Funeral Home Business Plan

Ceremonial practices around death, as practiced by U.S. funeral homes, are leaving a growing segment of the population feeling poorly served. This plan outlines the strategy by which the Evergreen Life Memorial Center (the Center) will define and dominate a new category of funeral provider in AnyCounty, Oregon. It also details how the financing it acquires will be used toward this end.

The Center will be formed as an LLC in the Anytown metropolitan area. It will be solely owned by Stan Peters, an experienced funeral home director and embalmer, active in nonprofit and community activities.

Establishment of the Evergreen Life Memorial Center will provide Anytown and the surrounding area with a way for people to celebrate the life of the individual when it ends and for the living to gather social support to bring closure and move ahead with their lives.  Its cornerstone will be the use of a reception area for social gatherings after the funeral that will foster human connection and uplifting remembrance. This is the way the aging segment of Baby Boomers is showing it prefers. This facility will also be the basis of its strategy of community involvement to rapidly develop the reputation the Center needs to attract business in a way that benefits the charities it supports as well. Digitized photos will be used for the reception as well as on our website to extend the celebration of the individual’s life beyond the funeral.

Based on recent average prices nationwide, the Center has the potential of attaining its market share of $768,213 within four years. At the Center’s current prices, its market share is worth $841,412. The industry average gross margin for a funeral home is 62.5 percent. The funding of $225,000 requested in this plan is projected to result in an annual net profit of approximately $194,000 in the Center’s fourth year of operation, with subsequent increases annually due to inflation.

With the establishment of the Evergreen Life Memorial Center, those who lose someone to death will for the first time in our era be integrated into the community of life instead of stigmatized and marginalized. There will be a new center for community involvement. And for the first time, the Boomer generation will be able to go out the way it lived.

1.1 Objectives

The Evergreen Life Memorial Center provides celebration of an individual’s life and social support to bring closure and move ahead with living. The Center will develop by Year 4, a reputation as the uplifting place for locally prominent persons of the Baby Boom generation to celebrate their lives when they end.

In order to achieve this, the Center will create facilities that bring families and communities together in a way that celebrates the life of the deceased and renews bonds of social support.

Digitized photos and films of the deceased will be available in the reception room and on our website.

These facilities will be available free to a number of nonprofit organizations in which the owner, Stan Peters, will be involved. This will:

• Tie the Center into the community of the living and develop positive associations.
• Develop a strong reputation by creating community events in the Center which the local media will want to publicize.
• Serve the owner’s interest in helping others and improving the community.

Stan Peters will make himself available for a leadership position starting a local chapter of a nonprofit that helps children with life-threatening diseases, such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The Center will provide a funeral planning guide for estate attorneys to give to their clients.

These efforts will be supported by a publicity campaign in order to be the first in people’s minds with this new category of funeral provider. Evergreen Life Memorial Center, “People remembering people.”

1.2 Mission

The mission of the Evergreen Life Memorial Center is to bring people together to celebrate life when it ends and to move on with living. The Center will have facilities that bring families and communities together to remember the life of the deceased and renew bonds of social support. The Center’s facilities will be a focus of nonprofit energies to make the community a better place to live.

1.3 Keys to Success

Since 71 percent of people choose a funeral home on the basis of reputation, the key to success is quickly establishing a reputation for this new category as the uplifting place for Baby Boomers to celebrate life when they die.

The Center’s cornerstone will be its reception facilities, which will promote uplifting interactions with people after the funeral and be used for nonprofit organizations. This will make the Center uplifting, connect it to the community, provide the basis for publicity, and make it a center for the living.

The reception room and website will feature digital photos and films of the persons whose lives are being celebrated. This web presence will increase the Center’s exposure by letting people participate in the celebration of life after the funeral and reception are over.

Providing the greatest choice of quality caskets will make the Center the place to celebrate the lives of locally prominent persons. This will foster publicity and further promote our reputation.