Purpose

There is a certain level of commonality among all members of this industry. Our goal is to find the point at which standardization brings benefit without any negative ramifications.

The Death Care Standards Group is a grass roots effort to bring a level of financial standardization to the death care industry. The ability of our industry to agree on a specific level of standards will provide a common foundation on which to improve management reporting while reducing costs. Tremendous potential exists for the sharing of development costs for financial and operational reporting tools that can be realized best through a common set of basic standards.

There is a certain level of commonality among all members of this industry. Our goal is to find the point at which standardization brings benefit without any negative ramifications. In other words, what degree of standardization can we all agree on which allows us to be unique and innovative while providing the basis upon which we can cooperate in areas of need.

Open Standards

The results of our efforts will be made public as agreement is reached among those organizations that participate. Public input will be solicited and valued. The initial list of invited participants was determined primarily through recommendations of a few industry knowledgeable individuals and was based primarily on the invitees' previously established efforts to improve the death care industry (through various group memberships), their standing in the industry (and therefore their ability to have significant influence in promoting this project) and their predisposition to cooperate with others. As this project advances those invited to participate will increase such that any interested party will have the opportunity to do so. At the initial start up it is necessary to maintain a level of control. This is best accomplished with a reasonably sized group.

Areas Not Standardized

As this project currently stands, it is not intended to create a set of operational standards concerning the methods that are used to perform daily tasks at cemeteries, mortuaries or crematories. Uniqueness and innovation are critical to our industry and anything that encroaches on those areas will be strictly avoided. How our participants choose to operate their establishments on a day-to-day basis is not the concern of this group. There are legal reasons why such a set of standards could be used by plaintiffs' attorneys to suggest that an industry member has not followed "industry standards". The limitations of our efforts are the definition and classification of what has already been accomplished from a financial viewpoint.