Accelerating Access to Care Services
Chronic Health Advocate
Dunhill, Co. Waterford
CARE FOR THE CARERS - DELIVERED WHEREVER THEY NEED IT MOST.
Established in March 2024, Chronic Health Advocate supports families living with chronic, complex or life-altering illness - with a particular focus on the toll illness takes on the whole family, not just the person diagnosed.
In less than two years, it has developed online support programmes, peer-to-peer networks and art therapy classes, while building partnerships with the HSE, the Department of Children, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, Waterford LEADER and Ronald McDonald House. In late 2025, that work was recognised when Chronic Health Advocate was named Social Enterprise of the Year at the Waterford PPN Awards.
"We started Chronic Health Advocate because we saw families carrying an impossible weight, often completely on their own. Carers give everything to everyone else and rarely get a moment for themselves - the Emotional Battery Recharger is our answer to that. Clann Credo backed us at a stage when we had ambition and a plan but not years of accounts to show for it. That trust means everything."
Mark Bolger, Director, Chronic Health Advocate
In 2025, the organisation set out to establish the Emotional Battery Recharger (EBR) / Wellness Pod, a new therapeutic mobile service for people who care for others. Delivered through a specially fitted mobile unit, the EBR is designed to bring sound, visual and vibrational therapies directly to family carers and healthcare workers - wherever caregiving leaves little time to travel for support.
The ambition is simple: take care to the carer, rather than asking the carer to find time to come to care.
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SO, WHAT CAME OF IT?
A new service designed around the reality of caring - bringing a moment of relief to the people who spend their lives giving it to others. The Emotional Battery Recharger demonstrates what can happen when grant aid, impact lending, philanthropy and the organisation’s own resources are intentionally brought together around one clear ambition. It is also a powerful example of why the Dynamic Funding Model matters: the right funding mix can help an emerging organisation turn a strong idea into action, even before it has the long track record that traditional finance often demands.
IMPACT AT A GLANCE:
4 volunteers · Potential to support up to 1,000 service users in year one · €28,000 raised through grants, sponsorship and fundraising in the previous year · €15,000+ in corporate CSR support · Social Enterprise of the Year, Waterford PPN Awards 2025.
1. Grant Aid
BUION Portlairge provided a €1,000 SICAP grant, contributing to the overall project funding and helping the organisation move its ambition forward.
2. Impact Lending
Clann Credo provided a €15,000 Acorn Term Loan to finance the mobile unit and its fit-out, providing finance designed around the needs of an emerging social enterprise and enabling the service to move from ambition to reality.
3. Philanthropy
Corporate CSR support has already contributed more than €15,000 in value thanks to donations. For the Emotional Battery Recharger project, a Zero Gravity Massage Chair valued at €12,000 was donated by Masatto, reducing the amount the organisation needed to borrow.
4. Earned Income
Chronic Health Advocate has developed a mixed and increasingly diversified income base, including fee-paying corporate wellness.
