me Too’ movement and permission for the first time to share many of their stories. Women have been speaking up about equal wages and fair treatment for decades, but due to the current political climate, their voices are louder and more united than ever and they are being heard in a more profound way than ever before.
Professionals who have chosen a career in childcare are often part of a group of disenfranchised people, with many families being unaware of or intimidated by the legal obligations of having an employee, so many nannies are paid ‘off the books’ and are not entitled to overtime, unemployment, or other employment benefits offered to employees in more corporate fields.
We are re-inventing the idea of ‘childcare’ in a more professional light and encouraging families to set a high standard when it comes to hiring a professional to not only care for their children but inspire them to become well-rounded members of society and offer them fresh perspectives. In addition, we are advocating for these passionate, educated and professional employees to be treated as such even though the childcare industry as a whole has not caught up to their levels of expertise quite yet.
It is my absolute honor to serve Adventure Nannies as its COO for the last two years and change, to dive into the childcare industry head-first from my early days as a nanny, music teacher and tutor, to surround myself with this talented, bad-ass team, to speak at the INA and APNA conferences and join the APNA board.
The accomplishment our team has made in the last year that I am the most proud of was hosting the first-ever online International Nanny Training Day event, where nannies from all over the world joined us in an interactive format to learn from the National Domestic Worker’s Alliance and other workshops including how to support queer and non-gender binary youth, how to recognize and report signs of sexual and physical assault in children, how to negotiate an employment agreement and interview with families, and many other workshops.
While Adventure Nannies is, on paper, a referral agency for nannies and private educators, the work that is the most valuable to me is the educational resources and tools we are able to provide our candidates with. We will never be able to find a position for every applicant that comes through our door, but it is my hope that in the years to come we can continue to educate, inspire, and empower every candidate we come into contact with.
I am also SO GRATEFUL for the amazing women I get to spend my work days with and travel all over the country to visit in real life, and the amazing community of agency owners this role has introduced me to. Adventure Nannies’ success is an ever-changing set of puzzles and challenges to tackle, and there is no one else I’d rather be tackling them with.
-Shenandoah Davis
COO of Adventure Nannies
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