By Joey Haas
Transcript of Our Video Interview with Anthony Guerra and Kelly Manion from the Funeral Service Foundation.
Heather:
Hi everyone, and thanks for checking in with us at Funeral Innovations: Trends, Tips and Technology, where we chat with leaders in the profession to discuss marketing trends, business tips, and technology innovation. Last we talk about how digital marketing helps you better serve your families. I’m Heather Mierzejewski. I am the marketing director here at Funeral Innovations.
Joey:
I’m Joey Haas. I’m the marketing and design coordinator at Funeral Innovations.
Heather:
And today we have two guests with us, both from a Funeral Service Foundation. Anthony Guerra. He is also a funeral director at Guerra and Gutierrez Mortuaries in Los Angeles and Kelly Manion. She is the director of communication at the Funeral Service Foundation. So thanks so much guys for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Kelly:
You’re very welcome.
Heather:
Why don’t you start off by telling us a little about yourselves and your role at the foundation.
Anthony:
Go ahead, Kelly.
Kelly:
All right. As you introduce my name is Kelly Manion, and I’m the director of communication with the Funeral Service Foundation. I’ve been with the organization for going on eight years now. And my role is to help engage the funeral service community in the work that we do to, to expand our outreach and to let folks know about the good work that we do and how we can serve funeral service and other organizations along the end of life continuum.
Heather:
Great. And Anthony?
Anthony:
Well, I’m Anthony Guerra from Gary and Gutierrez Mortuaries in Los Angeles, and I am a second generation funeral director. And we serve the greater Los Angeles area from the San Fernando Valley, St. Gabriel Valley, Long Beach area, and her flagship being in East Los Angeles. And we serve a little over 2000 families annually. So we we have our hands full.
Joey:
Very nice. So would you guys mind sharing a little bit about the Funeral Service Foundation’s mission and how you guys got started?
Kelly:
Sure. You want me to talk or do you want to go ahead?
Anthony:
Let me start and then just come right in. Okay. Well above everything else, I’m a funeral director and it’s just been an honor to be on the foundation. The Funeral Service Foundation, it’s really headed by, by Lee Winch, our executive director Kelly who’s here with us who our director of opportunity medication and Heather, our development manager. They, they are the foundation. They are what makes us tick. They are the foundation and they just give us all the tools necessary to, to make us thrive. So we’re, we’re so grateful for these three ladies. People like me come and go. We’re temporary fiduciary stewards of that foundation, making sure the funds are allocated to go to the appropriate organizations. We see fit and carrying out our mission. And speaking of our mission, it’s investing in people and programs to straighten funeral service and lift up breeding communities. And Kelly, just, just go from there please.
Kelly:
So Anthony told you is the mission that we have right now. It’s a, it’s a newer mission. It’s a, you know, a place that we’ve evolved to. We’ve actually been around the profession for 75 years. So this year is our 75th anniversary. We started as the National Foundation of Funeral Service in 1945 and have our roots in education and continuing education. And we’ve identified as the charitable arm of the National Funeral Directors Association since 1997. So the Funeral Service Foundation that the profession knows it today has actually been around since about 2002 when we’ve gone through some rebranding and some evolutions in in our mission and where we’ve landed right now, we’re very excited about, and it’s, I think very relevant for the world that we all live in right now.
Heather:
That’s terrific. Tell us a little bit about what sort of resources you offer funeral homes and the funeral profession in general.
Anthony:
Oh, I’ll start there, Kelly. Kelly’s been along with staff, very instrumental in quite a bit of initiatives, but what, one, one that we’re very proud of and what we’re doing for our profession is our successful initiative of youth and funerals. That took off really well. And now coming right into the fold a fault, also grieving alone in it together and caring for families and caring for yourself, which are tools to help us as funeral directors put our community as well. So those have been some pretty, very successful I should, I should think. But again Kelly can elaborate further on that as she’s really, truly had a lot to do with all this.
Kelly:
Thanks, Anthony. So the research there’s been, Anthony just talked about starting with the youth in funerals initiative. We’ve been offering for about three or four years now, and he came from a place where we heard funeral directors when we were out at different conventions and, you know, talking with board members and other foundations, friends and donors that there was a real need to have youth involvement in funerals. And so with that initiative, we brought together thought leaders from across the profession, we brought together grief counselors, hospice workers, all sorts of folks to come up with a piece that funeral directors can share with the families they serve that helps those families understand why funerals and memorialization is important in the lives of youth. How to talk to kids about death and dying and how to incorporate a child in a funeral ritual in a way that feels very meaningful and safe for for the children. We have tools that the booklet that we showed you, folks can order complimentary right in our website. And we also have an ebook version and a complimenting video that features Good Grief CEO, Joe Primo. And that is a great piece for funeral directors who might not be comfortable having this conversation. And it allows the kids to do the talking. So that’s all free in our website because our donors understand that these resources are what folks need to build strong communities and to lift up grieving communities. So with the success of that piece as we all started experiencing the pandemic world it became very clear to us that it was a unique set of circumstances and there was a lot of complicated grief around that. So we had this piece written by Dr. Sarah Murphy, who’s a certified femalogist. And this piece helps folks understand that they are not alone in grieving in this pandemic. And, you know, it kind of gives them a safe space to really explore what they’re feeling. And that it’s okay, what they’re feeling is okay. And yes, it is different. And with both of those pieces, we have seen tremendous growth. We have over a thousand funeral homes using them across the country. We’ve translated both of these pieces into Spanish. We are in 17 different countries. So we’re really seeing a need. and then, Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
Heather:
No worries. So they can, funeral directors can download these or order them from your website and then hand them out to families to help them through this process. Perfect. Okay.
Kelly:
Absolutely, so we hand them out not only to their families, but also to the altruistic way to build relationships within your communities. You can take these pieces to hospice centers, to schools, to rotary clubs, to, you know, churches anywhere where you need to get the word out. These tools are great for everyone. In fact, we’re seeing a big surge of hospices and grief centers downloading the tools themselves because they work for everyone. And everyone has a common goal of sharing or serving families. So they bring everyone together. And the third piece that we actually just launched during the NFDA convention is this piece called Caring for Families and Caring for Yourself. And this is a piece that we commissioned dr. Allen Wolfelt how many folks know him, he’s a renowned grief counselor. And this is a piece specifically for funeral directors to help them understand the importance of self-care and to deal with burnout. Because we all know that compassion, fatigue is a very, very real thing. And so again, this is a piece that, that folks can order right on our website either individual copies, or if you, you know, are a funeral home owner, you can order multiple copies to share with your staff. And if we have a complimenting poster, a self-care poster that you can post in your common space days and you know, we give you a lot of conversation and a lot of prompts to let folks know that it’s important to talk about this and that it’s okay, and that you have to care for yourself first, before you can best care for a family. And even with that, gosh, I’m have had more than 600 funeral homes leverage this resource already in just a few weeks on state associations different schools and again, some hospice workers. So we’re finding it a really useful, useful tool.
Heather:
It seems like such a high stress time for everyone, but I think funeral directors are a uniquely impacted and the emotional tenor seems to just be ratcheted up so much higher even than in a normal year. Yeah.
Kelly:
You know and to that end within the pages of this, there’s actually a quiz where folks can gauge where they feel that they are on that sort of burnout spectrum. And Anthony, I know you and I had this conversation that many funeral directors, you know, who had been in the profession for decades are surprised even what they’re feeling, they think they’ve seen it all, but that this year is hard for everyone. Anthony, do you agree with that?
Anthony:
Completely Kelly, and it you’d be surprised if, if you were to take it and, and we, we encourage from directors to, to utilize those resources and, and take the quiz and you’ll find that you are living the burnout and not know it. So it’s extremely important that we recognize all these things are happening around us to take care of ourselves. Yeah. We put families first, but we don’t put ourselves first won’t be able to be there for families.
Joey:
Yeah. That’s great. And those sound like just really awesome relevant resources, especially now. So that’s great. And I know you guys talk you know, leading into the next question, obviously like self care could be a big challenge for funeral professionals, but I’m curious, like, what do you see are the biggest challenges for funeral professionals? You know, what are they facing today and have those changed since before the pandemic?
Anthony:
I like to say it as a funeral director meeting with families it, it was difficult enough trying to get them to value ceremony, to have some sort of any anything religiously speaking to honor their loved one. And now because of COVID the pandemic we’ve had to naturally put services off for weeks, sometimes months. So it, as difficult as it was before, we’re finding it a lot harder now to get families months, weeks, and months after the fact to get other families and relatives and friends to have that final ceremony. So the re-engaging part, that’s what we have noticed the most. As time goes by these family members have felt forgotten and just not having that proper final very difficult on everyone. And we could see it in the temperament and families coming in it’s, as we know, it’s just been very, very there are no words to, to put in, we’re all living at home, no matter what professional or what we do. So it, it is hard.
Joey:
Go ahead Heather.
Heather:
Do you have anything to add Kelly?
Kelly:
I echo what Anthony said that from the foundation standpoint, what we’ve seen is and heard from the, our donors and know funeral directors is the importance of memorialization overall and the importance of acknowledging grief and building relationships within the community. And so that’s where the foundation comes in and everything that we do centers around those things, whether it’s granting to a grief-focused organizations providing resources that we just talked about, or offering educational opportunities from academic scholarships and support all the way up through your entire career.
Heather:
Gotcha. So, can you share how the pandemic impacted your focus at the Funeral Service Foundation, if it did at all? And how were you able to kind of shift to serve the funeral homes? I mean, everybody did a super fast pivot in March. What did that look like for you guys?
Anthony:
Go ahead, Kelly.
Kelly:
Okay. Well we, you know, we, we got right to it. One of the initiatives we have at the Funeral Service Foundation is being able to serve a community in crisis. So whether it’s something like Hurricane Katrina or new town or the recent hurricanes that were in Texas a couple of years ago, we are able to come together and serve those communities in crisis. So in May, we launched our COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund and wow, the way the profession came together to support our work and made sure that we had the dollars we needed to go out and help families was, it was overwhelming in a really, really good way. So we, as a profession raised and granted $530,000 in a matter of about two months, two different facets. So with that with that fund, we were able to purchase PPE masks and deliver to funeral directors across the country, especially in hard hit areas. We were able to create the, Grieving Alone Together guide that we talked about earlier in conjunction with NFDs consumer facing website, Remembering the Life.com. We were able to support and provide financial assistance to funeral directors who were volunteering and hard hit areas. You know, they were able to go in and serve alongside those, you know, those funeral directors and all those ground-zero areas, Detroit and New York. And we were able to make grants to 16 grief-focused organizations around the country and in Canada. So it was something we’re really, really proud of. And we know we helped a lot of communities and none of that could have happened without our donors.
Heather:
Yeah, that’s great. And Kelly, you mentioned NFDA, are you guys connected within NFDA?
Kelly:
We are the charitable arm of the National Funeral Directors Association. So a lot of the work we do is alongside NFDA so we are here to support NFDA’s efforts and their members and all the funeral service.
Joey:
Awesome. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like you guys did so much for funeral homes and are still I’m, doing so much for them now as we’re all kind of continuing to deal with the pandemic. So that’s awesome to hear. I wanted to hear a little bit about, like, what is your scholarship program look like? I know you guys help students and what does that look like and how do students apply for the scholarship program?
Anthony:
The Funeral Service Foundation founded in 1945 the continuing education has been the cornerstone of our existence and what we’re all about. We have three generations of impact behind us and, and we feel careers in funeral service. We like to see the growth of dollar amounts towards quality scholarships, and we’re well on our way to doing that. There are just so many things really having a midst right now, but obviously for obvious reasons had to be put on hold. We, for, for example, we have a the meet the mentors program which is huge and very instrumental. And I’m sure Kelly could really elaborate further on that. Advocacy summit, which is another new, exciting thing we’re offering scholarships to what that is, that’s where we all get to go to Washington DC and meet our legislators. And what I really like and excited about that is that it gets a lot of the younger people in our profession, in the game. It gets them connected. It gets them engaged because they are the future of who they are going to drive our profession moving forward. And for them to be hands-on with advocacy, how legislation affects our communities, our families, our profession, this is something that’s really gonna, we hope to take off, but that, that’s just the tip of, of what we have to offer scholarship-wise. Kelly?
Kelly:
Sure. And I have to say that as the foundation expand scholarships, a lot of that has to do with Anthony especially with the Advocacy Summit. This was the first year we offered them and it was Anthony’s idea. And he said, we need to get these young people involved in what’s going on in DC. And so it’s great ideas like his, you know, that allow us to continue to expand. So as Anthony said, we support the Advocacy, Summit scholarships. We support scholarships to the NFDA convention. We support scholarships to be an NFDA professional women’s conference. And we also offer career development awards. Now, all the scholarships that I just talked about are available to all licensed funeral directors. So you can be an NFDA member or not an NFDA member. It doesn’t matter, we serve all the funeral service. So we encourage everyone to apply for these. Anthony also mentioned that we support Meet the Mentors, which is an NFDA specific programs. So if you are an NFDA member and you were a licensed funeral director, age 40 or younger, or have just newly been newly licensed in the profession in the last five years, we encourage you to apply for that. That’s a wonderful couple of days where we get you in front of the thought leaders and the trailblazers in the profession for a really wonderful hands-on sort of retreat weekend. And we’ve been supporting that since its inception. Gosh, since about 2011 and more than 600 professionals have gone through that program. And then in addition to that this academic scholarship is sort of where it all starts. So we offer scholarships that range from $2,500 all the way up to $5,000. We have two cycles a year. Our fall cycle just closed, but we will be opening up that spring cycle again in February. And folks can apply right online, funeralsurfacefoundation.org, or for all of these opportunities.
Heather:
That’s exciting. And so that’s for any, all those are for any licensed funeral director for continuing education and growth and development, that sort of thing? That’s great. That’s great.
Kelly:
Absolutely. And what we’re so excited to see is folks really engaging with us and applying for one scholarship and then the next year applying for another and really seeing the usefulness of this. And that’s really helping our growth as we grow as an organization.
Heather:
Anthony, can you talk a little bit about how the funeral service foundation is funded and how people can get involved? I know you guys talked about it a little bit, but where does that come from?
Anthony:
It it’s really funded by a lot of ourselves, you know, directors our funeral directors and our suppliers. I wish there were a better name for suppliers. They’re like partners. They could be are the people really that’s supply the casket companies, insurance companies things of consultants, things of that nature. So as I mentioned, they’re more with like partners and they’re very instrumental in our success without them, we wouldn’t be us. We wouldn’t be where we are and we won’t be able to grant what we can. It’s just such a great impact. It it’s such a it’s a team effort is what it comes down to the peer review level from across our profession. There’s no such thing as a no amount is too little, but to answer your question without overthinking this it’s funeral directors and our suppliers, they are who fuel our foundation.
Kelly:
Absolutely. And every dollar matters. I’ll tell you when we’re at different conventions and we have a funeral director who’s been licensed for six months to come up and they make a $45 gift because they’re so happy to have received an academic scholarship a couple of years before that means just as much to us as when an allied professional you know, steps up and makes a hundred dollars gifts for, excuse me, a hundred thousand dollar gift. They all matter. And another way folks can donate to us is with the proceeds of recycling, recycling proceeds. So that’s another way. And you know, every dollar matters and allows us to do more and more every year.
Joey:
That’s awesome. Love that. So if you guys could share, we’d love to hear, like, what are the goals of the foundation moving forward? You know, those could be short-term goals, or long-term obviously with the pandemic, it’s kind of things are shifting and a little bit different, but if you guys could talk about those goals, that’d be great.
Anthony:
I’ll start Kelly. One of the goals is I alluded to earlier was a granting more quality scholarships, more value, more in abundance to give are well-deserving people are college students. It’s mortuary science programs, students who really need that chance. And during these times they, they’re finances are the issue. But what I, what I’m really excited, it’s a new joint Veterans association well-respected association our profession, and it’s called it it had a different name, but we changed it to A Journey to Serve. And this is pertaining to military veterans who deserve a lot more, we feel what we could give to them, what we could offer to them, and that’s a position in our profession. So that is something in the works right now and what it is, is creating a tool kit, and it’s a national marketing campaign for recruiting our military veterans into careers in our funeral service. That’s there were many things going on, but this is one that I really feel good about moving forward work, a goal, and that the possibilities and opportunities are endless with this one initiative and, and working together with, with the other, the other association, that’s a, that’s huge. I, I don’t think we were done anything like this before, so we’re really coming together in a big a way.
Kelly:
Along with what Anthony said, we just went through strategic planning in tandem with the National Funeral Directors Association. So in addition to growing our relationship and our partnership with and NFDA and other associations across the profession, we are looking to really give funeral service, a seat at the table along that end of life continuum and bridge relationships between grief centers and hospice, and you know, even hospitals and education and make sure that we’re all working together for the common good. And we’re also looking at diversifying our grant making in that arena. So helping even more grief organizations and really getting our name out within funeral service and beyond.
Heather:
That’s terrific, great goals. Great. Yeah, that’s, that’s great that what you guys are working on, and I love the idea of drawing military veterans into the profession. I think there’s a real need for that. So this is our last question. We ask this question to everybody. What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned while serving in this profession?
Anthony:
As a funeral director in the mortuary profession, I have found that every family is unique. Every family is original. Many don’t like the restraints of a package when it comes to how they select their funeral service. They like the option of picking and choosing. We’re all different. There’s something for everyone who wants to enter this profession. You could go to a family owned firm, you could go to the corporate owned firm. It’s, whatever makes you feel comfortable. And with a family owned firm we find that families would rather pick and choose to not be stuck to a package. They’re just a lot more choices for them. So that’s the biggest takeaway I have seen throughout the years in my profession. We’ve tried a little bit of everything and ultimately we, we listened to our families. Sure. There are trends that come and go, but you always get back to what works what’s successful. What, what made that respect for the firm get to where, where they are today. This is one of those questions that could go on and on and on. So I’ll, I’ll just stick to this one right here for now, but that’s what, what I have found personally.
Heather:
Thanks, Anthony. Kelly?
Kelly:
And I, what I’ve learned really compliments with Anthony said, where every family is unique. I’m not a funeral director, but what I’ve learned in helping the helpers is that communities grow and thrive. And they often do that because of the folks behind the scenes. It’s like funeral directors who you may not, you know, see every single day, but they are there serving families when they need it most. And it’s because of them that our communities are healthy and successful.
Joey:
That’s very well said, both of you guys. So those are all the questions we have. Thank you guys so much for joining us this week in Funeral Innovations: Trends, Tips, and Technology. So we’ll be posting this video on our blog, on our YouTube channels, and you’ll be able to access it on our Facebook feed as well. And we’ll be back with another show soon. So make sure to check back in with us. If you have any topics you’d like to see discussed or anyone you’d like to hear from in an interview, add it in the comments down below and be sure to check out our Nine Ways to Share your Charitable Giving e-book, which will be linked in the description box below. Thank you guys so much and have a great day.
Anthony:
Thank you. That’s terrific.
