When four women she loved were diagnosed with cancer in a single month, British-born mum and entrepreneur Jayne Burney found herself asking a question many people struggle to answer: how do you actually help someone going through the worst time of their life?
The diagnoses affected her mother-in-law, a close family friend and two dear friends living in Australia and the UK.
After visiting one of those friends, Lara, in hospice care in Adelaide, Jayne boarded a flight home determined to find practical ways to support her and her family. She searched online for trusted cleaners, meal preparation services and other help she could organise from afar.
“It just wasn’t there,” she says.
Lara died the following day.
The experience stayed with Jayne, particularly the feeling that she hadn’t done enough.
“I felt really guilty that I’d not done more to show up for her,” she says. “I defaulted to sending flowers because it felt like the only option to show my support from afar, but it’s not always what someone actually needs.”
That realisation became the starting point for Find Your Kind, a platform that lets people gift practical, in-home support to loved ones navigating cancer, grief, new parenthood and other major life events.
Rather than flowers or hampers, customers can purchase vouchers for services including cleaning, laundry, meal preparation and dog walking, delivered by vetted support workers.
Launched in July 2026, Find Your Kind operates in Sydney and Manchester in the UK, helping people provide meaningful support even when distance or other commitments prevent them from being there in person.
For Jayne, building the business has also been a way to channel grief into something positive.
“I was dealing with so much heaviness, grief and loss,” she says. “I threw myself into Find Your Kind to try and focus on something positive, inspired by the women I wanted to help. They are at the heart of what I’m doing.”
Within a week of launching, Jayne experienced what she describes as a full-circle moment. A customer purchased a voucher for a friend who had just been diagnosed with cancer.
“When the customer shared that their friend had been diagnosed and she wanted to help her, it really hit home. So many people are looking to help those they love in a meaningful way,” she says.
The situation that had prompted Jayne to create Find Your Kind was now playing out for someone else, but this time, there was a practical way to help.
She hopes the platform will encourage people to rethink what showing up for someone really looks like, particularly when a loved one is facing cancer, grief or the arrival of a new baby.
Sometimes, support means more than a bunch of flowers. It might mean a clean house, a meal that doesn’t need cooking or someone taking the dog for a walk; anything that can provide one less thing to worry about when everything else feels overwhelming.
Jayne wants to make that kind of help as easy to give as sending flowers, especially for people who cannot be physically present because of distance, work or family commitments.
“If this goes on to alleviate the guilt for someone else who can’t physically be there due to distance or circumstance, and it helps them and their friend, I’ve achieved my goal.”