I graduated from high school in 1976.  The that time period around the 200th anniversary of our nation brought about profound thought change of women in the workplace.

It was about that time, as you can see by the graphic below, that females caught and eventually passed males in college enrollment.  Up until that time young females were counseled to be nurses not doctors, legal secretaries not attorneys, and teachers — certainly not college presidents.  I mention that last occupation because during my tenure on the University of Minnesota Board of Regents I was part of the Board that hired the first female President in the university’s storied 168 year history.  (An interesting side note is that the University of Minnesota was founded in 1851 by immigrants to provide education for their children a full seven years before Minnesota was granted statehood).

Females have pass Males in college attendance and continue to widen the gap

Some different professions and the demographics of women that led and worked in them changed faster than others.  When I graduated from mortuary school in 1980 with about 40 fellow graduates I don’t believe we had any female graduates in the class.  Today, however, we hear that over 70% of mortuary students in training are female.

And, there is no doubt that women seem to be much more interested in “Business occupations” than ever before.  Part of my research for this article was to find the demographic make-up of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Business — for decades the domain of enterprising male students.  Last year’s demographic profile indicated that today about 46% of the students enrolled there are female.  You can see the demographics here.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

There is also no doubt that the consumer facing side of funeral service has changed to a profession where a grieving family is as likely to work with a female funeral director as they are a male funeral director.  But that is not all — females are now becoming the executive leaders of many Death Care operations.   Of what I believe are the four largest consumer funeral home and cemetery operators in the United States — Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, Everstory Partners, and Park Lawn Corporation — two of them are led by female Chief Executive Officers.  Everstory Partners is led by Lilly Donohue and Park Lawn Corporation is led by Jennifer Hays.

That brings me to the story of “Funeral Women Lead“.  An organization for the women in funeral service has been established and will, in my opinion, pave the way for more women to take leadership roles in the profession.  Funeral directing and the business of funeral homes was not so long ago the complete domain of males.  That is changing and it will be interesting to see how the increasing role of women in management in the profession might change some directions.

Funeral Women Lead has recruited some of the most prominent women in the profession to their management team and board.  This group makes me more excited than ever that funeral service has room for everybody and as a profession we will be better off for getting our leadership from a varied group of individuals.

To access the Funeral Women Lead website click here.

The paradigm shift to female funeral directors has happened right in front of my eyes.  The funeral home I used to own and manage has went from a 100% male licensed funeral director staff when I started to a licensed staff that is now 60% female.  Anecdotally, over my time as the owner of the funeral home I mentored three young people who wanted to, and eventually did, become licensed funeral directors —- all three were female.

More news from the world of Death Care:

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

I never know what will catch my eye as I peruse articles that I believe may contain information that will be helpful to the business operators of funeral homes, crematories, preneed agencies, and cemeteries.  Just the other day I was reading this article from the Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette which included comments that contained this statement, “The industry has changed. . . .It’s now over 75% female”.

That statement was about funeral directors and was made by Mortuary Lift Company CEO Katie Hill.  The Gazette business article was about the Mortuary Lift Company, its history, products, and base of operations in the Cedar Rapids area.  It was interesting to me that Hill, a one-time working 4th-generation funeral director, realized back in the 1980’s that the position of funeral director brought a lot of lifting with it.

Hill’s realization of the lifting aspect of being a funeral director led her to purchasing a “mechanical lift” company in 1987.   Eventually she moved that company to Cedar Rapids where they are busy not only building ceiling attached lifts for the funeral profession but other products as well. . . . You can read more about the company in the linked article.

Here’s a couple of Hill’s quotes from the article:

• “Now they (funeral homes) are worried about workman’s comp. Nobody is lifting bodies by hand anymore.”

• “We sell internationally,” although tariffs have cost some recent orders.  People die all over the globe, and I’m the only one making lifting equipment for the funeral home.”

• “Orders are designed to fit the customer’s space, with costs running $15,000 to $20,000.  It’s probably the cost of one back surgery, and they’re aware of that.” 

• “We have a terrific product. There’s no built-in obsolescence. We don’t have any warranty issues, because we build a quality product. I stand behind it, and it’s a small industry. If they have an issue, they talk to me.”

Here’s the website for the Mortuary Lift Company.

Funeral Director Daily:  This is another great American success story built out of an idea to improve the work of an individual.  There are hundreds, or more than likely thousands, of those stories in the annals of American business success.  Hill’s thought process of “I realized pretty quickly that I could not lift a dead body, and there’s a lot of lifting of dead bodies,” when she became a funeral director led to this success.

And now, as you can see if you look to the company website, there are other products for funeral homes and the general population as well.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

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Changing Perceptions: Overcoming Legacy.com Myths and Embracing the Modern Platform

For years, Legacy.com sat at the center of intense discussions among funeral directors. Some professionals praised its large audience and robust obituary tools, while others questioned whether the platform diverted traffic and flower sales away from local funeral homes. As technology and consumer expectations evolve, Legacy.com has revamped its offerings—particularly through Legacy Pro Business—to serve as a supportive partner rather than a competitor.

Below, we’ll debunk the most common misconceptions about Legacy.com and highlight how the new, modern approach benefits funeral homes, families, and communities alike.

1. Myth: Legacy.com Steals Funeral Home Web Traffic

The Concern: Families would land on Legacy.com to read an obituary, spend their time browsing guest books or memorial pages, and never visit the funeral home’s official site. This meant lost engagement, fewer opportunities to educate families on services, and less exposure to brand values.

The Reality: Legacy Pro Business’ updated model ensures that each obituary effectively funnels traffic back to the funeral home’s website.

• Premium Business Listings connect directly to your online home. Visitors see multiple backlinks pointing to your site—links to read the full obituary, send flowers, or learn more about your services.
• SEO Advantages arise from Legacy.com’s high domain authority, helping funeral home websites rank higher in local searches. Every click from Legacy.com to your site boosts organic visibility and brand recognition.

The end result is a win-win: You retain your rightful website traffic while benefiting from Legacy.com’s vast online audience.

2. Myth: Legacy.com Poaches Flower Orders and Profits

The Concern: Legacy.com’s advertising for sympathy flowers supposedly undercut local florist arrangements that funeral homes might otherwise sell directly to families.

The Reality: Today, Legacy Pro Business allows you to integrate your own florist of choice, ensuring families order from a trusted, community-based vendor. No more third-party redirection that excludes the funeral home’s preferred florist.

• Local Florist Promotion: Whether you have a partnership with one florist or multiple, you decide which shops display on the obituary’s flower-ordering platform.
• Revenue-Sharing Options: For homes that rely on direct floral commissions, Legacy Pro Business offers offers competitive revenue share. This means every transaction can help support your local business—and keeps you in control of the floral experience.

By removing the barrier that previously diverted flower sales, Legacy Pro Business hands control back to funeral homes and protects an important part of your revenue stream.

3. Myth: Automatic “Death Notices” Confuse Families

The Concern: Legacy.com used to auto-generate short death notices even if the funeral home or family hadn’t submitted an obituary. This sometimes created confusion or led to families contacting the funeral director about inaccurate or incomplete listings.

The Reality: Legacy Pro Business has eliminated the automatic posting of partial, unauthorized notices. Now, only funeral homes that opt into the Legacy network have their obituaries displayed, ensuring accurate and timely information.

• Direct Control: You decide which obituaries go live and when. If you update a service time or correct a detail, that change syncs across the Legacy network.
• Community Pages: These local or topic-based hubs (e.g., “Boston Remembers,” “Northwestern Alumni”) show the funeral home’s listing front and center, with no confusion about who is providing the service details.

This shift has helped build trust among funeral directors and families alike, reducing frustration and ensuring a consistent presentation of each person’s life story.

4. Transparency and Monthly Performance Reports

A huge part of Legacy Pro Business’s redesign involves transparency: funeral homes receive detailed reports each month that highlight how many visitors clicked from Legacy.com to their sites, how many entered the guest book, sent flowers, or interacted with other online features.

• Data-Driven Decisions: Armed with this performance data, you can make informed marketing moves—like adjusting your social media strategy or reevaluating how you highlight flowers and memorial gifts.
• Monitoring Competitors: Some plans include “obit data” to keep an eye on your market. Compare call volumes and obituary postings against others in your region, no more manually combing through newspapers or websites.

With Legacy Pro Business, there’s no secret ledger. You see, in black-and-white numbers, the exact value of your partnership every month.

5. A Risk-Free Way to Test the Waters

Still on the fence? Legacy Pro Business offers both a free version and a paid version, so you can see how their platform complements your existing online presence.

• Free Model: Display your obituaries on Legacy.com so families can easily find service information. You’ll gain basic referral traffic and brand visibility at zero cost.
• Paid Upgrades: Access additional benefits like advanced performance reports, local florist integration, competitor data, and extensive backlinking. This leads to a bigger online footprint and stronger connections with families.

Many funeral homes discover that once they try Legacy Pro Business, the traffic boost and streamlined obituary control make the paid features well worth the investment. If it doesn’t align with your strategy, you can always cancel without lingering contractual obligations.

6. Embracing the New Legacy

Change can be daunting, but in the rapidly evolving digital landscape, a streamlined, partnership-driven obituary platform is a valuable ally. Legacy Pro Business’s modern features empower funeral professionals to:

• Retain and even grow website traffic.
• Protect and enhance local flower sales.
• Control how and when obituaries appear online.
• Access transparent metrics on a monthly basis.
• Build deeper connections with community members who might otherwise miss important service details.

At the end of the day, this evolution from “Old Legacy” to “New Legacy” means one thing: funeral homes have more control and more opportunities to support grieving families in a transparent, community-focused way.

Conclusion

Longstanding myths often overshadow new innovations. With Legacy Pro Business, funeral directors can now see—tangibly and numerically—how a modern obituary platform drives traffic, fosters stronger community ties, and preserves valuable revenue opportunities. If you’ve been hesitant because of past experiences or rumors, consider taking advantage of the free version or scheduling a demo to see the changes for yourself. You may just find that Legacy Pro Business is the supportive digital partner your funeral home has been seeking all along.

Changing Funeral Preferences: NFDA’s First-of-Its-Kind Generational Report Now Available

Brookfield, Wis. – The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), the world’s leading and largest funeral service association, has released an unprecedented study examining consumer attitudes toward funeral service across generations. Available to funeral service professionals for download at no charge, Changing Consumer Preferences: A Generational Perspective on Attitudes Toward Funeral Service provides critical insights to help funeral service professionals adapt to evolving expectations and continue delivering meaningful memorial experiences. More than just presenting data, this report serves as a tool, offering prompts to help funeral directors reflect on what the findings mean for their businesses and providing ideas for serving all members of grieving families, regardless of their generation.

Conducted by Bridge Market Research on behalf of NFDA, this groundbreaking report surveyed Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers (age 18 and older) in the United States to explore their perspectives on funeral service, final disposition preferences, communication about end-of-life plans and the role of funeral directors. Key findings include:

• Younger generations view funeral directors as valuable experts and trusted professionals, with Gen Z expressing the strongest belief in their importance.
• While 56% of respondents agree that it is important to commemorate a loved one with a funeral or memorial service, younger generations are more likely to emphasize the importance of viewing the body.
• The preference for cremation remains strong, with 50% of Americans favoring it, though Gen Z shows a greater preference for traditional burial than older generations.
• Nearly two-thirds (62%) of adults have discussed their own funeral plans with family members, yet Gen Z is the least likely to have done so.
• A significant majority (91%) of Americans believe that talking about death is healthy and normal, though many remain uncomfortable with these discussions. 

“NFDA is committed to conducting meaningful, independent research that empowers funeral service professionals with the knowledge they need to serve families with excellence,” said Stephanie Wagner, NFDA chief marketing officer. “This report offers invaluable insights into how different generations perceive funerals, providing funeral directors with data-driven guidance to better support the evolving needs of the communities they serve.” 

NFDA has engaged in a highly successful consumer public relations campaign around the report findings. The multi-faceted campaign generated 1,642 media placements and more than 785 million media and digital impressions. This effort is part of NFDA’s long-term strategy to generate positive media coverage that highlights the value of meaningful memorialization and the expertise of funeral directors. 

NFDA is making this report available to all funeral service professionals, regardless of membership status, as part of its commitment to advancing the profession. Funeral professionals can access Changing Consumer Preferences: A Generational Perspective on Attitudes Toward Funeral Service at no charge by vising NFDA.org/Research. 

NFDA is the world’s leading and largest funeral service association, serving 20,000 individual members who represent nearly 11,000 funeral homes in the United States and 49 countries around the world. NFDA is the trusted leader, beacon for ethics and the strongest advocate for the profession. NFDA is the association of choice because it offers funeral professionals comprehensive educational resources, tools to manage successful businesses, guidance to become pillars in their communities and the expertise to foster future generations of funeral professionals. NFDA is headquartered in Brookfield, Wis., and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit NFDA.org.

If there was a doubt that how Death Care is changing is of interest to practitioners in the business, one would only have to look at article readership of Funeral Director Daily over the past thirty days to prove the point to the doubter.  Every 30 days, on the 15th of each month, Funeral Director Daily recaps our “Top Read” articles over that 30 days.

As of Sunday, September 15, our “Top Read” article of the month was an article on how some funeral establishments are changing.  That article was titled “Death Done Differently“.

What is interesting about that article is that it was not only the “Top Read” article of the month, but it produced the “Top Pageviews” for one day in the history of Funeral Director Daily.  And, it broke the old pageview record by a whopping 63%.

So, in my mind, there is an enormous interest by funeral service practitioners on how our businesses will be evolving over the next decade and beyond.  And, it is apparent that practitioners are searching for what roads to take in that equation.

Here’s Funeral Director Daily’s “Top Read” articles from August 15 to September 15 in case you missed them when published.

1. Death Done Differently
2. Mobility, remote locations may may cause lack of services for consumers
3. 60 years ago today. . .and the story of the “Kennedy casket”
4. Where was SCI?
5. Is private equity “hunting” Carriage Services?

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

A Heartfelt Word of Thanks  —  It kind of feels like that feeling when you learn to ride a bike or solve a difficult math problem.  I’ve been trying to put a pulse on the business of Death Care, and where it is trending, for almost the past seven years. . . . Wondering if my messages are appreciated. . .and in a world where you just type on a computer and put the stories out there, readership data becomes the main feedback source.

The numbers for Funeral Director Daily are continuing to increase and I can only thank you readers who read what I write  —  maybe some good articles, maybe some bad articles, and maybe some indifferent articles but the numbers increasing and feeling like I am offering some good news and suggestions keeps me going.  So, thanks again for taking the time to read what I put the effort into writing. . . . I have a passion for serving families and mentoring young funeral directors and business people and this blog is my way of keeping that effort up. . .

Here’s how Funeral Director Daily has grown this summer illustrated by the page views of our website as documented by Monster Insights:

• May 2024 –                         14,783 page views
• June 2024-                          15,585 page views
• July 2024-                           16,271 page views
• August 2024-                     20,409 page views

And, as we sit on September 15, 2024, the latest 30-day rolling number of page views is at 22,236.  So, thanks for reading and keeping me motivated!!!

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

I’m watching the leaves begin to fall from the trees as I write this blog.

The silent journey of the leaves from the branch to the ground reminds me of the continuous cycles of change we experience…And not just the changing seasons, but the cycles of life, death and grief.

Here are some lessons these changing seasons can teach us about grief, death, and loss:

#1: Death is a completely normal part of life

When you look around during winter time, you see death everywhere. Bare trees, animals buried deep in hibernation, and the stark white snow covering everything (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere). And the death of most everything around you can feel deep, dark and downright depressing. It can also feel never-ending. 

And yet, every spring, without fail, the snow melts and the flowers begin to bloom again. Death isn’t only natural, but it’s necessary for life. Nature teaches us that. And since we are nature, we must remember this, no matter how hard it gets.

#2: Resourcing ourselves for darker days ahead is natural

Let’s keep on with the metaphor of winter… When winter is approaching, animals and humans everywhere gather their harvests and store it for the dark, grimmer days to come. We know that the death of the many forms of life that nourish us is coming, and we resource ourselves for it. 

We can’t know when the death of a loved one is coming. It’s not scheduled, and set in stone, like the seasons. But, we can prepare for loss in general by resourcing ourselves. By finding peace with death in ourselves. By having a solid community. A great therapist. A daily practice that keeps us sane. Herbs and teas that help uplift us. With these resources already present in our lives, we can lean on them when we really need them, just like we do when the seasons change.

#3: Grief is real, but it will always change forms

When we see the seasons change, we see how all forms change, in all ways, and always. So why wouldn’t our grief change forms too? In the beginning, grief might feel like you’re being pinned to the ground, unable to function. And you might wish that your grief would just go away. But it will never just “go away”. Like a leaf falling from a tree, it will die and compost, and it will bring new life. 

I’ve heard many grief experts say that grief never goes away, but it grows with us. We relate to it differently as we move through all its stages. In a way, it becomes who we are. And it makes us more compassionate and open and tender, too. So instead of wishing away your grief, what if you just allowed it to move through its natural process and trust its presence in your life? 

#4: From our pain and loss, new life can form

As I mentioned above, grief and loss, like everything, also fuel new life. There isn’t a single person I’ve met who has told me that grief hasn’t changed them. It does change us. But sometimes it gets a bad rep. Sometimes we think grief “ruins” us. But if we really track it all the way, through its entire process, doesn’t grief actually break our hearts open? Isn’t there a tiny seed of beauty and compassion planted in every grieving heart? Doesn’t grieving help us to find our own depths, and have a more spacious way to hold others in compassion through their tough times, too? 

So maybe, then, we can find a way to let our grief transform us in the best way possible. 

Maybe, then, grief isn’t so bad, after all.

Maybe, then, grief is a wise teacher, like the seasons, and we can be ok with those teachings when they come.

How has the changing of the seasons inspired your grief journey? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!