What drives innovation?

For us, when we launched funeralOne into the world, our vision was creating the future of funerals. It’s been the vision that has driven us to where we are, almost two decades after our first days.

We love seeing businesses blazing the trail for our collective funeral profession to step up in a big way.

We asked you on Facebook what your votes were, and here’s our pick of the top 7 most innovative funeral businesses. Follow them and let them inspire you!

1. Goldfinch Funeral Home

Goldfinch Funeral Home has been inspired by the recent research released on grief therapy dogs, and we love their efforts to adapt and innovate because of it. Goldfinch recently launched a Grief Therapy Program with one special soul, a certified Therapy Dog/Grief Counselor goldendoodle, Murphy (see photo below).

Murphy visits families at arrangement conferences, visitations, funeral services, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, and any other fitting location.

What makes them different:  What we love about Goldfinch Funeral Home is their ability to act on new research being released that helps them better support their families. Goldfinch seems dedicated to adapting with the needs of today’s families, and for that, we truly appreciate them!

2. Schneider-Michaelis Funeral Home

Schneider-Michaelis Funeral Home is on a mission to create the ultimate healing environment in their funeral home with their offering called ShareLife. This service is epic, and we’re so excited to tell you about it!

According to their website, The ShareLife experience:

Starts with a projection of special scenes and photos which showcase moments of your loved one’s life, allowing you to appreciate and reflect on your best memories together.

These memories, partnered with a favorite song, soothing scents, and sound effects to enhance the memorial experience, help family members and friends to celebrate and remember the good times shared. It’s not one thing, it’s everything that we do to make your loved one’s celebration of life personal and memorable. Your loved one was a unique person; let us help make their memorial service just as special.

What makes them different:  Other than ShareLife, another element that makes them Schneider-Michaelis stand apart from the crowd is their WOW service standards. Every family they serve goes home with a beautiful memorial book which combines all elements of their loved one’s service – from the names & addresses of everyone, to the flowers, and photos.

It seems their community loves what they’re doing, as they have pretty consistent 5-star reviews on all their review websites too! Way to go, Schneider-Michaelis!

3. Owen Funeral Homes

Owen Funeral Homes is the quintessential idea of a funeral home that is truly embracing the future, and creating, it too! There is no ONE way we can recognize them for their efforts, because the ways they support their families and community are many! They’ve got countless community events, a comprehensive funeral home website that truly educates, and their branding is inspiring and attractive to the families of today.

What makes them different:  If we had to pick ONE thing we love about Owen Funeral Home, it’s their funeral aftercare programs. They offer a whole calendar of events that ensures their families have the tools they need to re-build a life after death, and our favorite is their ongoing event called “Rollin with Owen”.

Rollin’ with Owen is a grief support-inspired trip, where they gather travelers from their community to visit somewhere new and inspiring. They’ve taken their families to the Caribbean, to Amish Country, and everywhere in between. We love how committed Owen Funeral Homes is to creating a REAL community, based on REAL friendships that are formed from all the different ways they gather people after a loss.

To learn more about Owen Funeral Home’s Rollin with Owen, click on the photo above.

4. Fisher Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services

Sometimes the most innovative services are the simplest ones. In this day and age, outstanding customer services speaks VOLUMES. We were asked to check out Fisher Funeral Chapel because of their roots of epic customer service that run deep in their community.

What makes them different:  One thing we loved the most about Fisher Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services when scanning their website was their community initiative called Fund the Funeral, which is a crowdfunding platform to help their client families seek financial support at the time of their loved one’s funeral. This platform made it very clear to us that Fisher Funeral puts family and community above all, which is reflected in their endless positive reviews online.

5. The People’s Memorial Co-Op

The People’s Memorial is a breath of fresh air. Based out of Seattle, this alternative-feeling funeral biz offers affordable services, green options, crowdfunding resources, and tons of other up-front, no-frills options and resources for families. This is all wonderful, but  what we appreciate most about People’s Memorial is the content they’re putting into the world.

What makes them different: Their content is fresh, new, and inspiring, rather than morbid or dark, which truly makes them leaders in their community, and beyond. Take this video below, for example, where one of their morticians talks to children about death and dying. This video went viral at nearly 300,000 views!

6. The House

The House is an Australian-based funeral firm that quite literally makes dying a timeless art. They pride themselves in taking a “completely modern” approach to funeral services. Their services are often resemble more of an art installation (see below) more than a traditional funeral service.

An example service from The House’s website: “The book a wife had written became a sculptural installation in the ceremony setting & a personal keepsake for guests to take home.”

What makes them different: We choose The House for this list because of their modern approach to funeral planning, but we’re also particularly in love with the way they display the possibilities to families. The website itself is a beautiful work of art. If you take a look at it, you’ll see TONS of ideas, inspiration and stories of funerals that look like none you’ve ever seen before. 

Audio-visual elements can be used during a funeral to tell the narrative of the deceased and their family. Light, sound, imagery and especially music will all play a part. Taking this curatorial approach, a funeral could look a lot like an exhibition.

This funeral firm is truly impressive in every aspect of the word, and rightfully so, they’ve received tons of media attention for their take.

To get a glimpse of the great minds behind The House, check out this podcast interview with Creative Living below:

7. Your Last Will

Your Last Will isn’t a funeral home like most of the other businesses we’ve mentioned in this post, but it definitely deserves to be on this list! Your Last Will is a start-up created by a German entrepreneur with hopes of helping his friends and family have their say on their last wishes. Many people have used the app in a variety of ways – some people use it as a virtual will, while others use the app to mark their last words for families and friends (see a sample video below). You can check out all the different ways this app is being used by checking out their website, they have over 100 sample videos on display!

What makes them different: Your Last Will is super special because it’s one of the first INSPIRING ways to share your last wishes. A lot of funeral businesses out there take a more formal approach, but Your Last Will’s approach is super life-centric and engaging. This is truly an app for people of all ages. We also love their website’s messaging, which demonstrates the importance of planning ahead in a way that isn’t salesy or cold, but rather personal and empathetic.

Who else is blazing the trail of funeral innovation?

This is going to be a multi-part series, if you would like to nominate a funeral biz to be mentioned in this list, please give us their link, and WHY we they’re blazing the trail of funeral innovation in the comments below!

Rochelle Rietow

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