Funeral Director Daily

Top articles include funeral home size, reaching a cremation peak, and why not “recurring revenue” for funeral homes

By Funeral Director Daily / September 18, 2025 /

  The last 30 day period has been one of the best, in terms of page views, in Funeral Director Daily’s history.  As I write this on Wednesday afternoon Funeral Director Daily has compiled 20,085 page views over the latest rolling 30-day period.  That more than likely puts us as the #1 read daily Death…

Demographics play a vital role

By Funeral Director Daily / September 18, 2025 /

  Where people are living has an incredible affect on the number of families a local funeral provider will serve in a given time period.  Today’s article will introduce you to some graphics and articles about how demographics are shifting in the United States.  And, it is really important to know these demographic shifts if…

Can your funeral home afford to increase prices amid rising costs?

By Funeral Director Daily / September 17, 2025 /

    I operated my funeral home from 1980 to 2013 and in that time period we increased prices every year.  I always looked for an average of about 3% but was able to increase my cremation prices more than that as cremation was growing in popularity.  And, it seemed that our price increases also…

Indiana Court: “Death Doula” does not need a funeral director license

By Funeral Director Daily / September 16, 2025 /

      According to this issue of the Indianapolis Star an Indiana court of appeals ruled in late August that the State of Indiana “violated the First Amendment rights of a Fort Wayne “death doula” after it required her to obtain a funeral director license to provide end-of-life transition services”.   Indiana state (mortuary)…

CANA’s Peer Support Meeting tomorrow night will focus on “Stress”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 15, 2025 /

    Dwight Thompson, a seasoned social worker, psychotherapist, and former funeral director with more than 20 years of experience in mental health and grief care will highlight the monthly interactive Peer Support meeting for September.  The online peer support meeting for funeral service workers sponsored by the Cremation Association of North America (CANA) will…

Your funeral home’s cash-flow: Investment vs. Enjoyment

By Funeral Director Daily / September 15, 2025 /

    I read a lot of different articles.  Recently I read an article about investing that contrasted “Dividend Investing” and “Growth Investing”.  The article was very interesting but it also made me think about my time as a funeral home owner and how I managed the profits, or cash-flow, of the business.   In…

Carriage Services jumps back into acquisitions with Central Florida purchase

By Funeral Director Daily / September 12, 2025 /

  It’s been pretty easy to recognize that the management team that replaced founder and long-time CEO Melvin Payne at Carriage Services has been building the foundations of the business in order to begin once again making acquisitions for growth.  That has probably been a necessary strategy but it also was noted by some investors…

Funeral Directors are heroes

By Funeral Director Daily / September 11, 2025 /

      The beginning of a recent article on the ASD Blog, authored by Jessica Farren, had a quote without, to my knowledge, an author’s acknowledgement.  I will post it here with no acknowledgement but do believe it captures the essence of America’s funeral directors:   “Deathcare professionals are not heroes because they are…

Are we nearing the “Cremation Peak”?

By Funeral Director Daily / September 10, 2025 /

    There are some interesting survey results out that question if the United States will soon reach the “Peak Percentage” of cremation rates as the disposition of choice.   Last year at this time the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) was readying some of their results on the “Changing Funeral Preferences” survey.  I remember…

What is the “Data point” for Preneed?

By Funeral Director Daily / September 9, 2025 /

    It’s s question that I have a hard time answering or getting an answer to.  The question being, “What is the number of preneed policies a funeral home needs to write to move market share forward?”  Or even more basic, “What is the average ratio between going-concern funeral homes as it comes to…