About the National Home Funeral Alliance

The NHFA is a 501(c)3 non-profit, all-volunteer organization that is the leading body of home after-death care support and education in the US. Created in 2010, our members come from all 50 states, five provinces, and seven countries. Many of us are home funeral guides who also identify as licensed funeral directors, ordained ministers, educators, body workers, licensed social workers, registered nurses, therapists and counselors, directors of nonprofits, attorneys and physicians. Many simply want to support the movement from institutionalized care back to the care of our own dead.

The mission of the NHFA is to educate individuals, families, and communities about caring for their dead.​​ Our initiatives are intended to support rather than mandate; inform rather than dictate; steer rather than regulate.

Our Organizational Pause
(Summer 2021 - Summer 2023)

At our June 2021 meeting the NHFA board decided that we needed to hit pause. Here is the statement we released at the time.

​The current incarnation of the NHFA Board has been wearily strategizing how to combat over a decade-worth of an institutional vision that has not interrogated the “isms” inherent in our organization: notably racism, classism, and ableism.

In our review of our teaching material for updates, the language used was very common for the time, but includes words used in ways that perpetuates racist, ableist, classist, and transphobic ideas of death care and excludes many people. We are dedicated to ensuring that everything our organization produces aligns with our belief that community-led deathcare is truly for everyone, without exception and without alienating anyone. 

The lack of representation is not a call to action to turn out for recruitment, but a call to turn in and pause. 

In order to give this work the attention it requires and deserves, and to practice the self-care we strive to uphold to support this work, we are temporarily ceasing a few of the regular duties we have previously committed to. We are postponing the conference and stepping back from our monthly newsletters and webinars. This choice did not come lightly; the decision to break from a culture that tells us to always be producing is a radical one, even outside the various specific circumstances that led up to it. 

The NHFA Board has decided that our real work for the foreseeable future is to start to reimagine ourselves as an organization. We are not disbanding; we are setting a clear intention to undo what needs to be undone, and lay a foundation to continue to grow and do better. We want to bring the NHFA - from the way it operates to the way it communicates, from the way it educates to the way it advocates, and everything in between - completely in line with our goal to be an equitable and inclusive organization that invites everyone interested in learning more about hands-on after-death care to see themselves and participate in what we do.

We are going to share our journey with NHFA membership via our monthly new member and community meetups and (non-monthly) newsletter updates as we go - in hopes of leading by example because we are not the only death-group or non-profit that desperately needs to do this; these flaws are not unique to our organization. The time is way past due to re-examine how we do our work, how we relate to the community, and how we can best serve it. We will be taking this pause to strengthen and rebuild, to both define and demolish the ways that we perpetuate stereotypes and harm in death work, and to create a home funeral movement that is more inclusive, more equitable, and something we can be proud to be a part of.  

We hope that we can be an example for other groups with our process and that we will come back with clarity, integrity and purpose. 

We hope that you will join us on this journey.
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Please feel free to contact us if you have questions - via social media, our website, or our individual emails.

We officially ended our Organizational Pause in May 2023 with the release of our newly updated Home Funeral Guide.

You can watch our Community Conversation on Unpausing from May 2023 on YouTube.

You can watch our  Community Conversation on Pausing  from 2021 on YouTube.

Our History Before the Pause

Getting Organized: Year 1

During the early years of NHFA's formation, our first organizers intended to unify home funeral guides under one roof, to create a networking body that was mutually supporting, and that would eventually give a public voice to this work. A corporation was formed and registered with the State of Washington, a bank account was established, and the NHFA was in business. Conferences were held, bringing guides and others interested in the home funeral concept together to explore myriad aspects of end-of-and after-life care.

2008
First came our predecessors: Jessica Mitford, Ernest Morgan, William Wendt, Lisa Carlson, Nancy Poer, and Tamara Slayton, to name a few. Thanks to their guidance and mentorship, Crossings and Final Passages started offering trainings and workshops around the country starting in 1996/1997. For 10 years, all those trainings had produced many who were deeply interested in the work. Crossings decided to celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2008 (a few months later than the actual anniversary). People from all over the country were invited to come. We really saw it as a first chance to gather all those who were taking up home funeral care to meet, network, and celebrate our shared mission. Mark Harris was the keynote speaker, Nancy Poer, Char Barrett and Karen Van Vuuren all attended, along with about 40 others. It was held at Seeker’s Church in Takoma Park, and afterward there was dinner at Beth and her husband Bill’s home that the Crossings Board orchestrated.

Karen, whom Beth had known through Waldorf, and then through having taught a workshop in Boulder from which Natural Transitions was founded, had tremendous enthusiasm for the 10th anniversary. She shared in the goal of gathering home funeral advocates together, and offered to do hold a follow-up event the next year in Boulder, CO. Her team at Natural Transitions provided the fuel to make this a reality: Deb Dore, Patte Ward, Barbara Horn, Reva Tift, Sue Mackey, Will Reller. In the spirit of “getting organized with a capital O”. Karen had the brilliant idea to invite facilitator Patty Beach, and to this end, invited people to stay on Sunday for a brainstorming session. At the event, we divided into two groups—one group who wanted to participate in the leadership team, and the other group to say what they wanted from the organization.

Out of that meeting came a leadership team of 13. We worked on things such as our name, our logo, getting incorporated, mission, etc. Karen secured a web domain. Char was voted as leader because she was both a professional funeral director and a leader of the home funeral movement and, it was felt, lent us credibility.

2009
By the following year, we became a board of directors that included Jerrigrace Lyons, Nora Cedarwind Young, Kelsey Ramage, Dave Robles, David Haisman, Peg Lorenz, Donna Belk, Char Barrett, Cari Leversee, Marian Spaddone, Beth, and Karen. 

2010
The first NHFA conference was held in Boulder, Colorado in 2010.

Formation of the NHFA Board

The more time the members spent together, the clearer their questions became about what each needed from the organization and from each other. Committees were formed at the Board level to address specific issues and areas, such as providing a clearinghouse of resources and educational materials, and members were invited to participate. The Board created a system of leadership by consensus that was thoughtful, deliberate, and inclusive.

Why a 501c3?

As the NHFA Board developed, it became clear that, for financial reasons alone, it was necessary to attempt to obtain tax-exempt status with the IRS. The question then led to one of organizational identity. Did we see ourselves as a professional entity, which would eventually require providing all that goes with it, such as standard setting, certification, fee schedules and the like? Or did we see our primary function as one of providing educational resources to home funeral guides and the public, and of keeping the rights of families as our polestar? It was clear that the NHFA could not do both simultaneously, and it was even more clear that until the public was aware of home funerals, guides would not be in a position to assert themselves professionally.
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Given the legal licensing constraints of the funeral industry, there was also a risk of exposing the organization and its members to potential legal action by pursuing trade or professional organization status, known as a 501c6. Were the Board to have chosen this route, it would have meant the necessary development of regulatory actions and functions, such as required standards of care, certification processes and testing, and the added burden of monitoring and enforcing. The result would have been a top-down management paradigm. The sitting Board instead chose to follow the process of becoming a 501c3, focusing on educational and charitable activities and, with minor adjustments, committees were realigned accordingly. An intention was set to develop a unified fundamental message while providing recommendations for guidance and educational resources first and foremost, with the expectation that home funeral guides were uniquely qualified to take up the challenge and lead the way.

By doing so, the Board sought to preserve the grassroots nature of the organization and to normalize home funerals in modern culture. Our initiatives are intended to:

• support rather than mandate
• inform rather than dictate
• steer rather than regulate

The Beginnings of NHFA Membership

The NHFA also opened its doors to anyone—funeral directors, hospice workers, medical community members, and the general public—in addition to any persons choosing to call themselves home funeral guides, in concert with the spirit of inclusion invested at the start of the organization.