Amy Cunningham of Fitting Tribute Funerals at a recent Green-Wood Cemetery (NYC) seminar (Contributed photo)

In the last couple of weeks Funeral Director Daily has brought you articles about low-cost online direct to the consumer (DTC) business Eirene cremations seemingly going out of business and about the situation where a Canadian city of about 14,000 people does not have a funeral home.

For a minimum call funeral home or a low-cost cremation provider to continue to give service the one thing that has to happen is that that business must be profitable.  And it appears that “minimum call” funeral homes are getting tougher to bring to profitability as revenues wane and costs rise and that the costs of acquiring the consumer customers in the online cremation business is also challenging.  In both cases it appears that the costs to reach “scale” numbers are difficult to cover in today’s world.

So, a recent New York Times feature article titled “They’re putting some fun in funerals” caught my interest and reminded me of an article I had written in 2019.  I concluded that article, which you can read here, by saying “Maybe low-cost cremation won’t win.  Maybe traditional funeral homes will win. . . . but with a different traditional style.” . . . and that is exactly what the New York Times is suggesting in their August 2024 article.

The New York Times article, which you can access here (it is behind a registration wall), brings to light the evident success of the new storefront-like funeral establishments that have popped up and garnered success.  Exit Here in London just opened a 2nd location, Sparrow in New York City and Poppy’s in London are also among those funeral homes that, as the article says, are “surprisingly hip” and drawing customers.

The article also states that those funeral establishments offer nontraditional services and memorials personalized down to every detail.  According to the article, they also market somewhat differently. .  . “hosting events that reflect evolving attitudes about funerals, like grief circles; a death-themed comedy show, guided meditations, and several death cafes, where people who are dying or coping with grief can eat pastries and connect”.

Erica Hill, the founder of New York City’s Sparrow says in that article that her company’s “services are aimed at people who were looking for something that feels warm and inviting”.  She says her funeral home is taking the funeral and “repackaging it, rebranding it, and make it look cool”.  

Time will tell if these new urban funeral establishments will garner the profitability for staying power.  However, funeral director and owner Amy Cunningham of Fitting Tribute Funerals in New York City sees growing interest in the movement.  She tells me that interest in her seminars at Green-Wood Cemetery’s death education seminars is growing steadily.  Since 2017 the number of seminars has both doubled and the average attendance at those seminars has also doubled.  Her most recent natural burial talk drew a capacity crowd of 200 with more on a waiting list.

In an e-mail to me, Ms. Cunningham said, “I’m used to drawing tattooed Brooklyn hipsters and bookish middle aged women, but this time so many men were happily in attendance.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  So, what is it that makes these store-front funeral homes attractive to the former clientele of much more traditional mortuaries?  Is it the minimalist thoughts about services and the seemingly interest by the eventual decedent, with encouragement by the provider, to “do it their way?”

If so, how does that fly in the face of conventional and traditional grief thought that “the funeral is for the living?”

Is it a “back to nature” thing in the urban areas that don’t have much nature?   Is it what John Naisbitt hypothesized in his 1980’s best-selling book Megatrends  —  that is “the more technology that we live in the more human touch we will also need”?

Whatever the reason, I think the growing popularity of these urban funeral settings, in part, reflects society’s changing stance in death care preferences where one size no longer fits all. . . . .It reflects the fact that we now recognize not only burial and  cremation services, but those services with other forms of disposition as well as other forms or celebration and reflection as not out of our expanding societal norms.

One client of Sparrow described her experience at Sparrow.  After saying that her historic neighborhood funeral home was very nice but “transactional” in nature.  Sparrow, in contrast was different, they never said “This is how we do it“.  Instead the question was always, “What do you want?”

Can traditional funeral homes learn from that? . . . .

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